On Saturday, April 3, 2004, at 04:32 PM, Tom W. wrote:
I have a G3-300 desktop and I want to upgrade it to be faster and run X on
it.
I have heard several people with G3 B&Ws and G4s make arguments that you're
smarter to buy one of those machines than upgrade the CPU in a G3-300.
I am interested in hearing from people who have gone both routes.
Right now OWC has their G4/450 upgrade for $145...this is a good deal.
X needs Memory, Processor and Drive space, in that order. A slower processor with lots of memory will run better than a faster one choked for memory. Data Memory Systems is selling 256MB dimms for the beige for $48 right now. That's $144 to max it out at 768 mb.
A bigger hard drive ($80 for a 120gb drive after rebate) won't hurt, either.
USB/Firewire cards are about $40 for one of each or $70 for a combo. lets go for separate cards.
So you're looking at $389 to upgrade your beige to run OS X, and an older version of OSX, at that.
You can run panther on it, but that requires an added video card right now, at another $70-$120.
I would never drop one of Sonnet's faster G4 cards into it....at the cost of them, sell the beige and shop for an AGP G4 machine.
The Early AGP models have faster memory than the beige or B&W, have built-in FW and USB, and a modest investment in a processor upgrades gets you a really healthy machine good for the next couple of versions of OSX at least.
I would consider a B&W machine only if really pressed for money and had to upgrade, really.
My advice is use what you've got and save for a AGP G4. Do not get a PCI g4, or first rev B&W; the G4 is really just a B&W motherboard in G4 case with that OWC G4 upgrade in it. The B&W are cheaper.
Beige:
Pros: you have it already, probably the smallest investment for OS X 10.2. (This is what I'm typing this one right now. It's a perfectly acceptable system for running OSX)
Cons: No longer supported by Apple, needs more expensive upgrades to run OS X 10.3, still has 8GB limit on OS X boot drive.
B&W G3:
Pros: Cheap right now, has built in FW and USB, easy to upgrade, holds more memory than Beige, is supported for 10.3.
Cons: Has same memory bus and IDE bus speed as Beige, first rev ones cannot have slave IDE drives. Probably next on chopping block for OSX compatibility.
1st gen AGP G&W G4:
Pros: Best value for upgrades right now, speeds up to 1000MHz G4 available, though expensive, plus utilizes any other processor from newer G4's, so you can get people's cast-off upgrades which is still an improvement, has fast enough memory to not choke a fast processor, built in FW and USB. My choice for the next system I'm buying, unless I stumble across something faster for real cheap, will undoubtedly be supported for some time by Apple. Least upgrading needed to run OSX well (possibly more memory).
Cons: Most expensive right now looking at $6-800 probably.
Models to avoid:
1st Gen B&W, has IDE issues (no slave drives).
1st Gen PCI G4 (just a B&W G3 in drag, more or less.) Nothing seriously wrong with this system, it's just that the same thing can be gotten with a B&W and an inexpensive upgrade for less than what these generally sell for.
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