>I have a Power Macintosh 7300/200 with 112 ram and 2 gig hard drive.
>I use Photoshop and want to open large files (8x10 Photos at 300
>dpi) sometimes 8 or 10 at a time sometimes more. I was thinking of
>upgrading my computer but a friend of mine who is into upgrading
>told me that because of the high cost of putting in a scsi type hard
>drive and the expensive cost of memory for this in relation to the
>low cost of new memory for the G3 or G4 and also that I would
>probably need a new G3 or G4 card, that I would probably be better
>off buying a new G4 probably the 733 since they have come out with a
>faster one and the price of the G4 733 had dropped. Also since I am
>a photographer and just use photoshop and do not use any other
>programs such as Quark or Illustrator I might be able to get away
>with an IMac even though the monitor is smaller. The only thing
>about the IMac (he said) is that it does not have much room for
>upgrading. Does anybody have any comments on the above? Shou!
>ld I upgrade and if so how? Or should I try to purchase a newer
>computer? And if so which one? Thanks for your help.
-----------------------------------------
I recently did two upgrades that relate directly to your
question. My son bought a new G4/733 and I decided to upgrade my
9600/300. I upgraded them both at once and put essentially the same
upgrades in them (Adaptec 29160 SCSI card running Quantum Atlas II
10k 36 GB HD, Sonnet Ultra ATA-66 IDE card running two Maxtor 80 GB
HD, ATI Rage Orion video card [in the 9600], Maximum [1.5 GB] RAM.
We are both photographers and do mostly
Photoshop/Illustrator/Quark with large graphics files. We wanted
Photoshop machines with large graphics storage and printing
capacities.
Well, here are my conclusions: The G4 was a helluva lot
easier to upgrade. When I put the XLR8 G4/450 processor upgrade in
the 9600 (which the G4 didn't need, obviously), I had problems with
Photoshop that were only cured by moving the AltVecCore plugin out of
the Photoshop plugin folder. Adobe claimed this did not result in a
loss of performance, but then, you know, it wouldn't be there in the
first place if it didn't do something useful? And when I tried to put
an ATI Radeon card in the 9600 (to make it equivalent to the G4) I
could not get the Radeon to work. The Radeon now sits in the spare
parts drawer. Settled for an Orion, which is a good card. Had some
problems getting USB to work in the 9600 as well.
As for cost, both computers cost about the same in the end.
As for Geek work, the 9600 was one hulluva lot more work. As for
performance in Photoshop, I don't see enough difference to matter to
me. Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I give up my Geeky 9600?
No. I prefer my 9600 to the G4 just because I like the old Beige
Monsters.
But I would never send an upgraded 9600 off to my son who
just wants to do his photo work and does not understand computers.
The G4 is better for him because more of it's equipment is supported
by the OS and so it is simpler to operate.
For you, forget the iMac. Get a G4 if you want to spend your
time doing Photoshop. Upgrade your old Mac if you like to and want
to do the upgrade kind of stuff as well as doing Photoshop.
--
MacSheep
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