Re: How upgradeable are G3 powermacs?

[J. Blanton]

J. Blanton wrote:



Andrew Wiens wrote:

I want to get a beige G3 and was wondering how much upgrading can be 
done to
these. ie: where does the HD max out at? How much CPU can I put in 
(how far
up does it go in MHz?)? Will it take a G4? Is it a ZIF socket? How 
much RAM?
What kind of RAM does it take? Thanks for any help.


Well you can certainly do quite a bit to a beige G3.  As far as i know 
their really is no limit to HD size.  The biggest ive currently seen 
for IDE is around 200 GB,  Until Serial ATA catchs on , I'd wager that 
the size will continue to get bigger.  As far as processor speed goes, 
I've seen ZIF sockets up in the range of 800-1Ghz G4 that would fit 
your machine.  Of course you still have the biggest bottleneck:  a 66 
mhz system bus which is somewhat considering the Blue and White G3 and 
early G4's have 100 mhz buses.  You could feasibly get a G4 machine 
for about the same as youd spend on upgrades for a beige machine.

Regarding RAM, according to Mactracker, the beige G3 has 3 sockets, 
utilizing PC66 3.3v, unbuffered, 8 byte, non parity 168 pin SDRAM(low 
profile).  I BELIEVE that you can use PC100 RAM and the g3 will run 
the RAM at 66 mhz.  PC100 ram is dirt cheap right now.  Apple still 
uses it in the iMac and the eMac.  I'd keep looking for a used AGP 
like a "Sawtooth" or "Quicksilver" model G4.  You would spend more 
initially on the purchase BUT its a newer machine, hence longer time 
before its obsolete.

What kind of programs are you wanting to run on your beige g3?

Jeremy B


I forgot to add that according to Mactracker, you can use up to 768 mb 
of ram on a beige g3.  you can use 1.5 gb on a G4 machine under OS  9 or 
2 gb under OS X

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