Powermac G4

[emmab2k6]

Hey All , was wondering what Adopted my self a project , a Powermac G4 which has already been heavily upgraded , s

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Apple-PowerMac-G4-AG...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

thats it ,

 

plan to upgrade it abit more , 1.8 Processor , and a 9800 Pro with a bigger HDD ,

 

Any opinions or coments wud be welcome ..

[macgirl]

What's a 9800 pro? (Graphics card?)

[Guest cavallo]

one of the best ever produced

[hackintom]

Save your bucks, don't buy that {censored}...

[coolied]

one of the best ever produced

 

Yup. The 9800 Pro was based on the ATI R350 architecture; and was basically a refresh of ATI's 9500/9700 series which were based on the R300. The 9800 Pro had 8 pixel pipelines, a 256-bit memory bus, and ran at a GPU clock of 380MHz and a DDR memory speed of 340MHz (680MHz). It was a DirectX 9 card in hardware. (on Windows machines, for which is was designed)

 

Some people would tend to disagree on the 'best card ever produced' thing though, as CERTAIN 9500 Non-pro cards were basically 9700s with the pixel pipelines and memory bus halved (but still physically there in the hardware). There is a mod that can be done that changes these cards from a 4 pipeline, 128-bit card into a full 8 pipeline, 256-bit 9700. You know if the mod will work at all if your 9500 looks just like a 9700, otherwise it's not even worth trying. (The 9700 was basically the first high-end serious DX9 gaming card, the nVidia rival at the time, the 5800, was a joke comparatively). The only bad thing was, sometimes the chips were half-disabled because the other half didn't work right, not just because they needed a 9500NP chip.

 

But in terms of overall value, i'd put the 9500NP higher up on the list of 'best cards ever produced' than the 9800 series, if only because with a (slight) bit of luck, a $149 midrange card could be turned into a $400 gaming beast (for it's day). And i'd probably put the whole 9500/9700 series into the top spot of best GPU family, only because it ushered in the DX9 era in a huge way.

[Headrush69]

plan to upgrade it abit more , 1.8 Processor , and a 9800 Pro with a bigger HDD ,

 

Any opinions or coments wud be welcome ..

No sure you are really going to gain a lot from those upgrades. The system bus speed and the IDE bus speed are the limiting factors.

 

Also some G4 models are limited to the max size partition they can boot from, so you may want to check this out.

[coolied]

No sure you are really going to gain a lot from those upgrades. The system bus speed and the IDE bus speed are the limiting factors.

 

Also some G4 models are limited to the max size partition they can boot from, so you may want to check this out.

 

the CPU upgrade wouldn't really do much at all, IMHO. The 9800 Pro might, depending on whether or not the Mac has the original Rage 128 video card, or something a little beefier. At least with a 9800 Pro, QE/CI acceleration would be available, it isn't on the Rage 128 as I believe QE needs pixel shaders. I know the Rage 128 in my G3 iMac 600 doesn't in 10.4.11; and it's the same as the one in the G4, just a built-in model. As far as the hard disk, it could probably be split into multiple partitions to get around the boot partition size limitation.

[real_sinjon]

I wouldn't touch it at that price. You could pick up a late dual processor Quicksilver or MDD for around £120 to £150 on ebay uk. Still potential for the upgrades you want to do and faster bus speed and ram. Dual Processor G4s are definitely the preferred machines in this price range. Keep looking, they come up all the time.