G4 PPC or G4iMac, cant decide - Page 2

Timothy Gerges · #9 November 1st, 2006, 04:48 PM

and interesting read, i must admit, but it confuses me more with this choice.

eric2006 · #10 November 1st, 2006, 04:52 PM

I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have posted that.. The moral is, the iMac is more powerful, but the PowerMac is more expandable. If you're doing stuff like web browsing, email, word processing, iLife, etc.. you'll be fine with an iMac. In fact, it'd be better. The only time I'd take a PowerMac would be if I wanted to use it as a fileserver, do some dual-monitor stuff, etc.

**fryke** · #11 November 1st, 2006, 08:13 PM

"More expandable", yes. But if it really _is_ such an old PowerMac, you won't get _that_ far. For example, you won't get a graphics card for the PCI bus that truly beats what's inside the iMac. You can expand the iMac externally (i.e. FireWire harddrives) and internally (RAM) - and it becomes quite a decent machine.
I know, there are lots of people who really love their old G3 and G4 PowerMacs and will not part with them, because of their investment in CPU upgrade cards or once-expensive PCI cards, but if you're on a budget and the price for that iMac is okay, then I'd go for that if you don't intend to invest much into old hardware (which I believe to be wrong, anyway...).

eric2006 · #12 November 1st, 2006, 08:19 PM

It also depends on what you're paying for this iMac.. if you're getting it for free, go for it. If you're paying above, say, $500, you'd be better off getting a mini, which will be much faster than the iMac, and smoke the Power Mac.

Timothy Gerges · #13 November 2nd, 2006, 08:59 AM

I dont know how much it would work out in $s, but in rands (ZAR,) its R2000 or so.
Just a question, acoring to the system picture i posted, is at a g3 or g4, kinda confused me?

sinclair_tm · #14 November 2nd, 2006, 03:11 PM

if it looks like -->this<-- it is a g3 that has been upgraded to a g4. if it looks like -->this<--, then its a native g4.

but either way, the 2000zar is about 270usd, which means its a good price for the imac. i would get the imac (and this is comming from one of those that has upgraded his g4 and won't let go of it like fryke was talking about

)

Timothy Gerges · #15 November 2nd, 2006, 03:27 PM

it looks like the second option.
As in the picture i posted earlier, the CPU type is G4 2.6, this sounds odd to me as i havent seen or heard of one that high on a G4. I havent made any alterations to the mac, so if it is possible that it is indeed a 2.6Ghz CPU, it must have been the previous owner.
2.6 by any standards is fast, much faster i would think that the 800Mhz sported by the imac, but still scepticle about whether it is actually 2.6GHZ or 350 MHZ.

Timothy Gerges · #16 November 2nd, 2006, 04:11 PM

The imac is 800Mhz, which aparantly is fast in mac terms, although in windows terms, i would say its extremely slow. The picture i posted of the system information of the powerPC said it was 2.6Ghz. Is it just me or is it hard to beleive. I have never seen one that goes up that high,except maybe the newer G5s. Maybe i'm not understanding it correctly. Cause if it is indeed 2.6Ghz, then it should kick the iMac's .... in terms of speed. But still confused if it is really 2.6 or 350. The more likely one would be 350 but it does say 2.6ghz. Please take a look at the picture in one of my previous posts.