POWER MAC G4 SPECS UPDATE
The newest version for this Power Mac is Power Mac G4 Firmware Update 4.2.8, which is only for Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet/Mystic, and Digital Audio Power Macs. You should have the most recent firmware installed in your Power Mac G4.
POWER MAC G4 SPECS MAC OS
Because of voltage differences between the AGP 2x and 4x specs, newer cards may also be electronically incompatible with the Sawtooth G4.Īlthough the Sawtooth Power Macs support up to 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS 9 is only able to recognize up to 1.5 GB. It may also be incompatible with AGP 4x and later cards that include a retention tab. The video card on G4 systems made after 1999.12.02 is “up to 40% faster” and includes a DVI interface for digital flat panel displays.īecause this model was created before Apple adopted the ADC port (which provides power to an external monitor), the Sawtooth G4 is unable to support ADC displays.
(See Apple Revs G4/350 for more information.) Although selling for the same price as the Yikes! model, the newer 350 MHz model has DVD instead of CD-ROM, AGP video instead of PCI video, and the ability to accept an AirPort card. On 1999.12.02, Apple replaced the 350 MHz Yikes! with a Sawtooth model of the same speed.
This may have been the first time in personal computer history that any model saw a downgrade in performance without any reduction in price. At the same time, a 400 MHz Sawtooth was introduced at the previous price of the 450 MHz model, and the 450 MHz Sawtooth was configured to replace the postponed 500 MHz machine at the price announced for the 500 MHz model. On 1999.10.13, Apple officially postponed the 500 MHz G4 until January due to problems Motorola was having producing a 500 MHz processor in quantity. The Sawtooth G4 not only has bootable USB, which Yikes! does not, but it also has two separate USB controllers, “to better balance the throughput requirements of the individual USB devices on the bus.” ( USB Info and Benefits of Dual-Channel USB) The Yikes! models uses a modified Yosemite (Blue & White) motherboard, while the AGP model covered here is based on the superior Sawtooth motherboard. Even though both looked the same from the front and sides, they have different motherboards and features. Note that there were two very different versions of the Power Mac G4. And with 1-4 gigaflops (billion floating point operations per second) performance at 500 MHz, it was a supercomputer by government definition when it was released.
POWER MAC G4 SPECS PRO
“Wicked fast” is the phrase that best summarizes the breakthrough performance of the Power Mac G4 – the first personal computer classified as munitions and under export restriction because of its power. Offering up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G3 and three times the power of a Pentium III at the same clock speed, the G4 was Apple’s first serious pro computer after Steve Jobs became iCEO.ĭesigned in graphite gray, silver, and clear plastic, it even looks professional.