Old Power Mac Reaches 800 MHz

Maxwell M Cabral - 2002.09.30

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

Sure, tons of 800 MHz and faster Macs have left Cupertino, but not as many as the number of slower Macs people have bought. There are millions of slower "New World" Macs, such as B&W G3s and slot loading iMacs, not to mention the countless other PCI Power Macs and clones. Most of these have been left behind by not only the 800 MHz G4, but also by the now shipping dual 1.25 GHz machines.

Luckily, Sonnet and others have come up with new upgrades to keep us from having to buy new computers. One good example is the Sonnet Crescendo/PCI G4 inside the 7300 I'm writing this on.

It's currently a 7300 G4/800 with 1 GB of RAM. I would call this amount of RAM a luxury, but it does help when your running a lot of RAM hungry applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Quark.

As for the upgrade card, it comes with the 7455 variant of the G4, which comes with L2 and L3 cashes. Everything feels really fast and a lot smoother, even though there had been a 400 MHz G3 in the 7300 before this upgrade.

Installation was fast and simple: Just install the software and swap out the cards.

Now that the G4 card is in there and were running hard and fast, OS X is going to be the next step. I definitely think that this card is worth its US$400 price. It feels as fast as a new Mac and is cheaper.

If your shopping for a new Mac, consider this option, but keep an eye out on the rumors - if there's a new Power Mac based on a faster G4 or the new IBM chip coming in January, wait for them so the prices will drop even lower on 7500s and similar models.

This is just a hint: Baucom Computers has great deals on PCI Macs. And don't forget to put in at least 256 MB of RAM.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS news feed

Today's Links

Mac of the Day: Power Mac G4 Cube, introduced 2000.07.19. Compact, powerful, and attractive with limited expansion and a high initial price doomed the Cube.
Support Low End Mac

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2016 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Page not found | Low End Mac

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help.

Old Power Mac Reaches 800 MHz

Today's Links

Recent Content

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags

Favorite Sites

Affiliates

Advertise

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags