Power Mac G4Power Macintosh

Power Macintosh G4 (AGP Graphics)

code name: Sawtooth

Overview

"Wicked fast" is the phrase that best summarizes the breakthrough performance of the Power Mac G4 - the first personal computer classified as munitions and under export restriction because of its power.

Offering up to twice the performance of the G3 and three times the power of a Pentium III at the same clock speed, the G4 was Apple's first serious pro computer after Steve Jobs became iCEO.

Designed in graphite gray, silver, and clear plastic, it even looks professional. And with 1-4 gigaflops (billion floating point operations per second) performance at 500 MHz; by government definition when it was released in 1999, it was a supercomputer.

Note that there were two very different versions of the Power Mac G4. Even though both looked the same from the front, they have different motherboards and features. The "Yikes!" models use a modified Yosemite motherboard, while the model covered here is based on the "Sawtooth" motherboard.

The Sawtooth G4 not only has bootable USB, but it also has two separate USB controllers, "to better balance the throughput requirements of the individual USB devices on the bus." (USB Info and Benefits of Dual-Channel USB)

On October 13, 1999, Apple officially postponed the G4/500 until January due to problems Motorola was having producing a 500 MHz processor. At the same time, a G4/400 Sawtooth was introduced at the price of the G4/450 and the G4/450 was configured to replace the postponed G4/500. This could be the first time in personal computer history that any model saw a downgrade in performance without any reduction in price.

On December 2, 1999, Apple replaced the 350 MHz "Yikes" with a Sawtooth model of the same speed. Although selling for the same price, the newer model has DVD instead of CD-ROM, AGP video instead of PCI video, and the ability to accept an AirPort card. (See Apple Revs G4/350 for more information.)

The video card on G4 systems made after 1999.12.02 is "up to 40% faster" and includes a DVI interface for digital flat panel displays.

Because this model was created before Apple adopted the ADC port (which provides power to an external monitor), the Sawtooth G4 is unable to support ADC displays. It may also be incompatible with AGP 4x and later cards that include a retention tab. Because of voltage differences between the AGP 2x and 4x specs, newer cards may also be electronically incompatible with the Sawtooth G4.

Although the Sawtooth Power Macs support up to 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS 9 is only able to recognize up to 1.5 GB of RAM.

You should have the most recent firmware installed in your Power Mac G4. The newest version for this Power Mac is Power Mac G4 Firmware Update 4.2.8, which is only for Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet, and Digital Audio Power Macs. To install this firmware update, you must boot into Mac OS 9.1-9.2.2 from a writable partition

The "Yikes!" G4s (350 and 400 MHz) are covered on a separate page.

The Upgrade Box

Details

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Cautions

<go to Power Mac index or LEM home page>

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