Hi,
I am trying to send this a second time as I never received the first
attempt, so if you see it twice (updated) I apologise:
Honestly,
if your neighbour can afford it and she's not a tinkerer why not buying
the iMac G5? To match its performances with a Sawtooth you'd end up
spending more than buying new.
IMO, you choose the upgrade way for two reasons: 1) like to have a
machine with a lot of expansion slots and so you want get a tower, 2)
but can't afford that new shining G5.
(Real reason is that you like to play doctor and perform regular
surgery, medical check ups, resuscitation and finally euthanasia;-)
Otherwise a new machine comes with a warranty, all the new technology
built in, needs much less support, and will be supported by Apple for
much longer.
To get the performances close to those of a low end G5 you'd need:
G4 upgrade @ 1.8GHz
Serial ATA card with 160-200GB drive
Serious Video Card, i.e. ATI Radeon 9800
at least 1GB of RAM (and SDRAM is much more expensive than DDR nowadays)
USB 2.0 card
Superdrive DVD-RW + CD-RW
adding up all that, well ... and of course she could always keep the
old G4 to run OS9 and the new machine for all the rest.
Cheers
Andrea
On 16/12/2005, at 11:04 AM, Amanda Ward wrote:
Hi Laura,
If it's indeed a sawtooth, the upgrade path may be a good way to go.
There are quite a few CPU enhancements available for that machine.
I'm kind of looking for a G4 machine, but until a =great= deal comes
along, my B&W is still an awesome Mac!
Bruce started life as an ordinary B&W, Rev. 1, G3-300.
Now he's sporting a Rev. 2 main board, G4-450 CPU, 1 GB ram, 60 and
20 GB hard drives, firewire 40 GB drive, USB 2-52x CD/RW, USB 2 PCI
card and a dual format, double layer DVD +/- R/RW... running under
Tiger. (Have a 250 GB USB 2 drive I'm trying, but he's not much liking
it!)
I sort of like the upgrade path... :->
Anyway...
1. A G4-350 should run X okay, but memory could be an issue. Apple
recommends 128 MB minimum... I've run Jaguar on a Wallstreet 266 with
192 MB. It runs, but pretty slow. I also run Jaguar on Bryce (B&W
G3-350) with 256 MB and it's okay, but not a speed demon!!!
2. Then... Hard disk space. Don't know what the Sawtooth came with,
but drive prices are coming way down. Saw a 100 GB Maxtor at Office
Depot for $79 today. Prolly find one for less.
I installed Tiger on my 20 GB drive along with a couple of
applications and disk space is getting a little tight!
Just my thoughts... HTH,
Amanda
On 15/12/2005, at 3:54 PM, Laura Drew wrote:
My neighbor has a g4 tower.
I don't have all the specs in front of me but
it has a dvd drive in it! (it came with it)
she is running os 9
I think it is a G4 (AGP Graphics) Sawtooth
snip
Any suggestions would be GREAT!!
thanks
Laura
On 16/12/2005, at 12:06 PM, Glen Halina wrote:
Hi Laura part 2
To continue my earlier post, time is money, and if it is your friend's
only computer, and if and when she becomes dependent on it, and if it
acts up or quits at a time she needs to do something critical (like a
term paper or a job application or business cards), the choice that
she makes now will take on added meaning. Trust me, I've just recently
been there, and am continuing to work out of a hole. My saving grace
has been my wife's computer that runs (almost) flawlessly on the other
(un-named) platform because her work requires it.
snip
These posts are not meant to discourage you or your friend from
refurbishing the G4, but to give you (in as few words as possible) the
adventures I've had working on this project.
Good luck in whatever decision you choose to make
Glen
Laura Drew wrote:
My neighbor has a g4 tower.
I don't have all the specs in front of me but
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