Beige G3 Upgrade?

Francis Mariani · Jun 26th, 2003, 04:41 PM

Hi,

I'm a new member.

I have a G3 MiniTower (beige). I've got lots of memory and am running OS X 10.2 with no problems other than speed.

I'd like to get some feedback from people that have upgraded to a G4 chip - which board did you choose, was it easy, does it really make things faster - particularly PhotoShop and iTunes.

Thanks in advance,

Francis

Trevor... · Jun 26th, 2003, 06:16 PM

I would avoid upgrading a Beige G3 to a G4 if you are using Mac OS X.

PowerLogix has a nice 800mhz G3 upgrade though,

Rob · Jun 26th, 2003, 07:22 PM

I've upgraded two beige boxes to G4's. One to G4 350 and the other to G4 400 Mhz.

For some reason it is very difficult to install OSX on these machines once the G4 zif is installed. It was also difficult to switch startup disk from OS 9 to OSX. I got around this by using XPost facto, but I can't explain why this should be necessary. If you don't switch back and forth between OS9 and X then this shouldn't be an ongoing problem.

The speed increase was underwhelming. The built in video on the Beige just won't cut it in OSX. The slow IDE controller is also a bottleneck.

I gave one to my father. He likes the OSX interface but he only uses it to browse the web and send email, so the slow speed doesn't bother him. I have the other machine set up as my OSX test box, but I rarely use it since I find it unbearably slow.

The beige boxes are great in OS9 but just won't cut it in X unless you have low expectations. The G4 upgrade doesn't help as much since the rest of the hardware is limiting the improvement.

If you really want to use X then I would wait till the G4's at 800 Mhz or higher drop to a reasonable price on the used market. You may not have to wait long since the new G5's will put downward pressure on the used G4 market.

Francis Mariani · Jun 27th, 2003, 10:40 AM

Rob, Trevor,

Thanks for your input.

I have had OS X on my G3 for a few months and besides it being slow I can't complain.

What is so different about upgrading to G4?

I've installed USB and Firewire cards to the G3. Will I have trouble with them when upgrading to G4?

Do you think upgrading to G3 800 is worthwhile? I'd like to see speed increases in PhotoShop 7.

Thanks a lot,

Francis

Klaatu · Jun 27th, 2003, 11:18 AM

My beige G3 333 is upgraded to a G4 500 from Sonnet, and running Jaguar. I had no problems with it. Except when I installed Sonnet's "Tune-Up" software. When I did that I had a lot of screw-ups. I finally ended up reinstalling OS 9 and Jaguar -- no tune-up -- and everything was fine again.

I got the G4 upgrade primarily for software that would be enhanced by it. For your purposes I would go with a G3 upgrade. You'll likely get more speed for less money.

You still have a lot of life left in that machine. If you're primarily using Photoshop and iTunes, you should be fine.

MasterBlaster · Jun 27th, 2003, 11:28 AM

a

Klaatu · Jun 27th, 2003, 11:34 AM

Good suggestions... but that's a lot of upgrading to do at once if you're on a tight budget. How much are you looking to spend? As little as possible

Francis Mariani · Jun 27th, 2003, 12:19 PM

Klaatu,

This may be a stupid question, but what does the G4 upgrade do for you? Do you use your Mac for Video editing?

I was considering a video card upgrade. I have an external firewire 80gig hard drive and a firewire CD burner so I don't need to upgrade the bus.

Thanks for all the ideas.

Francis

monokitty · Jun 27th, 2003, 12:26 PM

The G4 processor enchacnes the overall performance of Mac OS X, but certian applications, which take advantage of the G4 Velocity Engine, such as Photoshop 7, get great speed boosts from the G4 processor. Keep that in mind.

MasterBlaster · Jun 27th, 2003, 12:41 PM

a