Used Powermac G4

[Emerson]

Well guys I need some buyng advice.

I currently own a 12 powerbook (rev. A), but i have noticed that it simply struggles with my D70 pics in photoshop CS and Nikon Capture isn't even functional. So money is a little tight (college student) so I was thinking about selling my powerbook (going price on ebay appears to be around $700-$800) and buying a Powermac Dual G4 on ebay. I am looking at either a Dual 1.25 or Dual 1.0 and I would max the ram out to 2 gigs. The going rate for that appears to be around $1100-$1200. I guess my question is will this make a huge difference for running Photoshop/Capture, or should I just keep my powerbook and wait till next summer and get a brand new powermac? I already have a Dell 2005FPW, so all I would need is the Powermac.

Any advice would be helpful, thanks ahead of time

 

[joecool85]

First I would ask what you have for RAM in you PB. I have the exact same lappy, rev a 12" PB. With the 256 ram it came with it was ok until I tried running PS 7.0 and Ill CS, I upgraded my RAM to 640 and now its fine. I too am a college student and use my PB for all of my imaging (which can be a lot considering I'm a New Media student). I would say upgrade your ram and then if its still too slow consider getting something newer. I would also add that it would make much more sense to wait and get a new PM if you can rather than get a G4 PM...it wouldn't be that much of an upgrade IMO.

**edit**
just read your sig lol, so you have 640 ram eh? i'd say wait and spend the money on the new PM.

 

[auxplage]

With PowerMac updates that are coming soon, the dual 1.8 is sure to come down in price. I would go for that.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Nikon Capture/View is a pretty slow app in my experience. Use photoshop if you can. If you need the (better) RAW support of Nikon Capture, then a dual CPU machine wont help you. AFAIK, none of the Nikon apps are multi-threaded. You just need a machine with a faster clock speed (ie G5).