Note also that the very fastest G4 upgrades available (800-1GHz) will downclock your bus speed from 100MHz to 66MHz. That and they cost more than a semi-decent G4 tower, which will give you the advantages Rodus points out, as well as having much faster and/or cheaper CPU upgrades available.
The optimum starting point for G4 towers IMHO is the Digital Audio (466 or 533MHz). They take the exact same CPU upgrades, RAM and video cards as all the other G4s (with some exceptions), have a 133MHz bus, 2x AGP video and four PCI slots.
In my mind the best bang for buck upgrades for that tower of yours, in order, are
Of course, you'd have to weight each upgrade's cost against the cost of a better base machine yourself.
The optimum starting point for G4 towers IMHO is the Digital Audio (466 or 533MHz). They take the exact same CPU upgrades, RAM and video cards as all the other G4s (with some exceptions), have a 133MHz bus, 2x AGP video and four PCI slots.
In my mind the best bang for buck upgrades for that tower of yours, in order, are
- RAM
- Overclocking
- Video card (which, being PCI, will again be somewhat more expensive than an AGP equivalent)
- Faster, larger, quieter hard drive
- A used G4 ZIF to around 500MHz
- A new G3 ZIF to 1GHz
- A faster ATA or SCSI card.
Of course, you'd have to weight each upgrade's cost against the cost of a better base machine yourself.