On Sunday, November 28, 2004, at 11:51 AM, Bonnie wrote:
I've been saving my nickels and dimes and I will soon have enough to upgrade to a new machine :-) I am trying to decide which G4 I need, so maybe you all can help. I don't do games, but I do use graphic programs (photoshop, indesign, illustrator etc.). Also I am going to need to run VPC (some of my jobs are for the unenlightened). I understand VPC is painfully slow, so what should I get to reduce the pain? I'll be running OS X (10.2.8 to start, but will probably switch to Panther soon). Will a dual processor help with this? If so, which one? What I have now is a G3 266 MT upgraded with a Sonnet G4/500 zif.
Well, the simple answer is: as much as you can afford to buy.
That Adobe stuff is a CPU and RAM hog, more is always better. Photoshop, the most CPU intensive of them, is optimized in many functions for dual processors. I don't know if VPC is optimized for dual processors, but if you're looking at G4's (versus G5's) most of the dual processor models were stopgap systems waiting for faster single CPU's.
The procession of G4 tower models (by age and speed) are:
Yikes ---DON'T get this, it's a B&W G3 with a G4 Zif upgrade, not worth it.
Sawtooth---First AGP graphics, 'true' G4 system orig 350-500 Mhz
Gigabit Ethernet---400, plus dual 450 and 500 MHz
Digital Audio---466-733, plus a dual 533 system
Quicksilver---733-933, dual 800 and 1Ghz
Mirrored Double Door---all duallies, 867MHZ-1.25Ghz
FW800 ---- last tower G4 sold by Apple. 1GZ and dual 1.25GHz
There are also G4 iMacs and eMacs as well, though they have screen limitations; as a graphic artist, being able to use dual monitors is really nice...and the iMacs and eMac don't support that.
The sweetest spot for upgrading right now is a Sawtooth or Gigabit ethernet. The base systems are cheap, upgrades are plentiful and reasonable (OWC sells a 90 MHz upgrade for $229), and it's fast enough to make your old system look and feel like a horse and buggy.
Don't forget that most of the later systems come with ADC and DVI video out, which require either expensive Apple monitors or expensive adapters, if you want to use dual monitors. Using the DVI port with VGA is cheap, a few bucks for the adapter.
Knowing your budget would be helpful...if you're looking at anything too shy of, say $1000-$1200 save some more money and get a new G5 iMac instead.
$5-600 there's a lot there, from Sawtooth models on up to DA or Quicksilver
Less than that, you're looking pretty much at a Sawtooth system. Out of the box, stock, they're faster than your current system by a fair margin, a 400-450MHz Sawtooth holds quite an advantage over a Beige of virtually any stripe because of the faster bus and I/O.
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