Can a G4 PPC be upgraded to Intel ?

Please bare with me I'm not overly versed in Mac's. I have a G4 PPC running OS X 10.4.11 (tiger) what is the maximum I can do with it? Could a new mother board and processor be installed or are they just completely different worlds? I may use the wrong terms, I come from a PC background and have only been in Mac since 04'. I've never had to bother with it, so I havent learned all the ins and outs.

Chip

No, it can't make a PPC machine an Intel one.

In order to know the "maximum" of what you can do with a particular machine, we'll need to know all of the details on the machine before we can advise any further.

D3v1L80Y said:

No, it can't make a PPC machine an Intel one.

In order to know the "maximum" of what you can do with a particular machine, we'll need to know all of the details on the machine before we can advise any further.

Click to expand...

G4 PPC (10.4.11 Tiger)
Dual 1.25 Ghz (1 MB L3 cache per processor)
2 GB DDR SDRAM

80 GB HD

The Hardware Overview:


Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.6.0f1
Serial Number: XB31807EN1X

Hope this helps. I'm in the middle of adding a 500 GB reboot-able backup, external firewire drive.(just waiting on it to ship).

You can add/upgrade some HDDs and upgrade the OS to 10.5.x and that's about it.

D3v1L80Y said:

You can add/upgrade some HDDs and upgrade the OS to 10.5.x and that's about it.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I followed the link you gave, but no where could i find on apples site where I could download or purchase 10.5 . Any ideas on the best place to get OS X 10.5 ?

You will have to get it from a third-party reseller.
Apple has released OS X 10.6 which means they will no longer sell the older versions.

D3v1L80Y said:

You will have to get it from a third-party reseller.
Apple has released OS X 10.6 which means they will no longer sell the older versions.

Click to expand...

I apologize for my ignorance, but when you say 3rd party reseller, would that be like Amazon or Ebay? Any suggestions?

I went on Ebay and found several that refer to themselves as being "Full Install" Retail version. Would i be able to use a Full install or upgrade only?

Can I go 10.5.6 ? I'm looking at bids on Ebay now...

You do need the full retail install DVD of Leopard (black disc) and it is far better to do a clean install rather than the upgrade. Yopu can then update to OS X.5.8, the latest update.

You could get an upgrade disk or a full retail, both would work.

Any version of 10.5 you buy can be upgraded to the latest version using the updates from Apple's site, so any version of Leopard could be upgraded to 10.5.8 for free

One last thing, I found one that has never been registered. Could this be an issue if I bought one that was previously registered? I don't want any legal problems, I just want to upgrade as much as I possibly can(legally)....

I have that very machine - I've upgraded the RAM and HDs and stopped at Tiger.

There is another expensive option of upgrading the processor to 1.8 PPC but no Intel path.
Sonnet Encore/ST G4 - Motorola PowerPC G4 1.8 GHz Processor upgrade

No as Apple does not require registration or activation.