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mattjohndrow · Jan 21, 2004, 08:23 AM

i have a 400 Mhz iMac

so far, i have put a 120 GB drive in it, and 768 MB of RAM.
i am going to eventually put a GB of RAM in it, as well as a G4 upgrade and a DVD-Burner.

i know most of you don't care probably, but, oh well.

rjenkinson · Jan 21, 2004, 08:29 AM

$799.

-r.

gumby5647 · Jan 21, 2004, 09:03 AM

The 1GB of RAM is probably well worth it.

The G4 upgrade? *shrug* I don't know....It's a tough call between the G3 and G4 upgrade that's offered.

The DVD burner is probably pretty stupid though. It'll take forever and a day for burn a DVD, even with the G4 @500MHz. Why not just opt for the cheaper combo drive?

Eriamjh · Jan 22, 2004, 06:27 AM

I've seen refurbed eMac 800s go for $600.

Luca Rescigno · Jan 22, 2004, 12:22 PM

Yeah, and an eMac 800 MHz can be overclocked successfully to 1 GHz and beyond.

120 GB drive: $90
1 GB of RAM: $150
G4 upgrade: $300
DVD Burner: $450

In the end, you get a 500 MHz G4 with a 120 GB drive, 1 GB of RAM, a DVD-R, and an 8 MB Rage 128 video chip. Oh, and a non-upgradable FuzzyTronic 15" CRT. All for just under a grand. Whuh? You can even buy a used LCD iMac for less than that, or a brand new eMac! Or if you like "pimping out" your machine (I do too), get a used PowerMac G4 and put that big hard drive and all that RAM into the PowerMac. A standard DVD-R drive will fit in the PowerMac and cost just over $100, and a Quartz Extreme compatible graphics card will run you only about $50-$70.

Truepop · Jan 25, 2004, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
Yeah, and an eMac 800 MHz can be overclocked successfully to 1 GHz and beyond.

120 GB drive: $90
1 GB of RAM: $150
G4 upgrade: $300
DVD Burner: $450

DVD Burner for $450? I have seen 5.25 4x DVD burners go for $125 and you can pick up a firewire inclosure for under $100 if you need that instead of built-in.

http://avlogic.com/product.cgi?code=11121755

Luca Rescigno · Jan 25, 2004, 07:15 PM

Yes, I know a standard 4x DVD-RW drive is about $120 these days. However, if you want the internal DVD-R upgrade for the slot loading iMac, you'd have to go to MCE to get it installed, and it's $450. But yes, that's not worth it. It's much cheaper and better to get a $120 burner and a $40 case. Most external Firewire DVD burners are well over $200 too... way more than assembling it yourself.

gto47 · Jan 30, 2004, 01:14 AM

not worth the memory upgrade. I couldn't even tell the difference between 640 and 1gb on my old 400mhz imac. I also put a 40 gig ata drive in it a few years ago, but its still slow. There are cpu upgrades for it but its video card is still abominable, and it has a wimpy display only capable of displaying 1024x768 resolution. Even with a processor upgrade you're still stuck with pc100 ram and a 100mhz system bus. And it will cost you a fortune to mail in the logic board in order to do this. Yes you can put a larger faster drive in it, but the ata controller in it is only capable of running ata/33 so you won't gain all that much speed. A DVD-R for that machine is totally impractical unless you plan on buying a processor upgrade. You must have never exported video before on that machine because if you had you'd know it takes eons. I was sentimental about my old machine but after a certain point upgrades are just a waste, buy a new machine. The performance on my Dual G5 speaks for itself. In my opinion you shouldnt spend any more money on that machine. Its not like an 8500 or something which can take absurd upgrades, its just a 4 year old consumer model that is antiquated and not easily upgraded.

ApeInTheShell · Jan 31, 2004, 06:17 PM

It's an all in one machine. Give him a break.
There is a time to stop upgrading an iMac but why not get the most use out of it now?

The 8mb VRAM doesn't support Quartz extreme and isn't suited for the newest games and graphic intensive work. That doesn't mean the display is Fuzzy tronic.
I bet if a Plasma iMac came out this forum would be frustrated over the fact we still use crapadelic LCDs and you can get a Plasma for just $800 more.

I'm eventually getting a Lacie DVD-Burner, i have an 80GB firewire drive, and taking out the 64 mb replacing it with 512mb. This will only happen if I don't purchase a new Mac and iPod.

Luca Rescigno · Jan 31, 2004, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by ApeInTheShell:
The 8mb VRAM doesn't support Quartz extreme and isn't suited for the newest games and graphic intensive work. That doesn't mean the display is Fuzzy tronic.
I bet if a Plasma iMac came out this forum would be frustrated over the fact we still use crapadelic LCDs and you can get a Plasma for just $800 more.

This is where you're wrong. The iMac's screen isn't bad because it's a CRT... it's not even bad for not supporting Quartz Extreme. It's just bad because the CRT iMac uses are really crappy, low quality CRT. Believe me, there are some very good CRTs out there, that rival LCDs in sharpness and far exceed them in brightness and contrast. The iMac doesn't have one of those, though. Not only does it use a shadow mask (much worse than the aperture grill used by Trinitron and Diamondtron tubes), but it's also quite drastically curved, causing distortions in addition to the fuzziness.

So, I say that even though the computer is slow, that's not why he should get rid of it. It's because the iMac's screen is so bad that I could never see myself spending more than $100 for all the parts necessary to get one up and running again. 512 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and an external Superdrive? Totally not worth it for that computer.