Just picked up a beige G3 mini-tower, Worth the upgrade?

A

Artluo100

Limp Gawd
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Feb 16, 2005
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A friend just gave me his old G3 beige mini-tower. The specs are 266mhz, Personality Card with composite and s-video ports and 128 mb ram. Is this machine worth the upgrade? Such as the CPU ( http://cgi.ebay.com/SONNET-Encore-Z...goryZ171QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem ) and the video card ( http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/FeedBack/CustRatingReview.asp?Item=N82E16814102403 ) I have 3 256mb pc133 ram so I don't need to buy that. I'm also looking to put in an IDE controller so I can put a 120gb hardrive into this machine. Is this all worth it? I'm looking to work with iMovie, and some other video editing, listen to music, IM, and internet.
 
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iLife ’05 System Requirements

* Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3 (400MHz or faster), G4, or G5 processor
o 600MHz G3 or faster required for GarageBand
o G4 or G5 required for GarageBand software instruments and advanced photo editing in iPhoto 5
o 733MHz G4 or faster required for iDVD
o 1GHz G4 or faster required to use HD features of iMovie HD
* 256MB of physical RAM (512MB recommended)
o 512MB RAM required to use HD features of iMovie HD
* Mac OS X v10.3.4 or later
o Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later required to use HD features of iMovie HD
o Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later required to work with RAW photos (iPhoto 5)

* Display with at least 1024 x 768 pixel resolution
* QuickTime 6.5.2 (included)
* DVD drive required to install GarageBand and iDVD
* Apple SuperDrive (or 733MHz G4 processor) required for iDVD
* RAW requires a supported RAW-compatible camera
* Compatible SuperDrive required to burn DVDs
* 4.3GB of disk space required to install GarageBand, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD; or 250MB to install iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie only
* iPhoto books and prints are available in the US, Canada, Japan, and select European countries
* Streaming music via AirTunes requires an AirPort Extreme Card, AirPort Express Base Station (sold separately), and iTunes 4.6 or later
* The iTunes Music Store is available only to persons above the age of 13 in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany, and select EU countries


that's a pretty old machine...a mini would be far and away faster, even a slightly older used mini.
 
So your looking at almost $500-$600 dollars there. And like said with a Mini, if you can find a used 1.25Ghz, you can overclock it to 1.42 or 1.5Ghz (its free and not very hard, especially 1.5Ghz). Then for $238 add an internal 2.5" 100Gb drive, or add a Mini specific external drive for about $150. Then for about $100 add a 1Gb memory stick. So your looking at about $700 total. Though the Mini is, well Mini you get a faster processor, more efficient system, very quite. The video card is the same as you posted though a smaller amount of memory (but the chipset itself is limiting). Some poeple claim some of the new Mini's actually have 64mb of memory as opposed to the advertised 32mb. You also get a DVD reader / CD Burner, which can be upgraded later to a DL DVD burner. Plus its a great conversation piece :cool:

But even out the door, its still going to be comparible to the modified G3.


If you'd like you can download Xbench and see how the G3 performs (if it has OSX on it). You can then look at my results here of a modified Mini. You could probably find other Xbench scores...maybe on Xler8yourmac or whatever its called of other systems similar to what you want. BTW, that was back in June that I did that, and the Mini has not hiccuped once after the overclock :cool:
 
One more thing, does that particular G3 support USB 2.0 and Firewire? Both are pretty important in my mind, Firewire is a very cool thing to have when you got a Mac.
 
There are probably PCI cards for Firewire and USB, but I suggest installing Linux (YellowDog, perhaps) on it and using it for low-end webserving, FTP, or something such. BitTorrent, perhaps... or just an IRC box. Hell, you could even keep the old Mac OS on it.
 
yah i have an 800mhz g4 tower, and i was looking at upgrades, and upgrading to dual ghz, + more ram, etc would cost as much or more than just buying a mini.
 
usualpulp said:
yah i have an 800mhz g4 tower, and i was looking at upgrades, and upgrading to dual ghz, + more ram, etc would cost as much or more than just buying a mini.
Click to expand...
It would perform much better than the mini, though.
 
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