> 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.
Actually you just justified getting a Sawtooth machine over a beige G3 :-) If you look on ebay you'll see that G4 400 Sawtooth machines are selling for around 800 bucks (sometimes less). And if that's too rich for your blood try for a G4 350 sawtooth (just make sure it's a sawtooth and has AGP graphics). This you can hold off on upgrading for a while. And when you do you can put in a G4 800Mhz or G4 1Ghz upgrade. You're also getting ATA-66 and AGP 2x. With jaguar coming up with quartz extreme I'd really suggest getting a machine with at least AGP 2x and upgrading the vid card to a really nice one (I'm getting the ATI radeon 9700 when it comes out...it should increase performance REALLY nicely with quartz extreme and leave lots of processor bandwidth for doing other stuff) Good Luck. Justin -- 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>
