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Upgrading Snowball iMac

maestro55

maestro55

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 13, 2005
2,708
0
Goat Farm in Meridian, TX
We have a 700Mhz Snowball iMac that I would like to upgrade in order to do some work with FCP. Right now the machine is rather slow and only has 256megs of SDRAM and the L2 Cache is only 256K. Does anyone know if there are upgrade kits for these machines? Any ideas of what will be needed to run FCP at decent speeds for making short films? (I could use iMovie but want the extra features in FCP and can get a student discount I believe)
 
Max the RAM to 1GB and put in a faster internal HD. what version of Final cut are you planning to use? you will need an older version to be be to work on a G3
 
mrkramer said:
Max the RAM to 1GB and put in a faster internal HD. what version of Final cut are you planning to use? you will need an older version to be be to work on a G3
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I think his "Snowball" iMac might be a G4. Never heard one referred to as a "Snowball."
I've heard people say "Daisy" iMac, but never "Snowball."
 

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iCube said:
I think his "Snowball" iMac might a G4. Never heard one referred to as a "Snowball."
I've heard people say "Daisy" iMac, but never "Snowball."
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I just assumed that it was the white G3 iMac. the 700MHz processor was what was in that I beleive. but the only way to know for sure if for the OP to tell us if it has a G4 or G3.
 
For filmmaking, the best upgrade for this machine is a 20" iMac.
Seriously. Why spend several hundred (RAM, DVD burner, larger, faster hard drive, etc) on upgrading this machine, which will never be fast, when a refurb or student iMac will run circles around it for under $1000?
 
CanadaRAM said:
For filmmaking, the best upgrade for this machine is a 20" iMac.
Seriously. Why spend several hundred (RAM, DVD burner, larger, faster hard drive, etc) on upgrading this machine, which will never be fast, when a refurb or student iMac will run circles around it for under $1000?
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It might not be necessary to spend the several hundred which you have suggested. Depends on the needs of the OP, which he hasn't expressed. Plus, you haven't considered the possibility that the OP may need to purchase a new copy of FCP if he's content using an old version.
 
mrkramer said:
I just assumed that it was the white G3 iMac. the 700MHz processor was what was in that I beleive. but the only way to know for sure if for the OP to tell us if it has a G4 or G3.
Click to expand...
Yes, there was a "Snow" 500, 600 (I'm on one now) & a 700MHz G3 CRT (which was rare) and then the G4 700 & 800MHz 15" LCD. Both have the same 256K L2 Cache specs. We'll see...:rolleyes:
 

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aquajet said:
It might not be necessary to spend the several hundred which you have suggested. Depends on the needs of the OP, which he hasn't expressed. Plus, you haven't considered the possibility that the OP may need to purchase a new copy of FCP if he's content using an old version.
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OP has already indicated they will be buying FCP at a student discount - consequently, newest version. Don't even know if it will run, period, on an G3 or G4 700 MHz. In any case, esp. if it is an iMac G3 with a slow bus, and a slow 60 Gb hard drive, and no DVD burner, it is still a fool's errand.

Edit: Final Cut Studio (FCP 6.0) requirements
"# 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Xeon processor.
# • 1GB of RAM
# • An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
# • A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
# • Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later"
 
i'm usually in the 'keep the old stuff running' camp, but in this case, a new (OLD) machine is in order. spending money on the old g3 is a bad move for the stated task.

better use of money would be using something like THIS if you don't happen to have the $1000 laying around for the current gen imac approach which would be the best. oh yeah, and then max out the memory, and re-use your current keyboard and mouse. long live the all in one! :apple:

best of luck.
 
Final Cut 3 would be your best bet for this machine, and stick with 10.3.9 if you are going to be using FCP. There is a patch to use FCP 4 with G3 machines, but I haven't heard rejoicing over the performance. (Its probably best if you had an upgraded 1.1GHz G3)

If you are content using an older computer with older software for tasks that aren't too intense... you'll be OK. Just hopefully you don't get frustrated while working on huge projects this can't handle.
 
Thanks for the replies, it appears I made a mistake in calling the LCD iMac that I have a "Snowball" iMac. Also to add more information the current processor is a G4 (I thought it was a G3 at first but went and looked and the 7450 is a G4 processor). With that said I probably wouldn't run FCP but rather Final Cut Express as anything that I would do would be fairly basic stuff (but still would like to do more than what can be done in iMovie). I could probably do most of what I want on this MacBook but seeing as this system is here I was thinking about making use of it and upgrading it but perhaps video wouldn't be the best use for the machine.

Sorry for the confusion, so is there a way to upgrade the processor? Looks like the general thought here is that it would be cheaper just to buy another machine for video editing and if that is the case then I can do the video editing on the MacBook (it should run Final Cut Express 4 with no problem).
 
Final Cut Pro 3 will still run on your system with no problems, and FCP4 will still work as well, as long as the RAM is upgraded to 1GB.

If the RAM upgrade is about the only addition you will be doing, you can save money and still have a... slightly... viable machine, although I would say find a used G5 iMac or Intel for sure. Even getting a Core Duo mini would be better.
 
Your better off spending $599 or so an a new mac mini honestly. A better thing is to get a new I-mac. 24" rocks, but if you want to save $700, get the 20".
 
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