[G4] upgrade or buy new mac?

[Eric Smith]

This is a list for people who use G4 systems. Consider us Luddites if
you wish but I for one have no need of a $3000 8-core speed demon for the
things I do. Plus I've done a lot of work with Classic apps over the years,
so I appreciate the ability to use Classic mode if I need it.

I recently upgraded my Power Mac G4 (Sawtooth) to make it Leopard-capable.
I didn't think it was particularly slow for tasks like email or web
browsing previously, but after adding RAM (up to 1.3 GB from 320 MB),
upgrading the CPU (only to a single 1.0 GHz) and adding a SATA drive,
it is noticeably snappier now.

According to lowendmac.com, people have reported that the performance
of Leopard on G4 systems is comparable to Tiger and I would agree with
that in my case. And according to at least one report there, everything
in Leopard works fine with an ATI Radeon 9200. Upgrading from the 500 GHz
CPU probably would be desirable, but Leopard could still be installed
with the workaround described here:
http://www.lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html

Eric

Kunga wrote:
> Buy a base 8 core Penryn Mac Pro. Under $3k mail order. Will Blow Your 
> Mind.
> 
> I can tell this thread is for luddites only. But the new 8 core Mac Pro 
> is worth it. Everything else is history including the MacBook you just 
> bought your wife.
> 
> On Jan 30, 2008, at 12:31 PM, Brad Russell wrote:
> 
>> Just bought my wife a new Macbook so of course we are now feeling the 
>> need to upgrade or replace the desktop.
>>
>> Right now I have a DP500 with 2 gigs of ram an ATI 9200 video card 
>> pushing to 20" LCDs and it is running Tiger.  What I would like is a 
>> machine that doesn't seem quite so sluggish while scrolling through my 
>> e-mail,  run the latest iphoto  and office.  I would be nice to run 
>> Leopard (is it required for the new iphoto?)  I've thought about a 
>> mini but I want to keep the dual monitors.  So do I try a processor 
>> and video card upgrade? ( I need a new video card in the DP450 in the 
>> basement so it could take the 9200) or do a go with a whole new box?  
>> Of course I'd like to keep things a cheap as possible but I'm not sure 
>> if I'd be better continuing to soup up the old girl or go for 
>> something with a faster bus.
>>
>> Any advice would be greatly appreciated