upgading G4

[mgreend]

I have a G4 with 704 megs of ram and a small 10 gig HD. This machine is very expandable and I want to upgrade it to it's full potential to make it as fast as possible with plenty of hard drive space. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. 2nd HD? processor speed? more ram? what else do I need and where are the best places to get them online?

[Chris]

How fast is the processor? Processor upgrades can be very expensive, I've seen them go for around $1000.

The first thing I would upgrade is the hard drive. What kind of work do you do on your computer? If you're doing video, you'll need a big HD.

Since you have 704 MB of RAM, I'm guessing you have a 512, 128, and 64 MB chip. With Mac OS X, you can never have too much RAM. It makes a big difference in performance. I would take out the 64, and put in a 256 for about $30 or a 512 for around $50. That will give you 896 MB. Make sure that you buy PC133 RAM if you have a Mac with a 133 Mhz bus, otherwise it won't work. Mac's with a 100 Mhz bus can use either PC133 or PC100.

I buy most of my upgrades from OWC. You can probably get cheaper RAM if you search dealram.com, but make sure it's good quality.

[mgreend]

Processor is 400 MHz. If upgrading it is too expensive I probably won't bother.

I do freelance graphic design and photo restorations. When I find time I mess around with some computer art too. My files are usually over 100 megs at least so trying to do simple things in photoshop like transforming, cropping or even saving can take some time.

How much of a difference does HD space make in the overall speed of my computer? I checked the owc site, the 80 GB HD's are about in my price range. Which one do think is the better choice?

[Chris]

You have an AGP Power Mac, right? The only upgrade they make for it right now is the Sonnet Encore/ST. $499 for 800Mhz and $699 for 1Ghz. It should be available by the end of this month.

Since your files are at least 100 MB, I think an 80 GB would be a good idea. They make 40 GBs too, which will also work, but I think it's nice to have room for more stuff. Also, you could partition it and have two 40 GB drives. My Cube has the 80 GB 7200 RPM Maxtor.

Hard drive space won't make much of a difference in speed. You would have much bigger scratch disk in Photoshop though. You can get a faster drive, 7200 RPM instead of 5400 RPM.

[mgreend]

Thanks a lot, you've been a really big help. I think I can upgrade with confidence now.

[Chris]

No problem.