Buying Advice: Which G4 Power Mac to buy?
I would like to buy my first mac. I don't know if I will ever get into them like with the PC's so I don't want to spend a lot of money. I know the basics as I used them in high school. Up to OS 9.?.
My friends G3 B&W 300MHz 256MB Ram 6GB HD, just seems to slow with OS X, and I am not sure which G4 to get. There are the B&W G4's with AGP, gigabit LAN and Dual Core 500Mhz, then there are the single core that go a little faster. All of these look to be under $400. The G4 quicksilver and MDD seem to go for alot more money $500 ~ $1499.
If I wanted to stick the the Blue and White, which one would be better; the dual core at slower speeds or single core at higher speeds, and how do they relate in speed wise to a PC?
I want to buy one ASAP so any ideas will be appriciated.
Thanks,
Mike
My friends G3 B&W 300MHz 256MB Ram 6GB HD, just seems to slow with OS X, and I am not sure which G4 to get. There are the B&W G4's with AGP, gigabit LAN and Dual Core 500Mhz, then there are the single core that go a little faster. All of these look to be under $400. The G4 quicksilver and MDD seem to go for alot more money $500 ~ $1499.
If I wanted to stick the the Blue and White, which one would be better; the dual core at slower speeds or single core at higher speeds, and how do they relate in speed wise to a PC?
I want to buy one ASAP so any ideas will be appriciated.
Thanks,
Mike
Comments
Well, you can't get a Power Mac anymore. Your choices are only Intel chips now. Personally, I'd go with the Mac Mini, especially if you already have a display/USB keyboard/USB mouse you'd be using with it. The Mac Minis are under $1000 and at least let you get your feet wet with the OS. Or if you're looking for a notebook, go with the Mac Book, again, pretty quick systems without breaking the bank. Good luck!
The Dual 500 MHz is for sure a fine machine, particularly when you're on a tight budget. A G4/733 MHz is probaby as fast as the Dual 500 MHz, depending on what you want to do with this machine. The dual G4 Macs are faster when using several programs at a time, whereas the single processor G4 is better when you need one program at a time that you want to run fast (e.g. Photoshop). For browsing the web, e-mailing and word processing, even a G4 400 with a lot of RAM is sufficient. But I wouldn't get the G3 because it's at least one year older and therefore all the components are one year older, too.
Personally, I would look for a machine with as much RAM as possibe (depending on what you want to do, get more than 512 MB!), because OS X needs a lot of RAM to run fast enough on older G4 (or G3) Macs. A machine with 1 GB of RAM is probably what you want to look for. Speed, in my opinion, is secondary.
MDDs tend to be VERY loud, so don't get one of these... Get a G4 "AGP" (350 - 500 MHz, dark grey front part), "DigitalAudio" (466 - 733 MHz, dark grey front part, Gigabit LAN) or "Quicksilver 2001" (silver housing and front part, 733 - 933 MHz).
see: http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl..._g4/index.html
I'd also recommend an older Mac mini G4 over a slower tower G4, they should probably be in the same price range.
Speedwise to a PC? A G4 was from around the times of the Pentium III.
You can even get a single 1.6GHz G5 for around £500-600.
If the choice is between a single G4 like an 867 quicksilver and a dual 450, go for the single 867. Just make sure you know what they are worth. I wouldn't pay more than £250 for an 867 and my dad got a dual 450 for £130 so don't go more than £150 if you want one of those.
Overall, I'd aim at the £200-300 mark and don't settle for less than 1GHz if possible.
One big advantage the towers have over the Mini is expansion. They are very easy to upgrade. That's why my dad went for a tower over a Mini from the start.
So you think I should spend the extra for the quicksilver instead of the G4 B&W?
Yes but like I say, try and get a 1GHz+ machine - OS X will seem sluggish on anything less. My Dad actually got one of the MDD 1.2GHz models for £250 (~$470) and he thinks it's great so it is possible to get a good deal on those kind of machines. It has a 64MB Radeon 9000 in it so the interface runs really smoothly.
If you are looking in the sub-$400 range, I would go for the quicksilver. Keep a look out for dual-867s. Here are a couple of towers I found on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-Quicksilve...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/PowerMac-G4-Quic...QQcmdZViewItem
The way my Dad got his so cheap was that he waited until the auction had about a minute to go so as to not start a bidding frenzy. This works best on auctions with low bids or at least low bidding activity.
Again, keep in mind that you shouldn't exceed the $400 mark unless you are getting a machine that is 1GHz+. The simple reason being that you can buy a 1.42GHz G4 Mini for $369:
http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-G4-MAC-MIN...QQcmdZViewItem
I own a Mini myself and they are great machines but if you are looking for expansion and performance, the quicksilver or MDD are the way to go. It seems like you are considering cost most of all and so I would probably go for the Mini. It's cheaper to ship too.
I have the very first G3 Beige Tower that I got out of the trash and it is worthless. Its a 266mhz, 64mb ram, and 4gb HD. It has OS 8.6 and has no software. I think it will return in the trash soon.
As a final note, should I opt for a complete package? Such as a LCD, keyboard, mouse etc for more money, or just a tower?
Link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
Do you think this was a rip off? I was almost going to go for this but backed out and let the others take over.
Link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
When you get near the $1000 territory, start looking at G5s. I would take a 1.6GHz G5 over a dual 1.25GHz G4:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-PowerMac-G...QQcmdZViewItem
Here's a comparison of the two:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5_vsG....html#storytop
on the otherhand don't want to buy somthing too expensive and decide Macs aren't for me.
I wouldn't recommend a G4 as a baseline for judging Macs. The sad truth is that IBM weren't delivering the goods and Apple was forced to push the G4 far longer than they should have. The G5 was a godsend because the system bus speed increased enormously and immediately Apple could compete on performance levels with PCs. They were still expensive though and Apple eventually decided to drop them and go with Intel so that they could compete on both price and performance.
I wouldn't recommend going up to $1000 for any G4. Given that you can get a faster G5 for $875 or less, I would probably have gone up to $750 for that dual 1.25 G4.
As a final note, should I opt for a complete package? Such as a LCD, keyboard, mouse etc for more money, or just a tower?
It depends on how good the deal is. If it's on ebay, you sometimes find that if you are getting an entire package, it's a designer or something who has been working with a decent screen so you might get lucky with a really nice screen. However, I would personally buy separate because for one thing, you can choose the screen and get it new under warranty. Also, I really don't like Apple desktop keyboards or mice so I would replace them anyway. CRTs are still better for professional colour work and I still use a CRT so again, I wouldn't use an LCD.
Here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...DME:B:SCO:US:1
It does come with 17" LCD and KB/MS, and software.
Marvin, you seem to know the value of these pretty well, how about this one? The seller gave me a second chance offer.
Here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...DME:B:SCO:US:1
It does come with 17" LCD and KB/MS, and software.
You always have to weigh up shipping costs too and $70 seems like quite a lot.
I'll weigh up the G5 I posted above compared to it:
G4 vs G5
price: $660+$70=$730 vs $$875+$40=$915
speed: dual 1GHz vs single 1.6GHz -> G5 still wins here
HD: 80GB vs 160GB
Ram: 1GB Ram vs 2GB Ram
USB: G4 still has 2x USB 1.1 vs 3x USB 2
Firewire: 2x firewire 400 vs 2x firewire 400 & 1x firewire 800
front side bus: 133MHz vs 800MHz
graphics: Geforce 4 Ti + extra GPU vs Radeon 9600 -> fairly even I think
burning: DVD burner vs combo
software: 10.1 vs 10.3
extras: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers vs none
so for a difference of $175 you get a faster G5, double the Ram, double the HD, USB2 & Firewire 800, faster system bus, probably similar graphics although the G5 will have a faster slot, newer system software vs a DVD burner (can get one for under $40), keyboard, mouse, display etc (worth about $100-150 total - keep in mind the LCD is at least 4 years old). Plus, it's the older G4 with the unprotected speaker where people used to poke their finger in and break it. The MDD one has a protective cover.
Overall, I'd say the deal was ok but $730 still seems a bit high to me adding in the postage. I would try to get the whole package for about $650 including delivery so I would offer $580 for the stuff and he may negotiate up to $600.