G4 PPC or G4iMac, cant decide

T

Timothy Gerges

Registered
Hi,
First time posting in a forum, so please be patient.

I have had a mac g4 ppc for quite some time, the PCI graphics one (2.6/350).
(whatever that means, still a little lost there, windows based computers are a little easier to understand when it comes to that)
Recently, I have had the choice of getting a G4 imac 17" 700 or 800 Mhz, but i'm not sure which is the better option. Some contructive opinions would be greatly appriciated.

Both have 512 mb Ram, the iMac has a 50gb hdd, and the powerpc 40gb.
The imac also boasts 10.4, on the powerpc, i have 10.3, but an incorrect version installed, one for the eMac, so its not performing the way it should at all.

I really dont know what i should do.
Something to discuss i would say..
Please help...

Timothy
 
Well, all iMac G4s _are_ PowerPC. PPC's are all Apple's that have IBM chips (which is most of them). I am slightly confused...
Am I getting this right:
iMac Your Mac
50 GB 40 GB
10.4 Tiger 10.3 Panther
512 MB RAM 512 MB RAM.
How much MHz or GHz does your Mac have? What G4 ist it? You just wrote Mac G4 PPC, which can mean anything, from iBook and PowerBook to iMac, eMac and Mac mini. Please say which one you have. How big is the screen of your current Mac? How new is it? If you take the iMac definatley 800 MHz because its faster than 700 MHz.
 
see, i told you this was my first time, No beginner's luck here...

My current mac is a G4 PowerPc PCI Graphics, i am also confused about the MHz, it says 2.6(350), it also sounds strange to me, but i dont think i am mistaken.
As it is just the tower, i use an ordanary compaq 17" screen.
 
Where does it say 2.6(350)? ... Go to the Apple menu and choose "About this Mac". There it should say something definite. PCI graphics probably mean it's a 350 MHz "Yikes!" PowerMac G4. The iMac certainly sounds like the better deal. You'll want the OS X license to be "good", though. Installing from an installation disk that came with another Mac is not a good idea in various ways. (Steve would probably say "Karma".)
 
believe it or not, i am not going insane, although i am a little confused, however, confusion is good at some stage or another.
I attached a picture of the system profile. Just to show you what i mean, i know sometimes i dont come across to clearly.
 

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You have a PowerMac G3, with a 350 MHz G4 upgrade (I think?). The iMac won't be as upgradable in some ways (PCI cards, multiple hard drives), but it will be much, much faster, sport a gorgeous design, and an LCD display. 512 of memory will be good for most basic applications, though you can add up to a gig, which would be optimal.
 
Personally, I would. It's worth more than what you have now, too (unless you have some serious upgrades installed). It's quieter. It's faster. It looks cooler. Upgradability would really be the only factor that could hold you back, you loose the option to upgrade your video card, install multiple optical drives, multiple hard drives, etc. Of course, if you don't plan to upgrade, and don't have any upgrades installed, that's not really a factor.
You may want to read this: http://lowendmac.com/fishkin/06/1031.html
 
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.
 
"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...).
 
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.
 
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?
 
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 :p )
 
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.
 
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.
 
It's not a 2.6 GHz processor, that's just the version # of the CPU. It's a 350 MHz processor ("CPU Speed"), so the iMac will be more than twice as fast. 800 MHz isn't "fast" by modern standards, but unless you're doing video editing or something really processor intensive, it will feel just like a modern mac (with enough memory).

I just did a currency convert check, and it looks like that iMac is costing $272 in USD, which is a great deal.
 
I see.. That makes more sense now, Thanks..
It looks like my mind is slowly becomming more made up. Looks like the iMac outdoes the powerpc.
Being very experienced with windows computers i know the inside of any windows platform computer inside out better than the back of my hind. The inside of the powerpc is rather simiallar. So, if a problem comes along, I can handle my own fixing/swopping the hardware. But what happens if something goes wrong with the iMac? What type of HDD does it take?
 
man, you gotta love my dad... Here's why
He brings home the Imac G4, he says I can keep it indefinetly, well, I just cant use it until exams are over. Although, he does say, as long as its sitting on my desk, I might as well use it on weekends and while i take breaks from studying. Naturally, one of the first things i do, is download lightroom and install that to keep up with my photography habits,(for some reason, this one never had iLife). I was attached since the moment i turned it on, It was super fast, and i had troubles sleeping at night just thinking and looking at it.

Then, one day at school, he sends me an sms, saying that he sold all the imacs, (he bought like four). And one of them was to one of my friends' sister. Turns out when he said all imacs, he included mine, and that night, my friend's sister came to collect her imac.
I was sooo sad, i'm not a computer freak, but man, i loved the 5 days i had with the imac, Now i just got the powerpc.. I really like it too, but its only 350 mhz, and i need to get osx tiger from somewhere, and prefribly one that is not computer specific so i can use it to its full.. (Photography with panther just doens't happen!)
 
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