12-13-2004, 08:06 PM

I was thinking about buying a refurbished G3 400 powermac from OWC to get my feet wet with Mac. Has anyone had any experiance with thier refubs? Also, I know with panther they removed support for the beige G3's and Wallstreet PB. Is the update life on the blue and whites comeing to an end?

12-13-2004, 10:24 PM

Maybe you should go to an apple store and see it for your self. If your convinced then just buy a good machine. If you have the money...

12-13-2004, 10:27 PM

I think you can still get some use out of a blue and white. Panther requires a G3 with at least 128mb ram. The blue and white supports 1024mb of ram so you can pump it up enough for it to run smoothly

12-13-2004, 10:52 PM

Oh I've been to the Apple stores...they tend to frown on people installing apps or messing around with system files. And believe me, if I had the cash to blow on a new G5 powermac I'd be all over that. But until then, I don't really have a choice. I don't do video, picture, or sound editing, or really anything resource intensive, so an old machine is not a problem. However if tiger is going to ship with a "no longer supports G3 powermac's codename "yikes" or G3 powerbooks codename "lombard"" then I'll at least go for an old sawtooth.

I do think though, and correct me if I'm wrong, that cutting off support for the blue and whites would also mean cutting off support for the G3 iMac's? So it is safe in that regard.

Plus, there are always processor upgrade cards, PCI Radeon graphics cards, the expandable ram (I've read it can go to 1.5 gigs)...plenty to keep me busy.

12-13-2004, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Jdurr

Oh I've been to the Apple stores...they tend to frown on people installing apps or messing around with system files.

I think all stores frown on it.....Why would you be installing apps and messing with system files to begin with?

Originally Posted by Jdurr

I do think though, and correct me if I'm wrong, that cutting off support for the blue and whites would also mean cutting off support for the G3 iMac's? So it is safe in that regard.

Tought to tell what they won't support. The iMac Bondi Blue (original) which supports the latest OS X updates is actually more powerful than the Beige G3 which supports 10.2

I doubt tiger will run well on a G3 (If it runs at all) with their low FSB, processor speeds and memory speeds.

12-13-2004, 11:02 PM

I just took a look around and although apple has not released official system requirements the requirements on the developers version are the same as panther

G3,G4,G5
128 mb ram

12-14-2004, 07:58 PM

Well, heres my story: i just bought a B&W on ebay for $50, it had 128MB RAM and a 300MHz processor, this was my first venture into the mac world too. i had some other memory from an old gateway i had and i poped it in (412MB now) and it runs panther great! i am planing on getting a Sonnett 1.0 GHz G4 processor for it and a gig of RAM very soon (a gig of RAM (4x256) is about $100) and i can get the CPU for $350 a newegg.com
so i'd say go for a Blue and white... even if you don't wanna spen the $$ for a 1.0 GHz, at least get a 500MHz G4, there only about $150

12-14-2004, 11:28 PM

try this: http://www.dvwarehouse.com/product_i...oducts_id/1975, or maybe a g3 imac would be something to look into, you can get a good one for around $200