I had luck finding a G4 AGP with a Sonnet Encore ST 1.8 for only 80 bucks some months ago. Because the technical and optical advantages of the QS i decided to put the Encore into a QS 733 and build the QS i could never afford in my younger days. Now with a 1.8GHz G4, 1.5GB RAM, an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro SE (256MB) genuine Mac edition (on which i installed a NOS Zalman cooler to tame the heat), a 4-port SATA PCI card, a 128GB SSD and noctua and bequiet fans, this PM runs circles around all my other G4 and is my weekly-driver for music (Reason, Sibelius), some graphical stuff (AI, ID) and retro gaming.

I hope that some day i will find either a MDD 1.42 DP or a 3rd party Dual G4 CPU upgrade card for my QS. And not for thousands of dollars…

Time to create some content!

For me the Power Macs G4 have an absolutely timeless and pristine design. Especially the Quicksilver stands out as the perfect workstation design. Even though i have/had several G5 and Mac Pros, which are landmarks in computer design too, i don't hold them in veneration as much as the G4.

Could also be because i grew up with them. My father has a printing company and has been working with Mac all along. My first own computer was a G4 DA 466MHz which i "inherited" from him. After a brief interlude with an iMac G3 (much more compact, but slow af and no hardware to play with), i bought a G4 QS 733 second hand for about 200 bucks in 2005, but it died the PSU death soon after. Unfortunately my dad sold his QS 1GHz DP some days before for a G5 2.7 DP. So i ended up with a G4 MDD 867 DP, which served as a print server for several years after my switch to intel Macs. Two years ago i did want to sell it, but the PSU was dead. So i tinkered with it and built in an atx PSU. But instead of selling it, i got infected with the Power Mac fever again. Fast forward, my GF isn't as happy with my considerable collection of G3-5 as i am.