11-22-2006, 07:11 AM

New to Macs, and learning, so please forgive the rediculous question.

What G4 spec would I need to work general graphics packages (photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign etc) at a similar speed to the following PC:

Intel P4 2.53Ghz
120GB Maxtor 7200
512 RAM – DDR 333mhz
AGP 128 MB ATI RAEON Video Card

I know that spec alone doesn’t really mean much but I want to get a Mac and the PC I use at work (above spec) for these applications is my only benchmark for speed.

I did intend to get a new imac, but funds have gone awry and a secondhand G4 is now my only option. There seem to be plenty about on eBay for £100 - £300 which seems like a bargain, but would say a 400Mhz G4 be any good?
I will of course update any hard drive as necessary, and expect to have to add stuff like a DVD drive eventually, but just wanted experienced opinion about what to look for & avoid G4 model wise - there seem to be so many different models??.
Should I also be looking at specific operating software (OSX10?), especially considering I’d like to run Adobe CS (I have a copy). I’d also like to eventually use the Mac for music production so would need a machine capable of expansion to accommodate that - oh, and broadband, but I assume they're all capable in that dept.
Any other advice re upgrades, expandability, or probably more relevant, the restrictions of some models, would be welcome.
Budget as I say would be £300 ($550) max.

Cheers

11-22-2006, 07:47 AM

Dual processor model MDD should be close. Something like this one.

11-22-2006, 02:03 PM

pickup like a 2001 quicksilver and then find an upgrade processor card. memory is cheap and maxed out at 1.5 gig, and any size hard drive will fit cause it has plenty of room for extra hard drives... run os 10.3.9 at bare minimal cause most programs dont work with anything lower (jaguar sucks). basically im running that setup and im ugrading to a 1.2 duet processor upgrade and im sure that thing is goin to fly when it gets here. pc's are slow and eat ram where the dual processor will actually turn on when it needs the second one and the ram is more focused tward the program and not the operating system. that is why im goin that direction.

11-23-2006, 10:51 AM

So it looks like I should be going Dual processor,
but could I upgrade a 1.25GHz Single Processor to Dual?
Thanks for your input so far guys.

12-01-2006, 11:18 PM

OSX will certainly run much faster with dual processors. The G4 MDD is a great rig; I had one at a time and later sold it. The only problem I had was that it ran hot as all get-up and it was rather loud. Other than that it's a very quick machine for the price. It ran OSX 10.4 fine and I was able to do a lot of work in Adobe CS2 without hinder...