Power Macintosh

Power Mac G4

Power Mac G4/1 GHz, 1.25 GHz, 1.42 GHz

This was the first Power Mac to require OS X and also the first with FireWire 800 ports. A good rule of thumb: If it has FireWire 800, it won't boot OS 9.

Apple hit the 1 GHz mark in January 2002, 1.25 GHz in August 2002, and 1.42 GHz in January 2003. At the bottom of the new series, Apple has dispensed with dual processors to keep the price down - the single 1.0 GHz CPU model retails for just $1,499.

Still, Motorola remains "behind the curve" with G4 processor speeds, which should increase roughly 25% every six months. Instead, we have a decidedly overhyped 14% jump in processor speed. On the other hand, the price is also 18% lower, further improving the value of the Power Mac G4.

These are the first Power Macs with a Bluetooth socket and support for AirPort Extreme.

As with the last revision, the two faster models have a 167 MHz system bus. All models have two media drives bays (so you can have a SuperDrive and a fast CD burner), four RAM sockets, and three independent drive buses that each support two devices. An ATA/33 bus is used for the media drives, an ATA/100 bus that connects to the stock hard drive, and an unused ATA/66 bus. There are four hard drive bays inside the new G4.

Watch out for Apple's claim of "four USB ports" - there are two on the computer and two on the keyboard, just like the old G4s.

The fastest pair of new G4s have faster video cards, the ATI Radeon 9000. The dual 1.42 GHz model includes 2 MB of level 3 cache per processor, twice as much as the slower models.

Details

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Cautions

  • Note that some vendors are substituting PC2700 RAM for PC2100 modules. Although PC2100 Macs can work with PC2700 RAM, you can't use both types of RAM in the same machine. All installed RAM must be the same type, whether PC2100 or PC2700.
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