[Zemrec]

Hi, I've been toying with getting a desktop Mac lately. I haven't had one since early 2000 when I sold my 9500 and got an iBook. Now my desktop boxes are a Gentoo Linux box and a Windows 2K box for games. I've heard that the Gentoo team is going to be releasing Portage for Mac OS X, and I'd love to try it out, but I want a much faster machine than my 700 Mhz iBook (my 2nd ibook actually, got it last year).

I'd love a G5, but its out of my price range, and I've got enough debt already, thank you! The new 1.25 Ghz iMac would be great, its nice and small and doesn't take too much desk space, except I already have a great 19" LCD that I share with my PCs, and don't really want a separate monitor for the Mac. Plus I'd like to be able to upgrade the video card and CPU in the future.

So then I thought maybe an old G4 cube would be great, but at 450 or 500 Mhz, they're slower than the 700 Mhz G3 in the iBook. So I'd have to upgrade the CPU to something faster. But then we'd be talking probably at least $1200 or so....I'd like to get something for a lot less.

Is it hopeless? Or any suggestions? I want to be able to use Portage (or Fink or Darwin Ports if I have to wait too long for Portage), but not have to wait all day for stuff to compile.

[milhous]

You'll just need to look around the net to see if you can find any good deals on MDD on Quicksilver-series G4s. They should be fine for what you need.

Just checked powermax.com and they have a used Quicksilver 733 G4 with:

640 MB of RAM, 40 GB internal drive, internal CD-RW, internal 56k modem, includes keyboard

for $1359, which isn't that bad. What's important to note is that you can easily perform cpu upgrades on them, as well as changing out the graphics card and add drives.

Also check out the MacNN Marketplace forum to see what's being sold by other MacNNers. You might find something good.

[CJM]

Apple has refurb Dual 1.25's for $1399. I just picked one up myself last week.

[MacNStein]

Originally posted by CJM:
Apple has refurb Dual 1.25's for $1399. I just picked one up myself last week.

They're out right now, but you can get a new G4 1.25 from Apple for $1399 (or a dual for $1599).

[Zemrec]

Hmm. I configured a dual G4 1.25 as:

• Dual 1.25GHz w/ 2MB L3 Cache per processor
• 256MB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) -1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
• Optical 2 - None
• ATI Radeon 9000 Pro dual-display w/64MB DDR
• Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English
• Mac OS - U.S. English


Subtotal $1,570.00

But a stripped G5 is 1770:

• 1.6GHz PowerPC G5
• 256MB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) - 2x128
• 80GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
• Combo Drive (CD-RW/DVD-ROM)
• Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
• Mac OS X - U.S. English

Either would be great, but still more expensive than I'd like. I like a small computer as well, like the Cube, but its out of date and I see there aren't any dual G4 cards for it. There was something on Xlr8yourmac.com about someone who had modified a dual card from another machine for the Cube, but I'd rather not have to modify, especially if its difficult. Plus the cube's bus is just 100 MHz!

I'll be doing lots of compiling and maybe some video encoding. This is strictly a hobby, not work related, so I don't really need it, but I'd love to a have fast MacOS X system to try out Portage on (when it comes...), but would rather not go into debt to do it (I'm tempted....but still, it'd take me over a year to pay it off!)

I guess I need to do some thinking, or sell of my other machines and maybe, GASP!, my iBook! I love the iBook, but rarely use it except for iTunes and my iPod and a little web surfing now and then.

Building my Linux box was an easy decision, only cost $500, and I got a not quite top-of-the-line Athlon, but still very fast and up-to-date. Too bad you can't build a new Mac for that much. Best you can do is a machine thats a few years old and used.

[Zemrec]

I heard about Core Computers, and it sucks that Apple came down on them, but they're still selling modded cases. So I started eBay diving, and found a few G4 mobo's, CPUs, power supplies, etc.

Someone has a Dual 1 GHz processor card for sale, and put a bid on it, but then noticed it says for MDD Quicksilver only. Whats the difference between that and the Gigabit Ethernet boards? Looks like basically just the bus speed to me. Why can't you use a MDD processor card on the GE? Or can you?