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Newbie question. Should I buy this mac?
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Hey guys, be gentle its my first post! I have never owned a Mac before so Im looking for some advice. My mate's company is having a clear out of old IT equipment and he has offered me a Power Mac G4. From what he says it looks as though its a Power Mac G4 AGP 400 MHz. its got 512 MB ram, 2x20GB hard drives and a cdrw drive. It will come with os 10.3.9 installed but only has os 9 cd's.
He is offering it for £30-£40 with keyboard and mouse. So should i buy it or is it too old? Apparently it has sat in a corner for most of its life and was only turned on to check hybrid cd's they company made could be read on a Mac. Its been replaced by a g5.
any advice greatly appreciated
graham
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2004
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For the price, why not? Just don't expect too much from it.
Worse comes to worse, you could sell it for parts on eBay for more than the price you paid.
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Baninated
Join Date: Dec 2004
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I like chicken
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Cheers guys, I know it wont be the fastest computer but because I dont know much about macs Im not sure if a G4 would be slow like an old pentium or faster like a PII or PIII?
So you think its a good buy?
graham
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: If I tellz ya, then I gotsta killz ya !
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Worse comes to worse, you could sell it for parts on eBay for more than the price you paid.
I 2nd that idea 
It works 4 me on a regular basis!
but try to get it a bit cheaper, like £20-30
Unless of course, you just want a functional mac to play with 
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Signatures are ugly. Bitchy women are ugly......YOU do the math :)
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
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I would get it. Perfect to learn about the Mac. You can not get a better deal for that price!
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Moderator  Join Date: Apr 2000
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That G4 is a lot like one of the last Pentium IIs with a little higher clockspeed, some 500-600 MHz or so, if you want to compare it with a PC. It does run OS X fine though - not too sure if I'd put XP on a PII that old.
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
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This is a damn good price. It'll be about as fast as a P3 450-700, depends on what you're doing and the amount of AltiVec code (this is the SSE equivalent). If you haven't got a clue what I just said, you can safely ignore it.
It's a good machine to get to know OS X. But don't expect too much, it'll be fine for most things (e-mail, web, etc.), though.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Body in London, mind elsewhere
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have they got anymore?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2002
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For 20 pounds i would agree: Give it a shot. RAM is sufficient, two 20 Gig platters are OK, you can upgrade graphics and CPU if you like the Mac.
On ebay these machines normally end up in the range of 200-250 Euros - go figure!
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Macintosh Quadra 950, Powermac 6100, iBook dual USB, Powerbook 667 DVI, Powerbook 867 DVI, MacBook Pro early 2011
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Addicted to MacNN
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You could easily slap a CPU upgrade in that thing for about $250.00 (American) and have a very functional machine. It'll hold up to 2 gig of RAM, and that model of Mac is one of the most dependable series of machines they ever made. They still sell from web retailers for $3-400.00, so whatever you do with it, it's a great price.
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When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Thanks a lot for the info guys. I was really wanting it as a way into the Mac OS and not just to sell off the parts. It would only be used for word processing (its got office 2004 apparently) and web/email as I have a new P4 for gaming. From what has been said sounds like a good deal and Ill probably get it. My mate has said he will try to get me a 2nd hand 15inch crt in the clear out too so dont even need to buy a monitor!
A couple more questions though.
So i can upgrade the CPU then? ANybody know where in the UK i could source an upgrade and the likely price? And the graphics card, does it need to be a special Mac version? If so any ideas where to pick them up?
Im not too bothered about the hard drives. 40 gigs will be plenty. My PC has a 160 Gig drive and I have only used 15 gig in a year. Ill have a look at the ram but hopefully 512 should be ok to start with.
thanks again guys
graham
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Salt Lake City, UT USA
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This is actually the same machine I'm still on. I bought mine back in 2000, and it's served me very well. I upped the memory to 896 (and will up it again likely before I'm through). I put a Radeon 8500 in a few years back. It definately makes things better.
You do need a Mac Specific graphics card, but typically the manufactured card is the same for both platforms, save firmware difference. Look up (in the forums here) flashing graphics cards. You can save yourself some cash.
My next move for my machine is to replace the processor. Personally, I'm looking at the 1.2Ghz OWC Mercury Extreme. It's got a pretty good track record. Really, though. If you're only doing word processing, you shouldn't need a new processor. You should run just fine.
Congrats on getting the Mac, and welcome!
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2008 iMac 3.06 Ghz, 2GB Memory, GeForce 8800, 500GB HD, SuperDrive
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2003
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It is perfect as is for word processing and web browsing! No upgrades are required. (The mouse, if the original, is terrible.) You don't need a faster machine or better graphics. I use a similar machine with an airport wi-fi card to access the internet via a cable modem and it keeps up with the internet. All Microsoft bloatware will work just fine. More speed would be nice only if you ran Photoshop or video editing. sam
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