looking at buying a Mac for graphic design

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Hey I am looking for some input. I havent used a Mac since about 2000 and when I did the hot thing was a G4 using dual 500meg processors. I currently run a PC with a p3 1.6gHz processor and 512 megs of ram and I am WAY overdue on upgrading. Here is what I am looking at:

Apple PowerMac G4 MDD Dual 1.25 processors 80GB HDD 2GB RAM

I have found them for about $200-350 online used. I know they were a great computer back in 2002/2003 but is it still worth it? I use my computer for graphic design and some video editing and some web design. How would this computer stack up to a PC?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Phenom X3 720, Radeon 4870 1GB, 6GB DDR2-800, 32" LCD TV
That seems a bit high for a computer that old. At least it comes with a lot of RAM. It'll probably be able to handle even OS X 10.5 fairly well (and it'll run 10.4 perfectly), but I'd generally keep away from G4s if I were you. Maybe look for a used G5 or something.

The other thing is, remember that you'll have to get Mac versions of all the software you use. Just make sure you figure that into the cost of upgrading.
 
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right i can get all the software thats not the issue. why would you stay away from a G4? why wouldnt it be able to run OSX 10.5? Isnt that the latest OS?
 
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2019 iMac 27"; 2020 M1 MacBook Air; macOS up-to-date... always.
right i can get all the software thats not the issue. why would you stay away from a G4? why wouldnt it be able to run OSX 10.5? Isnt that the latest OS?

The G4 you are looking at does meet the minimum requirements for running 10.5, though it likely will perform much better with 10.4. I would stay away from the G4 though for the simple reason that Apple has moved on from the PowerPC platform. The next version of Apple's OS, Snow Leopard, is likely to be Intel-only and is supposedly shaping up to be a significantly tweaked and leaner version of OS X. At that point, you can forget ever getting new software to run on the G4 because everyone will be moving on to support 10.6.

On the other hand, if your budget is that severely limited that you really can only spend a couple hundred dollars for a replacement computer, then you'll have to settle for what you can get.
 

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