should i replace my iMac w/an upgraded all-in-one

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I currently have the opportunity to buy an upgraded G3 all-in-one (upgraded to G4 400) that would replace my G3 400 iMac DV. I know the all-in-one has a 66mhz bus, so would this be more of a downgrade then an upgrade? Ram, hard drive, etc. are about the same. I can sell my iMac for the price of the all-in-one.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    Help!
  • Reply 2 of 5
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I think you should go ahead and do it. You don't get DVD playback with the AIO (not because you can't put a DVD-ROM drive but because of decoder issues), but you get the same display, a G4 instead of a G3, and PCI slots. Besides, the AIO is super cool. Very large and heavy. It's like a tooth.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    [quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:

    <strong>I think you should go ahead and do it. You don't get DVD playback with the AIO (not because you can't put a DVD-ROM drive but because of decoder issues), but you get the same display, a G4 instead of a G3, and PCI slots. Besides, the AIO is super cool. Very large and heavy. It's like a tooth.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hah, a tooth! What about the 66mhz bus? Will that cripple everything?
  • Reply 4 of 5
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I don't think it'll cripple everything, but I think having a G4 over a G3 will make up for it. It really depends on the task. I do not know which statistics affect which tasks exactly. I could not tell you, for example, that task A will be affected significantly by a slow bus while task B won't matter.



    If you're going to be running OS X on it, I'd go for the AIO, because having the G4 will really help. If you could somehow upgrade the graphics, that would also help, but I'm not sure how to because AIO computers have built in monitors - I suppose you could put a Radeon PCI card in and hook up an external monitor, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it would require rerouting of the integrated monitor cable, which would be a difficult task for the non-tech oriented. Again, I'm not sure.



    EDIT: I just wanted to mention, in case you didn't know, that graphics performance is a HUGE factor in OS X. I have a 4MB Rage LT Pro card in my Wallstreet, and it chokes on Genies and even Scales. Live scrolling and window resizing and dragging are all slow and jumpy. However, on my mom's B&W G3 with a 16MB Rage 128 graphics card, all the effects are super-smooth. You can get 16 and 32MB PCI graphics cards, but they have problems working with OS X which you'll have to work around. You'll have to do a lot of research if you want to upgrade the graphics, but if you successfully do upgrade the graphics you should be very happy with the performance and you'll be proud of yourself too.



    [ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: Luca Rescigno ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 5
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    thbanks for all the info, Luca! I will be trying to upgrade the graphics, and I will post my results. Hopefully rerouting from a PCI graphics card isn't tooo hard
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