I have a Power Mac 8600/300. I have loaded OSX and I love the interface and programs but find the 300 is too slow. I know I know get a faster system that was designed for it. I got the system for free and would like to use it. Has anyone upgraded their similar system with a g3 400 or better and gotten decent performance from it on X? The system needs USB, Firewire and IDE also.
At this point, since you have nothing invested in it, just buy a B&W G3 or early G4. Those are starting to go pretty cheap, certainly in the $500-$600 range you're talking about to upgrade that 8600 to that level.
G3-G4 upgrade $150-$300 USB card $20 Firewire card $20 IDE card $70 IDE drive $40-$100 depending on size
You'll also want to upgrade your ram if you have < 512Megs, imo.
You can see it adds up; just starting with a newer base system will be much better, since they're simply faster systems overall...A 8600 cranked up to a G4/400 will be outperformed handily by a G&W G4/400.
I have a 7600 with a G4 card in it...OSX 10.2 is quite usable, but I got the card on closeout, and used it for quite some time before I went to OSX.
I also got a Beige G3 with a G4 upgrade in it, OSX is much more usable, and I'm starting to look at dropping the beige for something newer, in anticipation of Panther. I'm not putting anything more into it that won't be directly transferable to a newer Mac.
(Then maybe I'll win the powerball this week and just buy myself a few new G5's ;-)
-- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group
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