Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Older Macs in the Age of Leopard

The Future of G4 iMacs in the Age of Leopard

Dan Knight - 2007.10.18, updated - Tip Jar

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

Apple has announced the system requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard": a drive that can read the DVD install disc, at least 512 MB of memory, and an 867 MHz G4 or better.

Several G4 iMacs aren't officially supported, but we have lots of tips on installing Mac OS X 10.5 on unsupported Macs in our article on Unsupported Leopard Installation.

First Generation

Those who subscribed to Time magazine were the first to learn about the flat panel, G4-based iMac, as it appeared on the cover of the magazine before Macworld Expo opened. Still, few would have conceived of the design Apple came up with for this one - it looks like half a volleyball with a flat screen attached to a stick. It's even more distinctive than the G3 iMac, which saw a handful of lookalikes.

15-inch iMac G4The first generation G4 iMac had a 700 MHz or 800 MHz G4 processor, a 1024 x 768 15" display that almost seemed to float above the hemisphere base, and nVidia GeForce2 MX with AGP 2x support and 32 MB of VRAM. Standard memory was 128 MB or 256 MB, expandable to 1 GB. There are two FireWire 400 ports and three USB 1.1 ports, and it supports the original AirPort card for wireless networking.

Although not officially supported under Leopard, these should handle it reasonably well with 1 GB of PC133 RAM installed (from $120 for two 512 MB modules these days) and a faster (and probably larger) hard drive. The drive bus in G4 iMacs supports drives over 128 GB in size, a limitation found in many older Macs.

The 15" iMac was joined by an 800 MHz 17" iMac in July. It has a 1440 x 900 display and weighed 1-1/2 pounds more.

Second Generation

The iMac was updated just over a year later in Feb. 2003. The newer 15" model runs at 800 MHz, includes a Combo drive and 256 MB of RAM, and had the same graphics chipset as the first generation. It also uses the same PC133 memory. The 17" iMac G4 runs at 1 GHz, uses PC2100 memory (as low as $25 per 512 MB module), and supports AirPort Extreme (the 15" model still used the original AirPort). Memory remains limited to 1 GB.

Apple made a 7200 rpm hard drive standard on the top-end iMac, which makes it well suited for Leopard and other flavors of Mac OS X. The 17" 1 GHz iMac G4 is the oldest iMac officially supported by Leopard.

Third Generation

The next revision came to market in Sept. 2003 - the first iMacs to support USB 2.0. The 15" model had pretty much the same specs as earlier 17" model, but with USB 2.0 added. The 17" iMac G4 bumped clock speed to 1.25 GHz, and these were joined by a 20" 1.25 GHz model in November 2003. These iMacs all use PC2700 memory, and you can pick up a pair of 512 MB modules for under $30 nowadays. Although not supported by Apple, you can use 1 GB memory modules in these iMacs, but at a cost of $48 or more per module, it may make more sense to stick with a pair of 512 MB sticks.

The entire third generation of G4 iMacs is officially supported by Leopard, and to get the most out of the next version of OS X, you will want to bring memory to at least 1 GB. The 17" and 20" iMacs came with 7200 rpm drives, but the 15" may have a slower drive. If so, replacing it with a 7200 rpm drive will boost overall performance.1 LEM

Further Reading

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.