Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

krillbee · Oct 20, 2006, 12:02 AM

I acquired a working Quicksilver for free from my school. I'm trying to debate what I want to do with it. It's a 733 mhz cpu/mobo/case, and came with a geforce 4mx, dvd/cdrw drive, and 56k modem. It did not come with any memory or hard drive.

I have added 384 mb of RAM and a 10gb hard drive that was lying around, to make the PC usable. It is running 10.4 currently, and not running it as fast as I'd like. I primarily use my PC, but its nice having a mac around for learning and playing with.

I'd like to either make this mac more usable by upgrading it or just sell it and buy a mini. (either a g4 mini, or maybe i'd step up pay for the intel mini) Right now the performance difference between my athlon 64 pc and my mac is just too much, lol.

I at least want 512 mb ram, and a 40 gb hard drive in here. I can buy a hard drive off new egg for $40-50 bucks. The memory, I would Ideally like to have 1 gb of, but it costs $60 per stick (512 mb sd-ram) and i wonder if its even worth the investment being that it is sd-ram and all.

if i could manage to score a better cpu on ebay for cheap, and sell my current cpu on ebay thatd be cool too. I understand i can put an apple oem g4 1ghz dual in here, or buy one of the upgrade cpus ranging from 1-1.6 ghz.

Any ideas as to what path would make the most sense?

hookem2oo7 · Oct 20, 2006, 12:08 AM

go to the marketplace and buy my CPU upgrade

whatever you do, don't sell it and replace it with a G4 mini. Go with the intel mini, or keep the QS.

just my opinion

Cottonsworth · Oct 20, 2006, 12:38 AM

Sounds like it is more effort than its worth. You can pick up a G4 Mac Mini for fairly cheap with airport and bluetooth and it will be faster. I say just deal with the slowness as it is now or just dump it for cheap.

tobyg · Oct 20, 2006, 01:33 AM

The 733mhz Quicksilver G4 was the slowest machine I've ever touched. My Powermac G4 400 feels much faster. You know why? The G4 733 Quicksilver had 0 backside L3 cache.

Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver) - Technical Specifications

The thought at the time was that 256K L2 cache running at CPU speed would be quick enough. It's not.

The only way to make that machine faster is to upgrade the CPU to one with a good amount of cache.

bowwowman · 09:25 AM

Well the QS machines are completely capable machines, so alot of this will depend on how much money you are willing to spend on it, and how long you plan to keep it.

IF you decide to upgrade it, you can find 40GB HD's for way less than $40-50, and 512 ram for way less than $60......those prices are highway robbery !! Look at the marketplace here, MOSR, [H]ard or even ebay....

And BTW, the other 3 ways to make an older G4 run OS X faster are:

A) maxing the ram to 1.5GB (1st priority)
B) use a fast(er) HD (ATA/133, 7200rpm/16mb cache), or even SATA
C) better video card (Radeon 9600-9800+ etc) this gets you core image support to speed up the gui & eye candy, among other things

However, if you decide to get a mini, I agree w/ hook'em, dont waste your time or money on a G4 unit, get the Intel model and you'll be WAY happier, and faster, and more future-proof.........

tomrock · Oct 20, 2006, 04:13 PM

Isn't the fan pretty loud in the QS? I'd get rid of it just for that reason.

Apfhex · Oct 20, 2006, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by bowwowman

However, if you decide to get a mini, I agree w/ hook'em, dont waste your time or money on a G4 unit, get the Intel model and you'll be WAY happier, and faster, and more future-proof.

I don't know what the prices would work out to, but after upgrading the CPU, RAM, HDD, and video card in the Quicksilver, I would think an Intel Mac Mini would be a very good alternative.

discotronic · Oct 20, 2006, 06:47 PM

I say stick with the Quicksilver. An OWC 1.2GHz CPU is $200 and it should overclock to 1.4GHz. If you shop around you can find RAM and a hard drive for fairly cheap.

If you are thrifty enough you can get all of the upgrades you need for under $300 and it would be as fast or faster than the G4 mini.

imitchellg5 · Oct 20, 2006, 06:54 PM

I would keep it. But then again, I love Quicksilvers though. They are beautiful.

krillbee · Oct 20, 2006, 07:29 PM

How much could I get if I sold this machine?

Discotronic mentions paying $300 for upgrades, but... if I could get say $200-300 for the machine as it currently is, then pay $300 more then I'd have a mini.

Wouldnt the intel mini be faster than the upgraded g4?

imitchellg5, I agree, this is one of the most beautiful macs I've seen.

imitchellg5 · Oct 20, 2006, 07:44 PM

You could probably get $200-300 for it. I would get a mini if you need the speed and room, but do something with the Quicksilver like make it a media hub. I've always wanted to do that with a Quicksilver, I think if you have a lot of movies, music, and photos, and more than a few Macs, that would be a good idea.

Edit: You should post a pic or two in the picture thread!

krillbee · Oct 21, 2006, 03:46 PM

In the mean time I think I'm going to try to find some more ram for it, and the bigger hard drive.

If I can upgrade to a chip on ebay that is an 800 or 866 (with l3 cache of course) and sell my old chip, and not pay more than say $20 extra, then I may do that too.

that should tie me over for a little while.

imitchellg5 · Oct 21, 2006, 07:04 PM

Go for an 867 if you can. Those are good processors. Keep your old HD in there too, since Quicksilvers can have 2-4 internal HDs.

drdaldds · Aug 18, 2007, 05:23 PM

The quicksilver G4 is significantly more functional that the miserable mac mini...which to me is nothiing more than an oddity. You have infinitely more options, to upgrade the quicksilver than the stupid (and very niche market) mini. I really never saw any utilitarian value in those...at all. If you do not want it...I will buy it...and make it hum! If you are interested in a mini...why not simply a powerbook? The quicksilver G4 is a very substantial machine, and with very little effort, can do it all. Buy a mini...and all you have is a mini...a powerbook without a monitor...and very little upgrade capability. On the quicksilver model...the sky is the limit. To me...it is no contest.

imitchellg5 · Aug 18, 2007, 06:26 PM

Whoa, way to bump an ancient thread. And the mini has many uses.

goMac · Aug 19, 2007, 12:36 AM

Originally Posted by drdaldds

On the quicksilver model...the sky is the limit.

Aside from the can't be upgraded to Intel limit?

Googer-Giger · Aug 23, 2007, 10:27 AM

It really depends, some people would take the PPC tower for it's expansion over the barely expandable mini, despite the intel.

the ppc machines still have a few years left before the apocolypse, especially since you can upgrade the ram, processor, HD and video card. Where as the mini will be done for within a few years as well, because of the lack of expandability.

rdfsc · Aug 29, 2007, 01:13 PM

About a couple of weeks ago, I swapped a video recorder for a G4 933mhz quicksilver with the superdrive. I had the memory already so I have already maxed out the ram to 1.5GB. I removed the 60gb ibm deskstar drive that was in there and replaced it with an 80gb for now.
I like the case and with 10.4.10 on there and I'm very happy. I'm a pc user switching to mac. If I need something for pc, I can run Virtual PC or using RDP, connect to a pc computer. I can still access my network drives etc.

IMO I would definatly not go with the mac mini. Mainly due to lack of processor upgrades. Same with the Imacs, intel or ppc. But it all depends on your use. Same with windows pc. I still work on them from time to time and I tell people that if they are just going to be just checking email and surfing the net then 1ghz processor with 512mb of ram is plenty. I know one guy who still has a 486dx system just to check email with.

Do a google search for bare feats, they have very accurate speed tests for powermacs, Basically you can turn the G4 powermacs into something close to a G5 and spend way less on the money. The only thing that slows down the G4's is the bus speed. unfortunaly there is no way to overcome that part no matter how much ram or processor speed you throw at it.

As for my system, I am selling all my pc equiment except for 1 pc and using the money to upgrade the G4. As long as it handles my gaming needs etc, Then I'll be happy.

ninahagen · Aug 29, 2007, 01:38 PM

Well, the new mini is out, so even if you could make a case for upgrading a quicksilver back when this thread started, you couldn't now. They are slow as molasses and by now worth about $200 and falling fast, so upgrade outlays will be wasted.

iREZ · Sep 2, 2007, 09:18 AM

for the amount you would spend to upgrade a QS, you could go out and buy a used faster mac mini, just not worth it IMO.

ShortcutToMoncton · Sep 15, 2007, 07:49 AM

I've used a Quicksilver 867 for many years (1gig of RAM, 160GB HD, M-Audio Revolution sound card, yadda yadda). It's been a solid rock, and people are right when they say it's one of the best-looking Power Macs ever, but it's simply too long in the tooth now, and upgrades are too expensive to justify.

No idea what I'm gonna do with it when my Macbook Pro gets here...?

greg

imitchellg5 · Sep 18, 2007, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

I've used a Quicksilver 867 for many years (1gig of RAM, 160GB HD, M-Audio Revolution sound card, yadda yadda). It's been a solid rock, and people are right when they say it's one of the best-looking Power Macs ever, but it's simply too long in the tooth now, and upgrades are too expensive to justify.

No idea what I'm gonna do with it when my Macbook Pro gets here...?

greg

You could give it to me