Hosting and bandwidth provided by WebCentrix.net.
Members Home arrow Forums

The forums are sponsored by PowerMax -- which sells new and used Macs & iPods *free of sales tax* -- and Other World Computing -- which sells quality Mac memory, drives, & other upgrades.
EveryMac.com Forum  


Forum List EveryMac.com Forums Power Macintosh G3/G4/G5
psychopengy
User
Posts: 2
graphgraph
 
Click here to see the profile of this user 		Upgrading a PM G4 for OS X - 2006/07/27 23:18 Hi all,
I'm considering finally upgrading to OS X Tiger from my now antiquated OS 9.2.2. I have a G4 PowerMac with a 400 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, and a 20 GB Ultra ATA drive (all the standard stuff that came with the machine). I want to be able to run Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. My other option is buying a new Mac. My preference would be to upgrade if possible, but I'd like to get some more input before I go ahead and make a decision. Anybody out there who has done this with their G4? If so, how much did it wind up costing for it to run smoothly? How much hassle did it involve? Any feedback or advice would be appreciated. I did read the post in this forum from back in May, but would like more feedback. Thanks in advance for your time.
  | | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Cacicedo
User
Posts: 374
graphgraph
 
Click here to see the profile of this user 		Re:Upgrading a PM G4 for OS X - 2006/07/28 10:11 128 MB of RAM is not adequate. I'd buy enough RAM to get the machine up to at least 1 GB, if not more. If you chekc here you'll see that you can get 512 MB sticks for around 50 or 70 bucks apiece. So for say 180 bucks you can upgrade the RAM. That still leaves you with a 400 MHz processor, though. You can upgrade the process, for example here for something like 200 bucks. I guess I'd also upgrade the HD (if nothing else because it's now about 7 years old, and bound to fail, I'm sorry to say). You can get yourself a new HD fairly cheaply, say for 40 or 50 bucks, depending on the size. Your video card is adequate, but you won't be able to see some of the things 10.4 can do with anything under 64 MB of video RAM. Still, for about 400 or 450 bucks you can do an upgrade that will make OS X a pleasure to use.
  | | The administrator has disabled public write access.
krowmagnum
User
Posts: 948
graph
 
Click here to see the profile of this user 		Re:Upgrading a PM G4 for OS X - 2006/07/31 00:27 For what the upgrades will cost you can get a much more recent Mac that will still be faster because of the board design. The problem with upgrading Macs are the upgrade prices.... they tend to cost almost as much as a newer Mac. Upgrading peecees are much more reasonable pricewise.

For $400 + in upgrades you can get a decent later model G4 that will run Adobe apps much better.

I ran Tiger on a 400MHz G4 and it was ok with 512MB of RAM but was pushing it to run Photoshop CS. Your production time will go to hell. A GB of RAM and faster CPU will help but you will always have a bottleneck because of the system bus and RAM speeds.

Watch eBay for what you can get G4's for and you may find you can do much better getting a more current Mac and selling yours.
  | | The administrator has disabled public write access.
irishstone
User
Posts: 2
graphgraph
 
Click here to see the profile of this user 		Re:Upgrading a PM G4 for OS X - 2006/08/14 07:04 I have nearly the same G4 mac that you do with the 20gig hard drive and the 400mhz processor. I have upgraded to 832mb of ram. I can run OSX fine. I'm currently on 10.4.7 I mean you have to be honest and relaize that this computer is going to be slower than ones that are made now, but it can be done. I still use photoshop, I make sure to run it alone and it works, although it is quite slow. You might be able to get by with a RAM upgrade for now, but I would start saving for a new Mac.

Hope that helps.

MW
  | | The administrator has disabled public write access.
harpitect
User
Posts: 6
graphgraph
 
Click here to see the profile of this user 		Re:Upgrading a PM G4 for OS X - 2006/08/14 09:51 For the past two or three years I've been using a Blue & White G3 with an OWC 500MHz G4 zif card in it, along with a gig of RAM. That machine has the same bus speed as yours, 100MHz, but I found it to be perfectly adequate for just about everything. I use Photoshop a lot, and the B&W has processed photos quickly and very efficiently. Certainly iit's not as fast as more recent Macs, but it's not an all-day production machine either. It would easily handle multiple applications at the same time.

I've just replaced this machine with a Digital Audio G4, with a 133MHz bus and a 533MHz processor. RAM is at 768MB right now, and this machine does all that the B&W did, but faster.

If you check on eBay you'll find G4 zif cards for under $50. You can probably get an 80GB HD for about that same price; check newegg.com. Add two 256MB DIMMs for another $50, and you're out about $150 for a zippier machine.

John
  | | The administrator has disabled public write access.
Forum List EveryMac.com Forums Power Macintosh G3/G4/G5


EveryMac.com is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind whatsoever. EveryMac.com, and the author thereof, shall not be held responsible or liable, under any circumstances, for any damages resulting from the use or inability to use the information within. For complete disclaimer and copyright information please read and understand the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy before using EveryMac.com. Use of any content or images without expressed permission is not allowed, although links to any page are welcomed and appreciated.



Brock Kyle - EveryMac.com - Kyle Media - Advertising Info - All Rights Reserved - Copyright © 1996