>I think if you are selling your power book and lets say getting a G3 beige >266 or 300, you will in the end spend about the same money on firewire/USB, >videocard, prossesor upgrade, things really start to cook in X when you have >a G4 with altivec as you would if you would be getting a G4 400. And you >will bee stuck with the 66Mhz system buz and a other limitations. > >I say don�t get a beige now to spend money on, go for aG4 if you can afford >it . That will do nicely for quite a few years > >S�var >Beige owner > >> Either way, I will end up with a desktop system that is more powerful >> than my laptop. A beige G3 may not be the best way to go, since I'd need >> lots of upgrades in order to bring it up to spec, and even then it >> wouldn't be that great (certainly not as great as, say, a used >> Sawtooth). Again, I don't need lots of power but a significant jump >> would be nice. Something that'll keep me able to do basic things for a >> few years. I'm afraid that a beige G3, as adequate as it looks now, may > > just not cut it even for basic work a few years down the line. >
Lowend Mac has a nice piece on upgrading a G3 beige. The difference isn't between spending a few hundred dollars for a used G3 DT and a monitor and then upgrading that, it is getting the G3 266 DT for nearly free with the monitor I would assume. At that point you put in a Radeon 7000 ($100), a couple of 60 gig/7200 hard drives ($170), an ata controller pci card that will operate your drives at 100 MHz $50, a CDRW ($90 for a 40 X write; slightly slower w/ DVD for $130), some extra memory ($80 for two 256 sticks ) and a firewire/USB pci card for $50 (Sonnet just came out with a combo card that does the ATA133/Firewire/USB for $180; costs more than the separate cards, but you end up with an empty PCI slot for something else later) and a G4 zif, for around $250. For around $800, you get a G4/500 MHz/>512 MB/w/CDRW/dvd and 120 GB of disk storage machine that will handle OSX and just about anything 98% of college students will want to do for the next four years. I don't know that you can get a G4 machine with all that plus the monitor for $800. If he had to buy the G3 Desktop that would be a different story. Eric R -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
