Love my PowerMac, but....

Hello all, I am new here.

I have been a Mac user for about 8 years. I have had several G4 and G5 desktops, ending up keeping a PowerMac G4 dual 1.25Ghz machine. I even tried a 2GHz G4 iMac to replace it and found the G4 better. So now I have a machine from 2003, Apple moving to Intel and most applications that I care about going to Intel-based OSX with them. I basically do photography post-processing, video processing and editting, burning CD and DVDs, and general office applications. I also have a Vista laptop with a T7500 dual core at 2.2ghz, which has Photoshop CS4 and the version of my CS1 on the Mac just outperforms it. The laptop has 2 GB and the Mac has 1GB....go figure.

So pointers on current software, upgrade hardware (faster drives, more memory, upgrade video boards, etc.) Is it worth it or should I look for an older Intel PowerMac?

Thanks!

Take a look at the mac pros. They are outstanding machines for editing and things like that. What is your budget? I don't think it is worth it to upgrade anything on your machine as it is pretty old and the upgrades won't make to much of a difference

Mac Pros are awesome machines, but if beyond budget, consider a G5 tower, although it's still PPC.

If the software you want to use is aimed at Intel, then consider an iMac. The first Intel ones came out over 3 years ago, so their resale price will have dropped considerably, especially with the headlong rush to the new iMacs.

A 20" screen should be sufficient for your video editing, but if not, then consider investing in a large flat panel external monitor.

But back to your G4 - if it's the one with which you feel most comfortable, and it's doing the job(s) required of it, then upgrades can be achieved. Whilst you're limited to 1.25 GHz, that can't be changed, you can put multiple large ATA drives inside it, whack the memory up to 2 Gb, and put in a USB2 PCI card. I think too that the graphics card can be upgraded. Accelerate Your Mac is a good site to use as reference.