[G4] New to the list, have a question!

[kristen]

On Mon, 2012-03-05 at 17:40 -0800, Donald Anderson wrote:
> Hello Everyone!
> I have the following machine:
> Hardware Overview:
> 
>   Machine Name:    Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics)
>   Machine Model:    PowerMac3,1
>   CPU Type:    PowerPC G4  (11.3)
>   Number Of CPUs:    1
>   CPU Speed:    600 MHz
>   L2 Cache (per CPU):    1 MB
>   Memory:    1 GB
>   Bus Speed:    100 MHz
>   Boot ROM Version:    4.2.8f1
> 
> My understanding is that the 600Mhz cpu was an upgrade done by the previous
> owner.
> 
> I¹m wondering how fast can I actually make this machine?  What cpu upgrades
> are available and worth the money for this once super powerful computer....
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Donald M. Anderson
> 
> _______________________________________________

Welcome to the list Donald,

There are some upgrades you can preform to increase the functionality of
your computer. I list some ideas for you below.

	Get that slow processor replaced. You will find used processors on ebay
if you chose to go that route (I did). I see that Harry has offered you
his 1.2 Ghz processor so that might be a great way to go. Harry is no
fool when it comes to these computers.

	Next best upgrade is the hard drive. Forget that old ATA/66 bus and
step up to a SATA drive. You must also add an SATA controller which goes
in one of the PCI slots. Using a single SATA drive out preforms dual
ATA/100 drives connected in RAID 0, on an RAID controller card. This was
not software RAID but hardware RAID. Either method just listed beats the
ATA/66 single drive which is standard in your computer. I think this
upgrade as a must do for performance

	Not to be neglected because this is also very important, especially if
your using a large monitor or want to render some video. But pick up a
good video card. There are still a lot of AGP 2x 128M cards to be found
on ebay. Finding a 256M card is pretty difficult but well worth having
and looking for I think.

	Last thought of course is to get memory up to max, which for your PPC
is 1.5GB. I don't think it's quite so important as I hardly ever see OS
X use over a Gig on my box, and never with Linux. Although when I'm
using Aperture 2 or iPhoto it will. I have 1.5G of ram.

	Your last question is if any of this is worth it? The economic answer
is no. The PPC era is a dead computing era. Would I do these upgrades?
Yes and I have! My PPC runs Leopard and Debian Linux on a 100MHz bus
very nicely. It will not preform as fast as my MacBook with it's dual
processors on an 800Mhz bus. Also, that laptop has a 7500RPM Hybrid
drive and 4G of ram so I don't expect the PPC to be as fast. As a
comparison they both load OS X just about as fast but the PPC takes
roughly twice as long to open a small app as the MacBook. TenFourFox on
this PPC takes about 5 seconds to open while on the MacBook Firefox
opens in about 1 second. When viewing a video over the Internet the PPC
will display the video choppy but the sound is right on. The MacBook
displays the same video very nicely. While the PPC struggles a bit with
photo's and is slow to make changes. The MacBook displays and edits with
no difficulty. But it will get hot in the process. Those are some
comparisons you might wish to make a judgment from. I haven't ever
bench-marked either machine

	I upgraded this PPC because I didn't want to throw it in a trash can
and it wasn't worth selling. I doubt if I tried to sell this box I could
even get half of what I have put into it. If I include the price I paid
for the PPC about 6 years back, I have invested $820 to date. But I
really enjoy using it and it runs all those horrible Rosetta programs
Apple dropped. It's also my only computer running Linux native other
then my server. If I need modern computing and often enough I do, then I
use another computer.

Kristen


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