hi i was thinking currently i have the money for an imac but my perents my add me some money so i was thinking whats better a g4 or a imac beacuse i dont have a apple monitor and i dont know if my current pc"s monitor would go in . any way please help me think this one up.
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From the store.apple.com page for the G5 towers:
Choose from the latest graphics card options from both ATI and NVIDIA. Standard configurations offer 64MB of fast DDR SDRAM. The Advanced ATI Radeon 9800 Pro option includes a 128 MB DDR SDRAM frame buffer. All feature both ADC and DVI ports with dual display support and include a DVI to VGA adapter.
*edit- Which is what I think Brad was saying upon closer inspection. But I'll leave this post for clarity's sake.
As far as purchasing advice, *cough* General Discussion *cough* If that monitor you mentioned is any good and has some years left in it, I'd go with the G4 tower. Unless desktop space is a big concern for you, it's going to be the best choice in almost all regards. It's going to have a lot more expandability for the future, which extends its usable liftime and saves you money in the long run.
Of the 3 machines mentioned in your subject, the iMac and the PowerMac already have close to the max power that a G4 can achieve and the eMac's not too shabby either. For that reason, I'd forget about potential processor upgrades. However, processors are not the only ways to give a computer more power.
Depending on what you're going to use it for, I can almost guarantee that the PowerMac is going to be more versatile. If you're into video, Photoshop, or Garageband, you can load up on memory. You can stick up to 2 Gig in the later PowerMacs and 1.5 in the pre-DDR PowerMacs. The iMac and the eMac are both limited to 1 Gigabyte (which is not too shabby in itself). Outside of memory-intensive applications like those, more memory is still a good idea, just not quite so much of it. Memory is perhaps the cheapest and easiest way to boost a computer's performance. Once you throw enough in there that virtual memory becomes a figment of the computer's imagination, you'll be one happy camper. I'd say 512-768 is more than enough to do that for gaming and regular computer uses. With those memory-intensive apps of course, the more the better.
If you're going to be heavy into the Mac gaming world, small as it may be, again the PowerMac is the choice for you. The video cards in the eMac and iMac are part of the logic board, the main board of the computer. You cannot upgrade your video card capabilities in those machines without flat-out replacing them. The PowerMac uses a regular AGP slot so you can upgrade the video card whenever you like.
Thirdly, if you're going to want more hard disk space someday you can just throw one, two, or even three more into the PowerMac. The eMac and iMac have only got the physical space and the system configuration to handle one internal hard disk. You can attach any number of firewire drives to any of the three machines, but it negates the desktop space advantage of the eMacs and iMacs. You also have the option to add a second optical drive to the PowerMac.
Last of my little PowerMac sales pitch is the monitor. Someday you may want a bigger monitor or you may want to go LCD. With the eMac and the iMac you're married to the display you've got. The G4 can drive almost anything you could get for it, and it can drive more than one of them.
If you want to have as minimal desk space taken up as possible, or have the cutest computer in town, or future expandability is not an issue for you then consider the eMac or iMac. Otherwise the PowerMac is going to be your best friend. I know mine is... (don't tell my iBook that though)
Originally posted by hack4ev3r
can i add this card on a emac?
you cant add anything to eMacs or iMacs accept for RAM and an Airport card. You can change to hard drive and the optical drive if you want but it's not easy.
I don't think you can use a Windows card with a Mac either
http://www.gainward.com/c-2.html
Originally posted by hack4ev3r
but it had dvi
That doesn't matter. The iMac and eMac still won't take it. On top of that, most PC video cards will not work in Macs. Remember: on the hardware level, Macs and PCs are very different. Different CPUs, different motherboards, different instruction sets. Sometimes you can find ATI and nVidia cards that can flash the ROM to work, but it's not a foolproof procedure.
For all intents and purposes, you should consider the eMac and iMac to be like "desktop notebooks" (yes, it may sound strange). Like notebooks, they are all-in-one (commonly called AIO) computers. Like notebooks, very little in them is upgradeable. Like notebooks, the video card is not replaceable.
An aside: a lot of people whine about the lack of expandability in these regards about the iMac and eMac. What they tend to forget, though, is that the vast majority of consumers never touch their video cards, etc. Also, they tend to ignore the rising number of notebook computers that, you guessed it, don't offer expandability. Yet, they think the eMac and iMac should somehow be an exception to these rules. It doesn't really make sense for Apple to redesign and bloat the size of the eMac and iMac to allow for extra cards for a tiny number of people in an already tiny market share. If you want expandability, get a tower.
Originally posted by Brad
That doesn't matter. The iMac and eMac still won't take it. On top of that, most PC video cards will not work in Macs. Remember: on the hardware level, Macs and PCs are very different. Different CPUs, different motherboards, different instruction sets. Sometimes you can find ATI and nVidia cards that can flash the ROM to work, but it's not a foolproof procedure.
For all intents and purposes, you should consider the eMac and iMac to be like "desktop notebooks" (yes, it may sound strange). Like notebooks, they are all-in-one (commonly called AIO) computers. Like notebooks, very little in them is upgradeable. Like notebooks, the video card is not replaceable.
An aside: a lot of people whine about the lack of expandability in these regards about the iMac and eMac. What they tend to forget, though, is that the vast majority of consumers never touch their video cards, etc. Also, they tend to ignore the rising number of notebook computers that, you guessed it, don't offer expandability. Yet, they think the eMac and iMac should somehow be an exception to these rules. It doesn't really make sense for Apple to redesign and bloat the size of the eMac and iMac to allow for extra cards for a tiny number of people in an already tiny market share. If you want expandability, get a tower.
Yeah but macintoshs are working with
NVIDIA remmber? old g4's came with Nvidia geforce fx 5200 i got Nvidia geforce fx 5600 256 mb
Originally posted by hack4ev3r
Yeah but macintoshs are working with
NVIDIA remmber? old g4's came with Nvidia geforce fx 5200 i got Nvidia geforce fx 5600 256 mb
Which part don't you understand? That you can't replace the cards in some machines or that they need special Mac-version cards? It doesn't matter that ATI and nVidia have made cards for Macs in the past. If you have a video card from a PC, it simply will not work out of the box in a Mac without some modifications.
Some cards can be flashed, but this does not work with everything. Here is a page with video card flashing instructions, but you will see that there are risks involved and that flashing the GeForce 4 series is completely unsupported.
Originally posted by hack4ev3r
say if i get a ibook can i plug it on a pc monitor? or a-tv monitor or a apple DVI monitor??
You know, you'd find a lot of these answers if you actually read Apple's web site yourself.
Yes, the iBook's display can be mirrored via VGA to another monitor or via S-video/composite to TV. From the right sidebar on http://www.apple.com/ibook/graphics.html:
VGA video output
The iBook G4 is also equipped with VGA video output to mirror your work to an external display or projection device. Just connect your external display or projector to the Video output port using the included Apple VGA Display Adapter, and you?re up and running.
S-Video and composite video output
Displaying your multimedia projects on a big-screen TV is easy. Simply connect your TV to the Video output port via the optional Apple Video Adapter, and you?re on television.