is a g-3 mac 266mgz sufficent?

[sleepy giant]

I will be running Reason and Logic. I associate of mine recomended one because of the price but it seems like everyone is using the g-3s now. what other things should i look for in a Mac.

[michaelhoddy]

Try to do anything much with audio, and you'll be hurtin'. MIDI should be fine. Virtual instruments, well, it depends...

[sleepy giant]

what would you recomend in a g-3/ or mabee a g-4. but they are so damn expensive.

[pangmaster]

Well, you can always upgrade your processor. 266MHz is pretty slow, but for about $160 you can make it a 533MHz G3. Next thing to do is load it up with RAM, which is very cheap at the moment. After that you'd want a fast hard drive, for your audio.

Just to give you an example, I have a 300MHz beige G3 desktop and I'm running Logic 5.5 in MacOS 9.2.2. It runs well enough for me, but I don't do more than a few audio tracks at a time.

More specifics about my system:

7200RPM IBM 60GB internal IDE drive
ATI Radeon 7000 PCI 32MB video card
768MB RAM
Sonnet Tango 2 USB/2 FireWire PCI card
7200RPM Oxford911 80GB external FireWire drive

I'm using the Apple A/V personality card for my audio in/out, which isn't the greatest, but works for me. I'm also waiting for that 533MHz CPU upgrade to be shipped. Should be a decent performance jump! :)

If you are going to be running Reason and Logic at the same time via rewire, or if you want to run OS X, you'd be better off buying a G4.

A good source of info for Mac upgrades and performance tweaking: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/

[cmchamp]

The only thing you can get new in a G3 is an iBook. If you're really serious about audio or video on a Mac, you have to have the G4 processor. Yes, they are expensive, especially if you come from a Windows World, but unlike the PC boxes which have little tolerance specifications at all (consumer models) Macs are built to work, Period. A peripheral that is supposed to work with a Mac, works, Perios. OK, with that in mind, you can find refurbished used macs at the following places. (Just because they're on the list doesn't mean I know of their reputation)
http://www.powermax.com/cpus/refurb.html
http://www.shrevesystems.com/
http://www.e-securedsite.com/cila/myProducts.cfm?CategoryID=188%7CREFURBISHED%20MACS %0D%0A
You can also search at Yahoo or Google for "Refurbished Macs"

[sleepy giant]

thanks for the advice. I dont really want to drop more than a grand right now so I might have to go with a upgraded G-3 since Ill have to buy a soundcard and a interface ect. What would you recomend as far as a laptop to run Reason and Logic via rewire? where Could I find more info on Rewire? thanks.