Expanding/upgrading G4533

Question

I'm new to posting a topic, but the discussions to date on my area of interest have been very informative. I recently retired as a Marketing Director, and am wanting to return to my first love which is graphic design and photography. I have a G4533 (mfg. 2001), model M7688. Besides the 533 Mhz processor it has 1 GB Ram, 60 GB hard drive, 24X CD-RW drive, Zip drive, 2 USB ports, 2 Firewire ports, 1 Ethernet port and the standard 56k internal modem. It runs Classic (9.2.1) and boots up in OSX (10.1.5).
Since I will also need to purchase a scanner, digital card reader, color laser printer (as well as no small amount of software plus ongoing upgrades) and not wanting to give up my first-born to buy one of the new Intel-based machines, my primary question is whether this G4 is expandable enough to handle some of the more graphics intensive programs as Adobe's CS3 Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, etc.). I'll also need Microsoft's Word, Excel. Power Point and possibly Outlook. Running the CS3 suite requires a DVD drive as well as OS 10.4. - neither of which the G4 has currently.
Talking with a local user who runs G5s at a printing company and an upgraded G4 at home, my impression is that I could upgrade to at least 10.4 (Tiger) and replace the CD-RW drive with a DVD drive. Max out the RAM at 1.5 GB, change the hard drive to 130 GB running at 7200 RPM, and change the processor to a dual 1.8 Ghz. Any further suggestions?
If the G4 isn't yet a 'boat anchor' and can be upgraded, is it practical cost-wise and how long would it serve the purpose going forward - given changing technology, etc.?
Thanks for any input.

Answer 1

Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
Your DA isn't yet a boat anchor- in fact, it is a good candidate for upgrading. But, to bring it up to snuff, for some of the latest software, you will need to spend around $1000 to get the tower performance needed for some of the applications that you want to use. I am not so sure about CS3, but I use CS2, and the following suggestions will work well with CS2.
The processor upgrade is important. If the dual 1.8 that you speak of is a 7447 based processor, you may be better served by going with a 7455 based dual 1.4ghz processor. The difference is in the cache, and the 7455 has an L3 cache of 2mb (7447 has no L3), which effectively makes the slower processor faster than the 1.8, especially in graphics intensive applications.
Makers of the dual 1.4 are Fastmac and GigaDesigns:
http://www.gigadesigns.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=37
http://store.fastmac.com/productinfo.php?productsid=198
If the dual 1.8 processor is 7448 based, the lack of L3 cache is made up for with a 1mb L2 cache, and would make the DA a screamer.
You will also need to upgrade the graphics card. For a 4x AGP card, new cards are limited, but available. Without venturing into flashed PC cards, the Radeon 9800 is a good upgrade:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100435068/
As for the optical drive, the Pioneer DVR-112 is an excellent combo drive, and will support newer media, as well as all your favorite applications in OS X Tiger.
As mentioned, max the RAM at 1.5 to help with applications performance is a must.
And for the harddrive- one is not enough. You need at least two, and preferably three. With two drives, on the onboard ATA bus, you will be limited to drives no larger than 128gb. With the applications that you list, you won't have much left for storage, or for a scratch disk. Using one drive for the OS and applications, and one drive for files and scratch would provide better performance. The third drive, an external firewire drive, equivalent to the sum of the two internals, would be needed for backup of system and files. Using yet a larger ext. HDD would allow for archiving, as well.
You can use larger drives on the onboard bus, if you use the HiCap driver, with special partitioning, from Intech SpeedTools:
http://www.speedtools.com/ATA6.shtml
Better yet, and more reliable, would be to add a PCI HDD controller. This will allow use of large drives (up to 1TB) and if you were to add a PCI SATA controller, you could use the latest, fastest, enterprise technology with SATA II dives. SATA drives have some advantages over ATA, and do help with the overall performance of the system.
While on the PCI subject, a USB 2.0 card would help with connectivity of newer devices. The important factor in selectin a PCI USB 2.0 card is the chipset- the NEC chipset is most desireable. For more discussion of the issue, please see my post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5082043&#5082043
Best to avoid combo cards, ie. USB2.0/Firewire. If you need desire FW800, use a seperate card for best results.
That's one of the nice things about the DA- 4 PCI slots!
For all your hardware needs, a trusted Mac specialist is OWC.
For user performance reports, in various systems with various configurations, xlr8yourmac is an excellent source.