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Think Twice About Upgrades
Roger Harris - 2002.10.04
My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .
I read and enjoyed Maxwell M Cabral's article on older Power Macs with new G4 upgrades, but I think there were some big gaps that should have been touched on.
I am a graphic artist, and I have and have had a lot of older Macs with various upgrades. These include 6100, 7100, 8500, 7300, 7600, and beige G3s. The processor upgrades have all been from Sonnet or PowerLogix.
I have been very happy with all of the upgrades I have, but I have some reservations about expensive upgrades (over $200 or twice the worth of the Mac) on older Macs. I should mention that I love geeking with Mac hardware and software.
The drives and busses in older Macs are starting to make a big difference if you use or might want to use OS X. I have had a 7300 with a G3/375 and a B&W G3/350 running OS X 10.1.5, and the faster bus and graphics card in the B&W made a big difference that wasn't very noticeable in OS 9.
When I installed an ATA 133 PCI card with an ATA 133 hard drive in the 7300, the differences were mitigated. When I put an ATA 133 card and hard drive in a beige G3/366 with 6 MB VRAM, the 266 ran OS X better than the 7300, but not as well as the B&W.
I also own a new 867 Dual Processor running OS X, and it is a dream to work on. Everything is fast. I had to "beg-borrow-and-borrow-more" to buy this.
Why do that? The old Macs have to have everything replaced and upgraded for a graphic artist to run OS X in a reasonable way. Also, vital parts on these older Macs are starting to go bad. I had more bad hard drives in the last year than all other years combined. I had three bad motherboards, and that is something I never had before this year. I had a SCSI port go out and even a processor go south. I was starting to feel like I was back on PCs. I haven't even touched on the problems and cost of moving to USB and FireWire.
My point is that a 7300 G4/800 might only be cost effective when a lot of "if-ands-and-buts" are taken into account. My opinion is that if you already have ATA 66 or better drive controllers, fast ATA hard drives, a Radeon video card, and USB that is working well, it may be worth another $400 upgrade.
I won't go there with my old Macs. I will buy $200 G4/500 cards, but only because my older Macs already have a lot of the upgrades I mentioned earlier. I wouldn't even spend $400 on an upgrade for my B&W. Why not? No AGP video is the main reason.
Fast video is a must with OS X. On OS 9, the B&W would do very nicely with a G4/500 that will go for $200 or less in the next couple of months, and it would be okay with OS X. Actually, the B&W runs OS 9 well with a G3/350, but a G4/500 would be a luxury.
When OS 8 came out, it left many old Macs behind. The hardware requirements of OS 8 would have been impossible, or nearly so, for the old hardware. This is what is happening with OS X and many of the Macs I have.
I love old Macs, but they are . . . old.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
Recent My Turn articles
- Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
- 'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
- Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
- My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
- More in the My Turn index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: 17" MacBook Pro Core Duo, Apr. 2006 - The top-end MacBook Pro includes a 1680 x 1050, 2.16 GHz Core Duo CPU, and supports Apple 30" Cinema Display.
- Group of the Day: G4 List is for those using Power Mac G4s or G4 upgrades.
- Support Low End Mac
Recent Content on Low End Mac
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Recent Deals
- Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
- Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
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- Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
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- Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
- More deals in our archive.
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