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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 19:40:38

Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 19:40:38: I've recently come in to some money (I sold my atari) and I'm thinking about buying a Mac Mini 1.25GHz G4. I've actually been looking for something to replace my 733MHz Quicksilver which died about a year ago (I'm not spending money on a logic board + IDE HD, it's just not worth it) and am wondering if it's even still worth it to buy a G4 at this point. I'll only run what I own (10.5) and have no intentions on getting snow leopard but I"m not sure about it. At this time is it even worth spending the money? (I can get it for around $40 if nobody else bids on it :D)

Specs:
1.25 GHz G4 Processor
512MB RAM
40GB Seagate 2.5" Hard Drive
CDRW/DVD Combo Disc Drive (Burns CDs & reads DVDs)
Airport Extreme WiFi & Bluetooth upgrade
Firewire 400 port
2 USB ports
Built-in speaker
DVI
modem
Ethernet and audio ports
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 20 January 2009, 19:46:29: The only problem is, I find my 1.2GHz iBook G4 to be painfully slow. And, that thing needs more RAM, and wouldn't hurt to have more disk.

Oh, and you'll want to disable Spotlight, it sees a CPU, and goes "OM NOM NOM."
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 19:52:15: Definitely not gonna leave it at 512MB. Gonna install 1GB and use my 120GB external. I may just leave it at tiger but I don't know yet. It's just going to be a webdev box. I had spotlight disabled on my G4 because its just a resource hog (I didn't ever use it).
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: D-EJ915 on Tue, 20 January 2009, 19:53:07: with that amount of ram and the slow 2.5" hard drive it will be very slow compared to a comparable powermac
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: wellington1869 on Tue, 20 January 2009, 20:32:58: will it be good enough for word processing/web surfing/youtube videos?
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 20 January 2009, 20:37:49: Yes, somewhat, no.

I found that my Mac was great in Word 2004.

Web browsing... slowish, but it worked OK, as long as I kept Flash disabled unless I absolutely needed it.

YouTube videos... barely watchable for 4:3 normal quality videos, barely unwatchable for 16:9 normal quality videos, completely and totally unwatchable for HD quality videos. (Note that I kept Flash disabled unless I absolutely needed it. This would be why. Flash sucks on anything that isn't IE on Win32/x86. Deviate from that in any way, and performance starts sucking - be that an alternate browser, an alternate CPU architecture (well, OK, x64 might be fine,) or an alternate OS. And a PPC Mac will be deviating from every one of those. And, no, I couldn't get FLVs to play in VLC, either.)
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 20:45:53: Your results may vary I guess. My PowerMac G4 with 1.5GB PC133 and a GeForce2 did fine with YouTube videos on a 1280x1024 screen... The only lag was because of my SLOOOOW 768k service.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 20:48:45: What graphics chip is in your iBook bhtooefr?
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: iMav on Tue, 20 January 2009, 20:57:43: Heck, the CURRENT Mac mini's are painfully outdated...

If you want a mini, I'd try and pick up an older Intel (core solo or core duo). You'll get twice the max ram (2GB compared to 1GB max with the G4)...and you'll have the option of a drop in CPU replacement up to 2.0Ghz Core2Duo's and beyond. (2.0Ghz C2D's are the sweet spot for upgrades for the mini as they have 4MB L2 cache (compared to 2MB on the 1.83Ghz CPU's))
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 20 January 2009, 21:26:34: A Radeon 9200, but it's not graphics that's the problem, I don't think - Flash is CPU bound, and I don't think it touches the GPU.

I'll note that videos that play in a real video player play beautifully, even up to high resolution stuff.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: zwmalone on Tue, 20 January 2009, 21:42:57: I'm going to bid on it. If I win and don't find it powerful enough I can just use it as a server or something.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: xsphat on Tue, 20 January 2009, 23:38:57: The Mac Minis are really slow. My MacBook kills my wife's Mini (both bought new in Sept. 08) in speed and everything else. I can't even stand using her computer at all.

And yeah, a G4 would be doggy as hell by any of today's standards.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: cb951303 on Wed, 21 January 2009, 05:11:58: you can always install linux and make things a little faster

debian has a powerpc version.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: iMav on Wed, 21 January 2009, 07:23:20: Quote from: xsphat;19040
The Mac Minis are really slow. My MacBook kills my wife's Mini (both bought new in Sept. 08) in speed and everything else. I can't even stand using her computer at all.

They (Intel mini's) are pretty much exactly the same as the same architecture MacBooks. The problem is, they continued to upgrade the MacBooks...but did not do so with the mini's.

You can actually get 3GB of usable ram out of that mini...drop in two 2GB sticks. You'll get 3GB usable plus the advantage of dual channel speed (which is the advantage over using unmatched 1GB + 2GB).
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bhtooefr on Wed, 21 January 2009, 10:03:24: I believe the i945 supports async dual channel, though. Not quite as fast as full dual channel, but...
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: megarat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 12:23:58: Oh brother. This thread is tickling a pet peeve of mine.

So ... I still use a pair of G4 Macs:

-- My laptop: 12" Powerbook G4, first generation (with 867 MHz and max'd out at 640MB RAM, 10.4, soon to be 10.5)

-- My personal desktop machine: last-generation G4 Mac Mini (1.5GHz with a full 1GB of RAM, 10.5)

Both of these computers -- even the laptop that is going on five years old -- are perfectly fine for general use. (General use = applications like MS office, web surfing, youtube videos, etc.) I even use the laptop for high-end scientific work, in particular data analysis on large data sets, and I rarely have problems. The only truly insurmountable obstacles I encounter are when I need to address more than 4GB of memory at a time (which is what my 64-bit office desktop machine is for) and when I need to run a job that is truly runtime critical (which is what the 400-node cluster and enormous shared-memory box are for).

Sure ... complicated web pages might take an extra second to resolve. Files might take an extra second or three to load. The pivot table on your big Excel spreadsheet might take an extra five seconds to calculate, and that enormous HD video may play at only 15fps ... but to critically judge an older computer's performance when you seriously don't need high-end performance anyway ... therein lies the road to madness.

Of course, some home-consumer applications truly benefit from a modern computer. The most obvious is games. Active work with image/video processing is another. And when you get into business computing, where time is truly money, the upgrades usually pay for themselves. But I have to say, these older computers are usually much more capable than what they're given credit for.

So I encourage you to give that G4 Mac Mini a try. Fill it up with memory and you'll likely be pleasantly surprised.

As a related aside, when people complain about (modern or old) computers being slow for general purpose use, it is usually because they are under-endowed with memory. Certainly, there are many variables that affect a computer's apparent performance, including the speed of the memory, the speed of the hard disk, bus speeds, etc., even network speed, but for the majority of cases, the amount of memory is the culprit. (Or more specifically, using fancy-pants comp-sci lingo, having a deficit of core memory is the primary cause of vertical waste.) As such, I highly recommend that any time you get a computer (and this is increasingly important with old computers), you fill it up with as much RAM as it can handle.

Rant over ... thanks for listening.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: iMav on Thu, 22 January 2009, 13:57:51: Quote from: megarat;19161
As such, I highly recommend that any time you get a computer (and this is increasingly important with old computers), you fill it up with as much RAM as it can handle.

Although, if you buy a Mac Pro, you might want to hold off on the 32GB of ram (depending on your desired usage)...especially if it requires a second mortgage to do so. ;)

The issue with the G4 mini's is that they max out at 1GB of ram. Sure Leopard will work. But the user experience is greatly enhanced with at least 2GB (I use a real life experience of a 1.42Ghz G4 mini maxed with 1GB ram and a 1.5Ghz CoreSolo mini w/ 2GB ram).

I whole-heartedly agree that older hardware is perfectly fine for the majority of users. My daughter's primary computer is a 17" G5 iMac that I saved from the landfill...it simply had a bad hard drive. She uses it primarily for email, IM, web, and World of Warcraft (and iTunes).
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: xsphat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 14:14:22: Quote from: iMav;19173
Although, if you buy a Mac Pro, you might want to hold off on the 32GB of ram (depending on your desired usage)...especially if it requires a second mortgage to do so. ;)

:D lol
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: megarat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 14:30:22: Quote from: iMav;19173
Although, if you buy a Mac Pro, you might want to hold off on the 32GB of ram (depending on your desired usage)...especially if it requires a second mortgage to do so. ;)

Touché!
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: xsphat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 14:30:35: What ever machine you run, you should max the RAM at least up to 4 GB, which is the current standard. I only run what little RAM new MAcBooks come with until my upgrades arrive in the mail. I max it right away because then I don't have to worry about it again.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: cb951303 on Thu, 22 January 2009, 17:06:23: Quote from: xsphat;19181
What ever machine you run, you should max the RAM at least up to 4 GB, which is the current standard. I only run what little RAM new MAcBooks come with until my upgrades arrive in the mail. I max it right away because then I don't have to worry about it again.

well, considering a lot of people still use 32bit XP, ~1GB of that ram goes to trash :)
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: xsphat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 17:27:05: Sorry, I use Mac.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bigpook on Thu, 22 January 2009, 21:38:06: I use linux. I get the full 4G.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: bhtooefr on Thu, 22 January 2009, 22:04:01: For that matter, if the Mac in question is i945-based (which means the Core Duo and early Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, MacBook, iMac, and I think MacBook Pro,) the last gig is wasted due to CHIPSET limitations.
Title: G4 still worth it?
Post by: xsphat on Thu, 22 January 2009, 23:35:14: Quote from: bhtooefr;19225
For that matter, if the Mac in question is i945-based (which means the Core Duo and early Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, MacBook, iMac, and I think MacBook Pro,) the last gig is wasted due to CHIPSET limitations.

Only the recent MacBooks (like mine) claim they can handle 4 GB. My last one only claimed 2 GB, so that's what I put in it.