[vfunct]

I bought the system with base 160GB HD and 512MB Memory.

1. What DIMMs do I need to upgrade to 8GB memory? Where would be a good place to purchase?

2. I would like to upgrade to two largest S-ATA Hard Drives I can possibly get. Where should I get those? Also, if they are too noisy, I will stick with only one drive (system is in my bedroom home office). If I upgrade the Hard-drive, how do I transfer the current data onto it? Do I need to reinstall everything?

3. The 30" display is quite lovely. I would like to be able to view IEEE-1394 high-def display streams from my comcast cable tuner box on the powermac, and possibly do some HD recording. What software do I use to view live streaming 1394 video/audio?

4. Is there a live video capture card so I can hook up my Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 to the powermac and display it?

[retroneo]

Originally posted by vfunct:
I bought the system with base 160GB HD and 512MB Memory.

1. What DIMMs do I need to upgrade to 8GB memory? Where would be a good place to purchase?

Just 8x ordinary 1GB PC3200 DIMMs. You can also use the expensive 2GB DIMMs to get 16GB, but the DIMMs are quite expensive. Make sure the RAM you get is non-ECC and non-registered.

2. I would like to upgrade to two largest S-ATA Hard Drives I can possibly get. Where should I get those? Also, if they are too noisy, I will stick with only one drive (system is in my bedroom home office). If I upgrade the Hard-drive, how do I transfer the current data onto it? Do I need to reinstall everything?[

There are 400GB Serial ATA from most HDD vendors. Install 1 drive and then use Disk Utility to erase the new disk, then the Restore feature to copy one drive onto the other (it keeps it bootable). Then take out your 160GB HD and put in the other 400GB, fire up Disk Utility to erase it as well. All done!

Check xlr8yourmac.com for a database of user reports / recommendations of specific upgrade combinations.

[Madrag]

I envy you!
Definetly you need to upgrade the RAM!
(The rest as already been answered)

[vfunct]

I didn't know the PowerMac can do 16GB? I could use that for my engineering stuff.. anyone else try it?

[Madrag]

the 2GB DIMMS are very new...
I haven't seen any report, but I haven't looked for it...

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Madrag:
the 2GB DIMMS are very new...
I haven't seen any report, but I haven't looked for it...

And VERY expensive! About $1000 per DIMM, though the only ones I've ever seen have been 333MHz rated ECC modules. The G5's (except the original 1.6GHz model) require 400MHz non-ECC, non-registered modules.

I'd expect 400 MHz (PC3200) rated 2GB DIMMS eventually, but unless someone can provide a link, I've not been able to find any G5-compatible ones yet.

[Luca Rescigno]

Two of these.

Eight of these, if you want to save some money, or get eight of these if money is no object. If you're using all that RAM in a G5, you might want to go for the second one (Crucial), rather than the budget-priced Corsair RAM. Either one should work, but if you're spending so much, you might want to just spring for the Crucial, which is a more premium brand.

[mac freak]

Yeish, I wish I had that much money to spend on a computer!

[Cadaver]

Two 400GB drives in the two main drive bays, plus three more 400GB drives up front using this drive bracket and an SATA PCI card.

Pictures (not mine...)

Doesn't everyone need 2.0TB inside their computer??

[michaelb]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
Doesn't everyone need 2.0TB inside their computer??

In 4 years we'll have that much in our iPods!

(Enough to store every DVD in your collection.)

Call it Michael's Law: an iPod contains more storage than last year's computer.

[Luca Rescigno]

*cough*porn*cough*