The right PPC Mac for 10.4

I would think that any a AGP G4 (Sawtooth) and above would do just fine. A Mac Mini would be perfect, though. I don't know what the used prices are on them are now.

Just my opinion.

I have a 450 sawtooth that runs 10.4 just fine. 768m memory if I remember

I've got a 1.5GHz G4 mini with 1GB RAM and it's pretty decent. I wouldn't stick with 512MB on 10.4, and DIMMs are getting really cheap nowadays anyway.

If you want 10.4 comfortably, I'd shy away from the G3. You also miss out on the ability to run anything like Garage Band that requires a G4.

A sawtooth G4, as mentioned, is cheap and has the plus of being cheaply upgradable with standard PC RAM and drives.

A Digital Audio offers a bit more speed, but if you need to add upgrades, it can get closer to the price of a used mini.

You should be able to find either for under $100 on ebay, depending on specs.

i bought a Digital audio 533mhz , it runs tiger very well. i dont think i would go with a lower model then a Digital audio. you can find these from $100 and up, depending on spec's

Tiger runs with acceptable stability on my Blue & White G3 (450 MHz, 1GB RAM), my Gigabit G4 (dual 500 MHz, 1GB RAM), and my Titanium PowerBook G4 (500 MHz, 1GB RAM).

But then, I'm a bit of a nutcase who just needs to be surrounded with happy old Macs. I'm also running Panther on a quartet of tray-loading iMacs, Jaguar on a Beige G3, and Mac OS 9.2.2 on a Power Mac 6500.

For someone wanting to run Tiger on their only (or primary) machine, I'd recommend a Quicksilver G4 (733 MHz or better), iMac G4 (the gooseneck model, 800 MHz or better), an Aluminum PowerBook (867 MHz or better), a G4 Mac mini (even the bare minimum works quite nicely), or an iBook (at least 900 MHz G3 or any G4).

The main qualifiers I'd give would be plenty of hard drive space (30GB minimum, 80GB or more would be ideal) and plenty of RAM (512MB minimum, I recommend 1GB or more if the machine supports it).

Yea ive got tiger on my 400mhz G3 B&W and its kinda painful.

Are Newer Versions of OS X Slower then? Everyone is talking about how fast X 10.5 is but the requirements are MINIMUM 867MHz. Why? is it getting more bloated or is it just all the goo-gahs and eye candy?

I am an OS 9.1 user (that and Windblows XP) but have read reviews that Vista with all its 'improvements' runs 5 to 35% SLOWER in most apps! I hope this isn't true with OS X! Anybody seen any speed tests of the different OS Xs on the same machine?

i know my DA G4 533mhz, GF2MX, 768mb ram, 40GB HDD, stock DVD rom ( upgraded to Pioneer DVR-110D) play's DVD's with ease and have enough power left on tap to do allot more things. i have so far played halo 1.5.2 (set to low or medium), UT 2K4, SOF II, postal II, RTCW, and a few others and it play's them at a good speed (feels like upper 15-20 FPS in some, and 30+ on others). the thing surfs around on the net almost with ease. with upgrades a Digital Audio and above will do just about any thing you would want it to do, plus has a awesome upgrade path.

you can find a Digital Audio G4 around for $100 and up. and sometimes even less

So far I have found that the bottleneck is in RAM. My baby 1.5Ghz PBG4 runs like a beaut with leopard (so long as it's maxed out to 1.25GB RAM). But an iMac G5 1.9Ghz positively chokes on Leopard because it is only running with 512MB.

So I'd say as long as you have a fast enough G4 and you load it up with delicious RAM, it should be fine.

(Oh, I also have a MacBook, and the PBG4 has noticeably faster 2D Quartz performance (minimizing windows, etc, this old G4 with a discrete graphics card still beats the pants off a 2.2Ghz with Intel Shitegrated graphics. Those should be illegal)

yea my DA chokes a little with 768mb ram in Leopard, it will go into a HDD swapping fit every once in a wile. i think there could be a few memory leaks in Leopard.