[G4] Help! G4 price comparisons

[Vernon LeMoignan]

> I submitted this question yesterday, but it either hasn't appeared or 
> I'm insane...
>
> I recall someone here starting a thread about buying a G4 now the G5 
> is about due...and there was some mention of being careful---because 
> all G4's are not created equal, and one needs to make sure it's the 
> best equipped for the money...
>
> I didn't read the thread---so naturally now need it! Don't see an 
> archive in the URLs below, and would like personal answers more 
> anyway---I'm bad at searching!
>
> She wants the most for her money--so what does she need to look out 
> for? She doesn't necessarily need the absolute most powerful...she 
> needs a machine that will hold up when viewing a large number of 
> graphics, especially virtual tours,  as she's in real estate.
>
> With all the G4 sales going on-----what does she need and what should 
> she spend her money on? She doesn't need to CREATE graphics----just to 
> see a lot through surfing...and she is a Mac lover.
>
> How can she watch out for herself from spending too much for stuff she 
> doesn't need? The SALES are confusing us!
>
> I LOVE OS X, but don't know a lot like I used to know on the earlier 
> OS's....it's like being a newbie again!
>
> Thanks,
> Paula
>


Sounds to me like any of the G4 powermacs would do, even an imac or 
emac.

Any 1 Ghz G4 mac with 512MB of RAM should be ok.  Get as much RAM as you
can reasonably afford.

If the virtual tours are being viewed over the internet on a web 
browser, I don't think
faster or dual processors would make much difference.


There are two G4 tower lines out there right now.

	 The first has Firewire 800 and comes with a single 1Ghz, a dual 
1.25GHz, or
  a dual 1.42GHz G4 processors. These ones will not Boot OS 9,  only OS 
X. They will run
  OS 9 programs in classic mode.

	The second line does not have firewire 800, comes with either single 
or Dual 1.25 Ghz G4's
and will boot OS 9. these are the machines currently available on-line 
at the Apple store. These models
  have 2MB of L3 cache as opposed to the 1MB on the machines with 
firewire 800. Depending on who
  you talk to on the list and what benchmarks you reference and how you 
interpret those benchmarks, the
L3 cache may or may not make a difference depending on what programs 
your using. It's not likely that
you would see any, given your application.

Key factors are:

-do you need to Boot OS 9?
-do you want firewire 800?(built in)
-do you want a Superdrive or combo drive?


Hope this helps,


Vern.