Sawtooth 400mhz

[RoxSTar1968]

Hey forumites,

 

I have acquired a 400mhz Sawtooth G4 that I want to upgrade slightly.

 

It's pretty usable as it is with 512 mb of ram and OX 10.4.11. I plan on maybe upping the ram to like a gigabyte and getting a new, speedier hard drive and maybe a new video card / PCI card with usb 2.0 and firewire.

 

Secondly, are processor upgrades really worth it? They seem awfully expensive...

 

Thanks!

 

(Also I'm not interested in selling this off and buying a mac mini, I just want to use it for some light audio / video work and photoshop)

[A Nonny Moose]

Before you do any massive upgrades (processor) please remember that a SHINY NEW Mac Mini is only $599 US. Even though you don't really want a Mac Mini, it helps a lot to keep that cost in mind before doing this.

 

A processor upgrade to 1 GHz will make a world of difference on a G4 system, but you're a Photoshop user, so you need to upgrade RAM (a 400 MHz system with 1.5 GB of RAM can actually hold its own against a 1 GHz system with 512 MB). Also, because you have the Sawtooth, you can max out your RAM at a nice 2 GB.

 

It'll hold up surprisingly well for light editing, so enjoy your Mac.

[muvo]

You can give a second chance to your old Power Mac G4, upgrade the RAM memory until you get 2 GB; a ATA133 or SATA PCI card will expand your hard drive upgrade chances (more than 120 GB); USB 2.0 PCI card it's crucial for today Pendrives; a new graphic card will bring your G4 back to life, if you can't find a nice mac compatible videocard, you can always flash a PCI PC Graphic Card, and you will get a better video to low cost; of course if you can afford a new processor, your Power Mac G4 can get a speed of 2 Ghz, check Other World Computing to find some nice processors. Saludos!