[Coffee1970]

Hello all and thanks for reading...mac owners are extremely pleasant to ask questions to..

Going to be in college soon ( yeah, I'm 37 too!! ). Website design and e-Business major.

Have a Windows HP 3.0GHZ Celeron, 512MB, 120GB, DVDRW, blah, blah, blah

Like to get a mac off of eBay.....???

I am on a very tight budget, using student loan money to purchase this thing

Probably would also use little bit older software, so it would run actually faster on powerpc than on intel under Rosetta I understand.

Would use for the following......Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, MS Office , few games maybe, Safari 2, iLife suite....ya know, the usual stuff a website designer likes!
In your real world experience..........

Be ok with
G4 1.0GHZ with 1GB Ram or need to up it with
Dual 800/1.0/1.25 and 1GB Ram or just go with
Mac mini 1.42 G4 (not the intel...remember Tiiiight budget)
I could list other combinations, but you all know what I am trying to ask.
Seems like a lot of people still using B&W G3, and just maxing out memory and stuff, even though this is a last resort for a graphics guy I would think.

I like the idea of NOT having the 2.5 itty bitty HD like the mini G4
Could easily upgrade the PM G4 little at a time when money permits (and wife permits!!)

If thinking about the future....would a 1.6 G5 single be a better buy than a Dual 1GH G4 that's maxed out...as on eBay , these two are comparably priced from what I seen.

What ya all thinking? Any help and commnets would be greatly appreciated , as you are helping a future Mac owner on board! Yeah!

Thanks.

[Lateralus]

Well, since the Intel switch most people on this board seem to be of the opinion that buying is a G4 akin to becoming a drug dealer, losing your job and your home, casting a hex on your own children and sending a hit man out against The Pope.

But in reality, the G4 Power Macs are extremely venerable machines and will be quite useful for years to come. Part of the reason for that is that Apple sold more G4 Power Macs than they ever sold of any other desktop in Mac history, largely because of how long they were on the market. And when you have that many of a certain model family out in the field, you're tied into supporting them for quite some time. So, I'd not worry about any loss of software support from Apple any time soon.

And in addition to that, the G4 Power Macs are extremely upgradeable, mostly because of their versatility of the processor daughtercard design. The fact that you can take a 1999 350MHz G4 and slap a 2GHz G4 upgrade in with no hassle is something that's next to unheard of on the PC side. And of course, the upgrade path looks even better if you have a G4 with a motherboard capable of accepting a dual processor upgrade (any model from 2000 onward).

So, yeah, forget the mini. It's a bit of a toy. I've played with the idea of getting one myself but in all honestly but I'm not sure if I could live with it as a serious machine.

As for the 1.6GHz G5, forget that to. They have all the imposing size and power requirements of a G5 generation machine with none of the performance benefit; they're dogs. You'd be better off with any dual G4 faster than 1GHz.

[slpdLoad]

I think you're going to be hard pressed to buy a "loaded" G4 for $500-$600, and for that you can get an Intel Mini (check out the refurb offers, or even an Intel off of ebay. You'll also be eligible for Apple Education discounts). It will be significantly faster than most G4s you can get.

Now you might think that I'm wrong about the mini because PowerPCs are better at handling older apps like the Adobe Creative Suite, but once again, I'd say you'll have to put in $800-$1000 to upgrade a G4 tower to acceptable specs. And you get what you pay for. An old G3 tower is going to be ridiculous to try to do web design on.

Otherwise, I'm not really sure what you're asking for. You seem to have spec'ed out a system you like.

[roller]

Coffee,

In my lab (see sig), we use some machines that are at least seven years old, and we run photoshop, indesign, imovie with regularity. They are not the fastest machines in the lab, but none of my student ever complain. In fact, often the old candy-colored iMacs are the first ones selected by my students to be "their computers." So, don't be scared to purchase an older Mac.

That said, if you check my iSwitched site, you will find an article on something many people overlook -- Apple's refurbished options. Very good options, especially for someone like you, to get a newer model at a often heavily discounted price. Very well worth checking into...

[DrBoar]

I am typing this from an intel Mini that replaced the dual 1.25G4 that broke down. I also use a dual 1 GHz G4 and a single 1.2 GHz G4 and the latter one started out as a G4/400.

The mini is the fastest but with only 1 GB RAM it bogs down faster than the dual G4s do. Especially Office that run in emulation is drag.

Stay away from the G4 mini slower than the towers due to small HD and expensive and hard to upgrade RAM.
Stay away from early G4 towers, they only have ATA 66 and USB1, by the you have added nwe CPU, ATA133 and USB 2 card it is more expensive than a new Mini.

A mini or a iMac is far better if you can afford it. A Later G4 tower is very simple to add more RAM and add harddisks, a 1GHz box with 1 GB RAM will "feel" about as fast as your celeronbox. Not snappy but not irritatingly slow either

[P]

Out of the options you're presenting, a dual G4 is probably the best - the mini in particular is a bad option - but I'd rather pickup a refurb iMac C2D.

[chris v]

I'd try to hold out for one of the Mirrored Drive Door models, simply for the extra RAM slot. The duals previous to them (except for the dual 450's and dual 500s, which are a bit slow these days) only had 3 RAM slots, with a max of 1.5 GB, which can be constraining. You should be able to pick up a dual 1.25 for about 800-900 dollars, and that's still a very capable machine. Definitely max out the RAM, however you go.

[bowwowman]

on older versions of design apps, dual processors are well-supported and run way faster than SP machines, with sufficient ram & HD space, of course.

so...........mAxDaRam 4 sure
get 2 big, fast HDD's, one for booting & the other for scratch disk/storage of your work

[scottiB]

I suggest at the oldest a QuickSilver/2002 (867 mhz, 933 mhz, 2 x 1000). These can handle drives greater than 127GB, and you'll save the cost of a PCI card for larger drives. I agree with Chris, try to get an MDD if you can - even a DP867 would do you well.

I have an almost 6 year old DP800 with a GeForce3 in it, run CS2, iLife, and Final Cut Pro 3 with no issues. I just plan for some overnight renders and compression.