Mac G4 Power PC present given to Mac Novice

markst33

Hi there. My friend (who is not a techie by any stretch of the imagination) was given a Power PC. G4 by a friend of hers as they are upgrading. This is the one http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_1.25_20_fp.html

I said that I would do some research for her on it.

Firstly is it user upgradeable. She is a keen photographer and would be looking to run Photoshop on it which is RAM hungry. This model only has 256mgs of RAM so is it possible to put in at least 2gigs of RAM ?

If it is possible to upgrade the RAM, what type am I looking for ?

Secondly the o/s on it is System version Mac OS X 10.2.8 (6r73). Is there a max to the type of OSX which can be put on it. I use a 21.5" iMac which has Snow Leopard on it (10.6.8). So I am familiar with this o/s. Can hers be upgraded to this or is there a limit ?

These are my questions for now so thanks in advance. I am sure I will have some more later.

AlmightyCushion

All the information you need is on the page that you link to. It officially supports 1GB ram but unofficially it can work with 2GBs. The memory it takes is 333 MHz PC2700 DDR SDRAM and it supports up to OSX 10.5.8 which is Leopard. I got all that information from reading the page you linked to.

To be honest it really isn't worth upgrading it in my opinion. It's over 10 years old and even with a memory upgrade the processor is poor so it'll still be quite slow. You could get a computer for a couple of hundred quid second hand that would smoke this thing.

yoyo

Moved from Comp & Tech.

markst33

Why is this moved from Comp & Tech. Thats what it is

yoyo

markst33 wrote: »

Why is this moved from Comp & Tech. Thats what it is

The Mac forum is better suited to Mac related queries. It has been debated in the past however you will likely get a better answer to your Mac related queries here. If you would like it moved back to C&T for whatever reason contact this forums Mod who I'm sure will be able to help

Nick

Dardania

For image editing etc. your friend will be able to use this mac fine, if they use software of the time... for everything else, they should be prepared for it to be slow - e.g. modern websites a much more CPU hungry than the likely processor in that machine.

I say this as someone with a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini with 1 gig RAM - lovely machine, but not up to modern jobs. Still runs iTunes fine for syncing with a Shuffle I have.

If you do go for upgrading it, check out crucial.com (or .eu I think also) for the RAM, and this is a PowerPC, right up to date browser based on firefox: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

5uspect

Dardania wrote: »

For image editing etc. your friend will be able to use this mac fine, if they use software of the time... for everything else, they should be prepared for it to be slow - e.g. modern websites a much more CPU hungry than the likely processor in that machine.

I say this as someone with a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini with 1 gig RAM - lovely machine, but not up to modern jobs. Still runs iTunes fine for syncing with a Shuffle I have.

If you do go for upgrading it, check out crucial.com (or .eu I think also) for the RAM, and this is a PowerPC, right up to date browser based on firefox: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

I doubt the last Power PC version of Photoshop, CS2 - which Adobe have made freely available at least, supports RAW files from current cameras. Also its going to be very slow even if it does or you can get a DNG converter.

If all she wanted was a machine for email and web browsing it might do but it won't be a good modern photography machine. The demands of digital photography have also grown with Moore's Law.

My 2010 13" MBP with a Core2Duo and 8 gigs of RAM can handle RAW files from my 5D3 without hassle but it's not particularly quick saving them.

beauf

I doubt it would even that useful web browsing. Modern websites are pretty demanding.