iMac G3 processor upgrades

lotas

Right then. i have a G3 333Mhz iMac (revision D) with 288mb ram. just installed mac osx 10.2 and its not exactly the fastest thing on the face of the planet. that being said, it is quite fast and usable. now i found a place on the web (TechnoWarehouse) and they have imac g3 upgrade processors to make it a G4 466. the link is here and they looks quite cool, but my question is has anyone here tried this? it says it sutible for my imac, and speed tests show its about 2x the speed of my current 333. at $275 its not exaclty cheap (concidering i spent less on the imac its self) but they are offering a rebate on it if you send in your old core to them. do you think it is worth it? they have a 500Mhz G3 for 199. would that be better?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
PS: im guessing the G4 would be the better option since its got the Avitech thing, which is basicly like SSE (or is it?).
Thanks.

deevey

Probably better to hold onto your old card "just in case".

Panther doesnt like installing oon machines with upgrades,but ie somwhere if you install the OS with the old CPU and THEN upgrade theres no trouble, but you really need the old one handy.

The processor upgrade also gives you a faster Bus speed i think up to 133mhz

It depends if you really like the imac or not i guess, they are kinda funky machines Im thinking of doing the same with my powerbook G3 333 for $360 because its a nice machine.

Although maybe better off selling it and putting your upgrade cash towards an ibook or g4 tower which have come down in S/H price alot in recent times (800 will pick you up a g4 500 tower with plenty of ram mintor & extras if you look round) if its speed you are after ?

Theres a few other places to check out, try powerlogix.com they also do upgrade cards and may be cheaper direct. There are the sonnet chips too that some places stock, and i think theres a 1ghz G4 upgrade for that model imac too if you look around.

Laters

Steve

RicardoSmith

I also reckon selling the iMac and going for a 2nd hand G4 would be a better route.

lotas

only problem with this selling the imac and going the second hand route, is i probably wont get what i paid for the imac. i sped 110 on it its self, 70 on a new cdrom drive and another 90 on ram. i dont know really. the imac is a sweet machine to use, and i know i could get one of the towers or something, but havent decided yet. but heres a question. anyone know anything about this Emac 2? i heard about it before. looks like a nice machine, if its real. dual 733Mhz G4 for 599! that may be on the cards inseted!

RicardoSmith

If you are in the States then you'll have a lot more options. It will probably be about $2000 in Irish money here. At least.

deevey

Dual G4 emac for 600 yoyo's seems a little far fetched to be honest. more like 800'ish once you VAT and Irish Markup to the price - And probably will be the single 733mhz model thats selling for 1000 odd euro now.

If theres a new model planned then they'll do what they did when the ibook G4 series came out and reduce the price by 200 for the old models.

It really wouldn't be in their interest to compete with the new Imac would it by sticking a dual G4 in a cheaper machine would it?

Single G4 733 seems a bit more realistic at this price and mac have never been known to be "That" cheap for any of their range.

lotas

well, the reason apple are releasing the emac 2, if they are, will be to aim at dell, not them selfs. the imac is now heigher then the emac in rank. a dual emac would be aimed at college students, etc. i know it would be about 800 euro after adding vat and stuff, but im not too sure. it will be nice to see if its released. some how i dont think the markup on the irish emac would make it 2 grand though!

lotas

i was just looking at the current emac and its got a 1gz processor, 40gb hdd, cdrom drive, 128mb ram and a Radeon 7500. the reason the guy in the article that i quoted is saying that apple are releasing the dual emac is price. they say that the 733G4 is cheaper then a 1Gz G4. not sure how right that is when it comes to apple chips, but in theory it may be correct (look at the price of a P4 1.8Gz and a 3.2Gz P4. the 3.2 is a good 3x the price, if you can get your hands on a 1.8Gz!). they also say its easer to cool 2 733mhz processors then it is too cool the 1gz. the weird part about it is the high end machine quoted. it will be a dual 1.25Gz. now, as far as im aware, this would be a beast of a machine at the price quoted. Also, when your talking about price and saying ireland is more expencive, your slightly wrong. www.compub.com have an emac for 699 (1gz, 40gb hdd, basicly the same as the one above) and apple say its starts at 799. not sure if theres vat, but it looks good.

deevey

Where did you get your prices

Direct From Apple ireland - which seems to have em cheapest

899.01
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD/CD-RW drive
ATI Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem

Just checked compustore, same price.

And This has only been reduced recently on the apple site. Typetec still have 1ghz models listed for 1200 inc vat.

It wil be at least another 6 months I imagine before we see a dual model and more reductions.

Going on apples prices for anything dual in recent times I'm still going to be very suprised if they get out a cheap dual emac for less than 899.

Although just maybe they have a ton of surplus G4 733 chips lying around...but the dual boards cannot be cheap and its still a faster machine and so more expensive. Im guessing around the 1000-1200 mark inc vat.

In saying that 899 for an emac at the mo seems like a really really low price and that is Inc vat. .. maybe i'll get one for myself. I know that even running Video and music progs was possible in virtual PC, on a g4 500 tower a few years back. (reason, acid, Arkaos) and It'd be nice to have a desktop mac too.

Oh and monitor spanning works on em yay

Only thing i dont relly like is the the 133 sytem bus - hrm

Laters

Steve

RicardoSmith

The spec seems pretty poor compared to what a PC would get you. The 7500 card is old, 128mb ram very low.

lotas

www.compub.com has then at that price. there an irish company. looks pretty cool. and as for the matter of specs, i know 128mb ram isent a lot, but AFAIK its standard PC133 memory that goes into the emac. jan 6th is the big apple conferance in san francisco. im not putting money on the upgrade then, but im hoping and praying to all the computer gods (mainly jobs!) to release this. it would be sweet. i think the compub price includes vat. notting on their site to say it doesent!

deevey

Compu B is Ex -VAT I just called em, thought the price was too good to be true

Same price as 850 with CD rom, apple lists 899 with a combo drive.

other option is the new G4 ibook for 300 euro extra, faster bus speed, 128 megs more ram, CD-RW, external Vga adaptor, Radeon 7500 32 meg graphics too - and they are so... so... cute

Steve

lotas

ARSE! and me thinking i was getting a good deal. maybe ill go for the one with the combo drive. hmmmmmm. i will see.

lotas

right. so i decided the upgrade to to the imac was the better (and cheaper) option for me, but im still not sure abvout something. do i go for the 466mhz G4 or the 500/600Mhz G3? ill be running OSX 10.3 and will add extra ram, so would a g4 be faster then the g3 cause of the avitech? or what ever its called?

deevey

I'd go for the G4 - the enhancements mostly seem to be G4 based, and the likes of pro apps like Final Cut pro, will not install on a G3, and im sure alot of newer apps will be the same in coming months because of the "phasing out" of the g3 range.

Be Wary though you will need to install 10.3 with th g3 chip as installing with processor upgrade cards doesnt work so dont trade the old one in - not to mention if somthing does go wrong you could be waiting a month or more for a replacement.

G4 Imac sounds good though espessially considering what you bought it for originally.

now all you need to do is throw a 120 gig hard drive in and a DVD-RW and you have quite a tasty looking - and performing Imac

Have fun and christmas greetings

Steve

lotas

well, the processor is actually compatable with OSX 10.3 so im grand there. as for the 120gb hdd and the DVDR drive, im thinking more along the lines of a 80gb hdd and cdr drive, since im quite broke! my workstation has a DVDR drive, so that does the job!
Thanks for the advice though.
Happy crimbo!

Hugh_C

Originally posted by lotas
Right then. i have a G3 333Mhz iMac (revision D) with 288mb ram. just installed mac osx 10.2 and its not exactly the fastest thing on the face of the planet.

Dunno whether it's too late, but I would be wary of spending your cash on an upgrade. That machine must be fairly old at this stage, and you could run the risk of other hardware failures at this stage of its life (like the tube), leaving you with an expensive upgrade card with a broken machine. Also, I think you might be a bit disappointed with the performance of the upgrade card. You should save your money and look at one of the G4 iBooks or something affordable.

Does the upgrade gove you firewire?

h

lotas

unfortunitly the upgrade does not give firewire. the only company who had upgrades for the imac with firewire went tits up and where only offering G3s at up to 600Mhz. as for the idea of the tube dieing, i found a way to get an imac into a standard ATX Case and use a standard monitor for it. the info about it is here . so even if that does die, i still have a machine. anyway with the way things are looking for my finances even the most affordable mac is still out of my reach