Purchase/Upgrade from iMac - options?

[Mainframeguy]

There's a household I am helping with their IT situation and they are presently exclusively Mac based with two iMacs... They are looking to upgrade to add one more workstation and I have suggested they should go for more power - maybe a G5. Another contact of mine has the Mac that is white with the dome under the screen (what model IS that?) and I am wondering if that is also an option for them.

What do the Mac people here have to say, Speedy Dave? Techno? Others?

 

[LordOfLA]

I'd acoid any powerpc based macs now. Look at intel Core based Mac products.

Alternativley they could be smart ad get a Windows based workstation and be dual platform. Best of both worlds.

 

[Techno Child]

Definately a new mac pro. If it's out of budget, then probably the dual g5 powermac. They are PPC, but still would be better than a smaller intel in my opinion.

btw.. the mac you are talking about is a G4 Imac. It would be best not to get one of those since they quit making them about 5 years ago?!

 

[SPeedY_B]

What exactly are these machines going to be used for?

If the iMacs you are referring to are the colourful G3 iMacs (with in-built CRT) then pretty much anything from the current line-up will seem a million miles ahead in terms of speed.

For most people, the Mac Mini or MacBook will suffice. If they want something a little more powerful, then an iMac. I can't see anyone who's been running older iMacs needing anything more than the Mini though.

 

[muzikool]

The Intel-based iMac has some great benchmarks, so I would definitely recommend it over the iMac G5. The "dome" iMac is the G4, so upgrading to a G5 or the Intel would show them a huge improvement.

The mini might also be fine depending on their needs, but I would recommend the iMac since it's so simple with everything built-in.

 

[Mainframeguy]

well - come the weekend I expect to take delivery of a brand spanking new 20" iMac 2.4GHz Intel Duo with 1GB DDR and 250 GB HD etc etc... I guess they should be happy with that!

Yeah, the budget changed in case you did not guess....

Oh and so far as Lords comment, well I am also building up a PC system with old 734 XPBarton and Radeon 9800 pro etc.... So hopefully they'll end up with the best of both worlds...

Anyone want an old first generation iMac? Purple? :dead:

 

[Techno Child]

Yeah, you know.... the purple kinda ruined it

Nice though, the 1gig of ram will probably really help it's speed. I played around with one that just had 128? maybe 512.. and my iBook G4 was faster

 

[Mainframeguy]

well whaddya know - UPS loaded my goodies up around 5:26 this AM....

so their world will be turning white instead of purple soon