[swichd]

Are beige G3's good systems for Mac OS X (either jaguar or panther)? I know I need lots of RAM and a new video card. In short, should I buy one?

[Landos Mustache]

They are OK but you have to make sure the disk drive is partioned and OSX installed on the first 8 gigs.

Also, it is a real pain to get 10.3 to instal on it properly.

You would be much better off with an old blue and white.

[Lateralus]

Agreed^

The Blue & White G3 would be a much better starter machine. They are, IMO, much more modern looking, and still fully supported under OS X.

I had a B&W G3 Power Mac myself late last year as my main machine. It had a 900MHz G3 PowerLogix processor upgrade in it (For a little over $200, I very much recommend one), a Radeon Mac Edition video card using the PCI Exteme hack, and a 7200RPM 8MB Seagate on an ATA-133 Sonnet PCI card. Very fast.

[swichd]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
Agreed^

The Blue & White G3 would be a much better starter machine. They are, IMO, much more modern looking, and still fully supported under OS X.

I had a B&W G3 Power Mac myself late last year as my main machine. It had a 900MHz G3 PowerLogix processor upgrade in it (For a little over $200, I very much recommend one), a Radeon Mac Edition video card using the PCI Exteme hack, and a 7200RPM 8MB Seagate on an ATA-133 Sonnet PCI card. Very fast.

OK. I really don't care how it looks as long as it is CHEAP! What's the PCI Extreme hack do? BTW: Sonnet or someone sells a 1000 MHz ZIF upgrade for the beige G3. I'll put in a a new graphics card (Rage II is way too slow). My basic needs are: web browsing, office tasks, web editing, lite video editing, cd (someday, dvd) burning, and some game playing. I've used iMac 233's a lot, is the base system preformance simmilar?

[Lateralus]

PCI Extreme is a hack that allows you to use Quartz Extreme on machines that don't have AGP slots, provided that they have a Radeon video card. It works better on the B&W G3 than any of the other non-AGP Macs because the B&W's video PCI slot is very fast and can handle the Quartz Extreme functions quite well.

I do not, in any way or for any reason, recommend the Sonnet 1GHz ZIF. It cuts the bus speed back to 66MHz from 100MHz, essentially making the B&W's motherboard as fast as a Beige G3's. The PowerLogix G3 upgrades allows for the bus to run at the full 100MHz. Because of the bus speed downclock, there would be little to no perceivable performance difference between the G3 900 @ 100MHz and the G4 1000 @ 66MHz. So, unless you NEED AltiVec, which from the sounds of things it looks like you don't, then the Sonnet is absolutely not worth the extra money. And if you need the AltiVec, it would be better to just pick up an eMac than to sink $500 into the Sonnet upgrade.

More over, many reports from B&W owners who have purchased the Sonnet 1GHz have been VERY bad. The Sonnet requires a Firmware update, and many users have had terrible experience during the update, and ended up unable to use their computers, even when putting the original G3 back in. With the PowerLogix G3 900, all you have to do it put it in and boot up. That's it.

The iMac 233 would really not be able to hold a candle to any stock-configuration B&W, even a 300MHz model. In addition to the clock speed advantage of the B&W, it also has much more processor cache (1MB) and a 50% faster system bus than the iMac 233, which has a 66MHz system bus.

But saying that a 300MHz B&W would crush an iMac 233 is not exactly saying much either.

[djohnson]

Get the B&W. I have a beige G3 and it struggles bad with OS X. You will have to have good patience with it...

[-Q-]

^ Yep. Even with maxxed out RAM and 7200 RPM hard drive and a Mac radeon, OS X was only tolerable on my beige. Definitely go for a Blue & White.

[irnbrumike]

I believe Panther only supports Native USB Macs (Meaning, Jaguar is the end of the road for you...)

At least, i believe that's true.

[Waragainstsleep]

OS X supports only machines with built in USB. Any version of X.
XpostFacto is often required to install X on 'unsupported' machines.

The Sonnet 1GHz G4 would be fine on a Beige G3, as it already has a 66MHz system bus. Whether its worth the money or not, is another issue.