I've just had this debate with myself about the cost of upgrading my B&W
450 with 1G of RAM and asked for opinions on a couple of forums.
Some people invariably mentioned the Mini Mac and some people suggested
staying away from it. You've mentioned some good reasons *for* but some
reasons *against* include the fact that for that money, you won't have
nearly as much manoueverability for future upgrades. I've got three hard
drives in my B&W - a 9G OS 9.2 archive and two 80G hard drives. Waaay
more than I need but I got the hard drives on sale and it took me all of
about 20 minutes to get them up and running (including time to clone the
OS 10.3.9 system drive). I also picked up a Pioneer 109 DVD burner (for
$72) that I replaced the original CD/DVD-Rom player with. With a Mini,
you're either stuck with the lowend 40G hard drive and may want to swap
that out pretty quickly. More $$. Then, at 256MB, you'll really want to
toss in more RAM. More $$. Apparently, the video card is the same as the
B&W anyway so there's no advantage to that. If you don't want to
immediately want to upgrade to the DVD/CD burner package (more $$),
you'll have to either get an external case for your present DVD/CD
burner (more $$) or get and external burner.
The Mini is new and I'm one of those poor people who bought the new
iMacs in '99 (a tray-loader) and suffered for it. I am really cautious
now about very new lines and would prefer waiting a bit longer with a
buying decision regarding a Mini for another year or so... especially
since I want to see what this new Intel deal will do to the Mac lines
and see how it'll affect used Mac prices. I have seen basic used G4s on
my local craigslist for about $600 - slightly more than a Mini Mac but
still a lot easier to open up a tower and play than having everything
shoved nicely into a tight box :-)
The only 'problem' I seemed to have with my set up is that sometimes
ripped DVD .avis were jerking. That disappeared with I replaced the
original 54000RPM hard drive with the new 80G 72000RPM ones.
The only thing I can really see myself perhaps wanting to do in the next
year or two that the current B&W will have problems doing is ripping
DVDs - and at this point, really, it's just a minor interest. That would
be solved by a $200US G4 700MHz Sonnet Encore Zif upgrade that,
supposedly, easily slips into an empty socket. After that, since I don't
use heavy applications, I figure the B&W's good for another, what, three
years?
At which point, I'll splurge and buy the best model out there that I can
afford and then start the slow upgrading process all over again :-)
I guess it really depends on what your wife actually *does* with the
machine, too. If it's basic surfing/word processing/some PhotoShopping,
etc stuff, I still thinks it's cheaper to upgrade the B&W (and with used
parts), than buying new... at least for the next year or two.
Or I could just be paranoid about this Intel deal... .
Confused you enough :-)
B.
Eric Dunbar wrote:
Hi Lincoln, while you're soliciting opinions may I humbly suggest that
you go with the Mac mini?
Yes, it's new, and, yes, it's a consumer Mac, but, damn it's impressive.
For $725 after tax ($690 if you're a student) you get a 1.25GHz G4,
512 MB of RAM, 32 MB of video RAM, OS X 10.4, iLife ($100 CAD value)
in a package *smaller* and *lighter* than most hard cover school
books! It's 1.3 kg, the same weight as a single 1.3 L bag of milk in a
4 L bag, and is only 16.5 cm * 16.5 cm * 5 cm.
You can get refurbished Mac minis (full 1 year Apple warrantee) with
256 MB of RAM and a 56 K modem to boot ($30 option on the new Mac
minis) for (supposedly) around $500 before tax! www.powermax.com (in
the US) has Mac minis starting at $409 USD.
You'll have a hard time upgrading a B&W to that machine for the same price!
<snip>
If you were going to expend the energy doing the upgrade I'd make sure
to also buy a G3/500 or G4/450 or faster CPU from eBay to upgrade the
B&W. Also, you'll find that 256 MB is the absolute minimum for
"decent" OS X performance (all versions of OS X). 384 MB is better and
512 MB is best (more RAM is nice but the performance improvements for
non "power users" (PhotoShop or million and one apps open at once)
aren't worth the expense).
<snip>
On 9/27/05, Lincoln Dunn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hey folks:
I'm wondering if anyone has hands-on experience with OSX performance on a
B&W G3 (300mhz, 350mhz, etc.). I'm looking at doing an el cheapo upgrade to
my wife's imac G3/300, which is pretty poky with OSX. (I need a PCI slot to
add a wireless card to it)
Any feedback on performance on a B&W would be great.
And, on a side note, if anyone has a G3/G4 bare bones that they want to
offload cheap, let me know. :-)
Thanks!
Lincoln
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