Suggestions for upgrading G4

M

mismodliz

Registered
I have a 450MHz 10 GB G4 that I have really outgrown. Of course, I'd love to just get a new Mac, but that isn't looking like an option.

What can I do to increase the performance of my G4?

I am looking to start with a bigger internal HD. Any brands to recommend? How much can my Mac handle?

Any advice/suggestions are greatly appreciated!
 
It might actually be cheaper to just buy a new Mac. You'd get the best performance and the best value for money, IMHO.

Failing that, you could upgrade the RAM, hard drive, processor depending on your needs. Definitely max out your RAM. It's the cheapest way of speeding up performance.
 
Yep, Viro's right -- start with the RAM, then hard drive, then processor. A good place to get RAM is http://www.crucial.com. A good brand of hard drives is Western Digital. And finally, a good source of processor upgrades is http://www.sonnettech.com.

I would have to agree with Viro that it may be time to just save up and get a new machine. Even with all the upgrades, ANY new machine would probably outperform your upgraded machine, and you'd get longer life out of it as well.
 
there are many low cost upgrades that will boost performance big time.

check these out:
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upg...I=#TimeFormat(Now(),+&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

a new cpu will be the same cost or even less than maxing your ram but it will give you a much bigger boost. you can get a 1GHz G4 chip for $250. as long as you have at least 384 or 512 MB you are good for now with ram.

as for hard drives.. it won't boost performance near as much as a new cpu so unless you really need more storage hold off for now and get a cpu upgrade. you will for sure get a huge speed boost if you go from a 450 to a 1GHz.
 
You do not state what G4 platform you are using. If it is an early PCI graphics G4 (Yikes motherboard) you would be better spending your money on a later G4 or possibly the iMac G5. If it is a later G4 (Sawtooth or later motherboard) then some updates are possible. Again Viro's comments are spot on.
 
I had an AGP G4 Powermac 400 Mhz that had been upgraded in the following ways:

1. Added RAM to 1 GB
2. Replaced HD with a 60 GB Maxtor (HD failed under extended warranty. warranty company replaced it with an inferior brand. got fed up and bought a new one myself).
3. Replaced my video card with an nVidia Geforce2MX (b/c OS X came out and the ATI Rage couldn't take advantage of Quartz. I believe this card was a flashed PC version).
4. Added an external firewire CDRW burner (original one was only DVD i think)
5. Replaced G4 400 chip with the Powerlogix 1 Ghz G4. (by this time, I gave the computer back to my company, and it was deficient in running Illustrator/Photoshop).
6. Replaced the 17" Apple Studio display CRT with a new 17" Enzo LCD.

This is pretty much the order of how my I upgraded my 1st mac. I suppose you can say it shows the order of priority in upgrade as compared to costs. The last 2 upgrades with the chip and LCD cost about $500 each. Yea, I could have purchased a new computer with all these upgrades. But, this was over a span of 4 years and I didn't have to pay out of my own pocket to do upgrade 6 and 7.

It has plenty of life left. It runs Jaguar very well. Feels a little slower than the G4 933 Mhz Powermacs we have in the office. But it works. It doesn't work well with Panther but I suspect it's b/c of the flashed video card compatibility.
 
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