Best OS X Experience

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sean8102

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Hello, I have decided to get back into Macs agian after going to pc's for a while. My budget right now is very tight for a mac. Right now I have about 300 bucks to spend, on a mac. All I want is to be able to get a good experience with Mac OS X. I rember trying to run it on a old imac I had lying around (500Mhz G3, My first mac). And it was pretty slow, especially the graphics side of thing such as resizing windows. I dont want to play any games at all, pretty much just web browse, and listen to music. Right now my 2 choices are a e-mac 700 Mhz G4, with 256 Mb of ram, or a Dual processor 450Mhz Powermac G4 /w 512mb memory. Of course I can always upgrade the memory on the e-mac later but I was wondering wihich will provide the smoothest expericne on OS X for now. I will be getting a new intel mac next year so this is just temporary. Thanks alot
 
Well I am not sure which is better. Although the emac has a faster processor, the Powermac has many upgrade options. Out of the two computer, which one has more video memory? Since you are not looking to run games, etc, my vote goes for the PowerMac.
 
Of the two Macs you suggested - the dual 450 MHz G4 PowerPC PowerMac would allow internal expandability - up to three (3) IDE hard disk drives, hdd; and, two (2), IDE or SCSI, hdds via a PCI card.
The dual 450's maximum memory capacity is 2 GB; the eMac's maximum menory capacity is 1 GB.
The dual 450 supports hdds with capacities up to 128 GB; the eMac has no hdd capacity restriction.

A suggestion:

If your budget is currently 'tight', put the money aside until you have enough - for a Mac Mini (and keyboard and mouse), as per fryke's suggestion. You will have a current Mac, with a current MacOS, and should have less compatibility problems with any purchased peripherals (printer, scanner, camera, etc.).

Install System 9 on your 500 MHz G3 PowerMac. You may be surprised to note it being faster than MacOS X 10.3.x or 10.4.x running on either the eMac 700 MHz and / or dual 450 MHz PowerPC PowerMac!
Only with a PowerMac G5 or the Intel based Macs will you see a near equivalence in speed between an older Mac running System 9 and a newer Mac running MacOS X.
 
The dualy would run OS X very respectably. OS X usually handles multiple processors very well, and the tower might actually beat the eMac speed-wise in some areas. Also, the 512 RAM is leaps and bounds better than 256. Although the eMac has no drive limitations, plan on taking about half a day and suffering aneurism-inducing stress to upgrade it. Towers are easy and fun to upgrade in comparison.

This is from personal experience. I have a 450Mhz G4 (running 10.4.7) sitting here alongside my 1Ghz eMac.
 
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone. I decided to get a dual processor 450 mhz G4. I am going to be upgrading the memory to 512 mb, and the graphics card to a geforce 2 mx. Thanks for all the help. Later on I might a processor upgrade. Once agian thanks guys. Just if your wondering heres a link to the comp i got. I also have a copy of 10.4. I havent used os X since 10.2. I cant wait. Once agian thanks

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-G4-450-MH...2QQihZ007QQcategoryZ14912QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
Another thing to consider is the video card. The dual G4 you linked to has a Rage 128, which does not support Quartz Extreme. This means that things like menus, window shadows, Exposé, and most transparency effects will not be hardware-accelerated. This can make a big difference towards usability. The eMac's video card does support Quartz Extreme, which is a big point in its favor.

Then again, I think a RAM upgrade for the eMac would be more important than a video card upgrade for the G4. Tough call. If you've already finalized your choice of the G4, then I wouldn't be too upset.
 
I did already get the powermac g4. I know the rage 128 cant do QE, but i am going to buy a cheap geforce 2 mx or radeon that can for about 20 bucks soon.
 
I have one last question. The first upgrade I'am going to get for my G4 is a video card. I dont want anything fancy just support for Quarts extreme. I was wondering whats faster, a Radeon 7500, or Geforce 2 MX. Also I know these dont do core image. What type of effects dose core image do. With one of these cards will i get that fast user switching cube effect, and the water ripple widget effects? Once agian thanks for being so help full.
 
The Radeon is definitely faster. Core Image really doesn't do much in my use when switching to an iMac G5 at my design studio and back to my eMac here at home. The cube effect will work, while the ripple effect will not. All the OpenGL stuff from Panther and the new OpenGL transitions in programs like iPhoto in Tiger will be supported by that Radeon AFAIK. I honestly can't think of much offhand besides maybe interface adjustment with ShapeShifter or certain video effects found in developer programs where you would see a difference between an older card and a Core Image supporting card.

(At least as far as Core Image/no Core Image goes.)

Edit: Yeahup just tested iPhoto with my Radeon... all effects including "Droplet" work when changing pictures.
 
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