Mac 9500 with G3, vs. Quick silver G4

#1 Sat, 2 Oct 2010 - 01:46

I have a Power Tower Pro (Mac 9500) with *NewerTech G3 processor* card in it. It's running OS9.

The good thing about the old system is that you have quite a few PC slots to fill in.

How much power and benefits do you get from the Quick silver G4 compared to mine?

Is that a substaintial increase in power?

Will my Mac be able to run OSX?

Thanks

#2 Sat, 2 Oct 2010 - 02:39

If you are using a pre-Radeon graphic card, it would be best to stick with 10.1 Puma. Otherwise, 10.3 Panther. 10.4 for most compatibility.

#3 Sat, 2 Oct 2010 - 12:13

I have a Power Tower Pro (Mac 9500) with *NewerTech G3 processor* card in it. It's running OS9.The good thing about the old system is that you have quite a few PC slots to fill in.

True - but consider that you have to use one of those slots for video (vs. AGP video slot in QS), another one to add USB/Firewire, and yet another if you want to use ATA hard drives and optical drives.

How much power and benefits do you get from the Quick silver G4 compared to mine?Is that a substaintial increase in power?

Absolutely.

Upgradable processor up to dual 2GHz G4 - starter systems around single 800MHz G4
133MHz system and RAM bus vs 50MHz. Also, PC-133 RAM is much cheaper and easier to find.
Faster ATA drives vs more expensive SCSI drives or buying an ATA PCI card for the PT
AGP video = faster and better video cards, including native support for Quartz Extreme and CoreVideo
Built in Firewire and USB1.1 (PCI card required for USB2)
OS X up to 10.5.x - and OS 9

Will my Mac be able to run OSX?

Yes, but not easily or well. Google for XPostFacto - the utility you need to use to install OS X on unsupported machines. IIRC, it will only work up to OS X 10.2.x

Really, compared to doing any upgrades to the PT, you could find a base level QS for the same price which would be a much more powerful machine out of the box - assuming the market for used Macs near you is anything like near me, or the USA.

#4 Sat, 2 Oct 2010 - 17:38

IIRC, it will only work up to OS X 10.2.x

Do you mean XPF or his machine? XPF will do up to 10.4, I dunno what his machine can do but 10.2 sounds about right.

#5 Sat, 2 Oct 2010 - 17:52

Quicksilvers are cheap (they must be if I own a couple) and are much faster then a 9500 with G3. If you want to run OSX get at least a native G4 machine. Start with OSX 10.3 or better, the older stuff is not supported by much software and is kind of buggy.

#6 Mon, 4 Oct 2010 - 03:54

Do you mean XPF or his machine? XPF will do up to 10.4

I meant XPF, but it's been a while since I've checked it out.

#7 Mon, 4 Oct 2010 - 03:59

Well I know I used XPF to install 10.3 and 10.4 on a WS/PDQ machine.

As for what he can get going on his PTP though.. I have no idea.