Advice on Mac G4 DP 450...

B

bdavies

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Greetings all, this is my first post here. A friend of my father-in-law got a G5 and is selling their Dual G4 450, 256MB RAM along with a Mitsubishi monitor (19" CRT?), a scanner and software? Unfortunately I can't get all the details (size of hard drive, what software, what scanner, etc...) but he offered it to me for $400. I imagine that this is a pretty good price and I am very tempted to buy it. My question is:

I have a few Macs, unfortunately the fastest is a first rev G3 iMac (OSX, 160MB of RAM - makes an excellent MP3 jukebox). I do my photo and video editing on a 2.0GHz Pentium 4 running Windows XP, Photoshop and Premiere. I would like to think that the G4 will be useful for photo and video editing - but will it be slower than my Pentium 4? Did these come with OSX? (after OSX I can never go back to 8 or 9) I love computers and love Macs and think this is a great deal, but I just don't want to be dissapointed and end up using my XP machine for everything and just have a cool looking G4 for decoration.

If I do get it, I have a brand new 9600dpi photo scanner and Sony LCD monitor, so I don't even need the scanner and monitor. I assume the G4 will work with a 1280x1024 DVI monitor???

Thanks in advance,
Ben
 
Hi, and welcome to the forum,

Buy it (but try and talk him down $50.... always) :p

There are plenty of machines on ebay with a lower spec for more money. It WILL be better than the PC... not necessarily any/much quicker, but for large image files far more stable. Plus, it's not a PC, which is always a good thing! You can sell the scanner and monitor on ebay, so the machine won't have you cost you very much at all.

This machine pre-dates OSX, but you can install that yourself if the current owner hasn't already.

Good luck
 
That's a good deal plus you should be able to run both your monitor and the one you get with the mac simultaneously. As far as i'm aware you should be able to do it with the stock card or, if not, do it with a card worth (on eBay) about the same as a scanner!
Oh, and OS X is soooooooo much better for serious editing work!

This page details your system:

http://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_450_dp.html

Oh, and do yourself a favour, sell the pc! With that money you could probably buy a pretty nice edit suite for mac (although FCEHD is only $150 to students...)
 
The [size=-2][size=-2]ATI Rage 128 Pro doesn't support dual monitors.
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Thanks for the replies. I'm already sold on Mac OS X (and the PPC in general), even on my little Bondi blue iMac it is so slick and stable. On iTunes I can rip a CD and MP3 compress while playing back another MP3 without a hiccup. My 2GHz P4 has trouble doing that. The P4 has made for a pretty decent editing platform but I ready to give it a try on the Mac. I won't get rid of the PC though, this will add to the collection:

- Pentium 4 desktop - Win XP
- Pentium 3 desktop - Win 98
- Pentium 3 desktop - Linux
- Pentium 3 laptop - Win XP
- Pentium MMX Laptop - Win 98 (semi-retired)
- Bondi blue iMac - OS X
- Mac Performa 6400/200 (VEE) - Mac OS 8.6 (for sale if anyone is interested)
- SGI Indy - Irix (for sale if anyone is looking for one)
- SGI Indigo 2 - Irix (retired and also for sale)
- SGI Indigo - Irix (only good for decoration)

Plus other older systems and parts in the closet.

Can I put any PC100 memory in it (i.e. just go to Fry's) or would I need to purchase something particular?

What is FCEHD? I actually am in grad school right now so I would qualify for educational pricing.

Anybody know what the student price is for OSX? Can I get 10.4 yet or is 10.3 the way to go?
Thanks,
Ben
 
I'd take the G4/DP/450. You can upgrade that, processor, multiple drives, PCI cards, etc.
 
Well, I told him I'll buy it. I might get it tomorrow. I'll see what software he has with it, but I think I will order a copy of Final Cut Express HD off of the Apple educational site. Anybody know what it would take to hook my Korg AG-10 midi synthesizer up to the G4? It has a serial interface that would connect to the older Mac serial ports (RS-422?). I also have a Yamaha keyboard, a mixing board and a couple microphones. It sounds like GarageBand would be good for bringing all that together? Thanks for the help.
 
Well... I'm posting this from the G4. It's awesome so far. He threw in a bunch of goodies too (Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitor, firewire CD-RW, firewire scanner with transparency adapter, USB Zip 250, speakers, a bunch of software (including Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 5.5).
 
bdavies said:
Well... I'm posting this from the G4. It's awesome so far. He threw in a bunch of goodies too (Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitor, firewire CD-RW, firewire scanner with transparency adapter, USB Zip 250, speakers, a bunch of software (including Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 5.5).
Click to expand...

Cool. Now to the fun of upgrading. The first place you should keep in mind Accelerate your Macintosh and the site's drive lasso search for upgrading reports. Also, there is a great seller of upgrading devices over at OWC. Then you can use the two sites together to see what upgrade cards, drives work best for your computer.

Don't forget, OS X runs much better with RAM so fill the computer up with it when you can. Also, a good decent video upgrade will get you all the OpenGL and Quartz capabilities to get all the benefits of a modern OS X. You can use Xlr8's video search lasso to see about compatible video cards.

Lastly, you mentioned about another Mac as being you digital jukebox. Then you should consider using iTunes music sharing on it (as long as you are in the same home network subnet) then you can access it with either the other Mac or PC (as long as they have iTunes on them) by just enabling the iTunes preferences on all the machines.

With just a small bit of upgrades, you can extend that Mac's modern usability for at least 3 to 4 more years. Good Luck.
 
One thing about your RAM question - the RAM itself is no different. Apple sells good quality RAM, but it's no different to PC RAM.

However OS X, and specifically Panther, are very picky when it comes to RAM. Shoddy RAM that works (or appears to work) perfectly fine in a PC will sometimes stop your Mac from booting until it is removed.

So if you get high-quality PC100 3.3v unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM, it'll be great for your machine.

It has a max of 2 GB of RAM under OS X, across four RAM sockets, so as much as you can afford is worth the purchase, especially if it's to replace that XP machine.
 
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