12-18-2009, 10:26 PM
A few people have mentioned G4 1GHz and 1.25 GHz machines and these are significantly faster than the Mac's G4/700, more than just the processor speed difference, for technical reasons (bus speed and L2/L3 cache differences are very big for G4s).
So this means that the G4/700 is not the best machine to invest more $ in. The suggestions of a refurb or used Intel iMac are good ones.
That said,
I have an iLamp G4/800 (slightly faster than yours and with none of the bus speed/cache advantages of the faster models) and it get more use by people sitting in front of it every day than all the other Macs in the house (and it is the slowest one in the house). Because it's ergonomic and in the kitchen where everyone is half the time. It has OS 10.4.11, 1GB RAM, 250GB 7200 RPM HD and plays great full screen video (480p as long as you stick to MPEG-4). Of course it does web, email, MS Office, PDF, etc. duty as well.
If this machine had anything less than 768 MB and a 40 GB 7200 RPM drive I think it would be too slow to be of much use so if you have the time and resources to upgrade it to that, then go ahead. But if doing that is too expensive (time or $), then an Intel iMac is a great choice.
So this means that the G4/700 is not the best machine to invest more $ in. The suggestions of a refurb or used Intel iMac are good ones.
That said,
I have an iLamp G4/800 (slightly faster than yours and with none of the bus speed/cache advantages of the faster models) and it get more use by people sitting in front of it every day than all the other Macs in the house (and it is the slowest one in the house). Because it's ergonomic and in the kitchen where everyone is half the time. It has OS 10.4.11, 1GB RAM, 250GB 7200 RPM HD and plays great full screen video (480p as long as you stick to MPEG-4). Of course it does web, email, MS Office, PDF, etc. duty as well.
If this machine had anything less than 768 MB and a 40 GB 7200 RPM drive I think it would be too slow to be of much use so if you have the time and resources to upgrade it to that, then go ahead. But if doing that is too expensive (time or $), then an Intel iMac is a great choice.