PowerMac G4 Dual Optical Upgrades

In August 2002, Apple announced a new range of PowerMac G4s.

Known as "Dual Optical" for its twin CD bays, or "Mirrored Drive Doors" for the polished finish of the optical drives' fascia plate, this PowerMac was a significant upgrade of the PowerMac G4 line.

In particular the bus speed was upped from 133MHz in the previous Quicksilver machines, to 167MHz (in all but the earliest Dual Opticals). Also DDR RAM was used for the first time, giving much quicker memory access rates.

These PowerMacs are the last ones capable of booting into OS9. Subsequent PowerMacs can only run OS9 software by using Classic emulation under OSX.

This range of PowerMacs was officially replaced in January 2003 by the PowerMac G4 FireWire 800, however Apple continued to sell a variant of this machine for a considerable length of time, to customers who still required native OS9 support.

The original Dual Optical was released in August 2002. Dual processors were used as standard for this entire range, with three configurations being shipped: a dual 867MHz, a dual 1GHz and a dual 1.25GHz configuration. A 64MB Radeon 9000 graphics card was included on the base spec machines. Apple's specs for this Mac are here.

In January 2003 (at the same time as the FireWire 800 model was launched) an updated model of this older dual optical was released in a single 1.25GHz model. This Mac was still able to boot into OS9, unlike the FireWire 800 model, and was kept in production for people who needed to run OS9 natively. Apple specs for this model are here.

The G4 Dual Optical, and its successor the G4 FireWire 800, can be easily distinguished from other G4 towers by their mirrored front panel. They are the only PowerMac G4s capable of mounting two CD drives, all preceding PowerMac G4s could take an optional ZIP drive below their single CD bay.

The easiest way to distinguish the two dual optical models is the connectivity. This page deals with machines which have standard FireWire (FireWire 400). If your PowerMac has FireWire 800 please refer to the page for the PowerMac G4 FireWire 800. If you are unsure of your connectivity, you should use the Apple System Profiler utility.

Processor speed can also be helpful, these machines came in a dual 867MHz, dual 1GHz, dual 1.25GHz or single 1.25GHz configuration. However there was a dual 1GHz Quicksilver 2002, and there was a dual 1.25GHz PowerMac G4 FireWire 800.

If you are still unsure you can contact us on 01223 833 412 or by email for confirmation. If you want to upgrade but aren't happy to install the upgrades yourself then we can help. Simply ask our engineers for further details.

The PowerMac G4 Dual Optical has 4 memory sockets. The machines can accept up to 2.0GB in RAM in 4 x 512MB modules. The machines use PC2700 DDR RAM.

An internal CD/DVD drive could either replace your existing optical drive or be installed alongside it. There are also external FireWire and USB options (FireWire highly recommended for this machine).

Any replacement internal 5.25" IDE CD unit will install into this PowerMac, and should work to read data. However, unless there is an Apple ROM on-board the CD unit, the computer cannot be booted from the CD, and the unit will not integrate with Finder burning and Apple software like iDVD. Burning can still be accomplished by third party software such as Roxio's Toast.

Look for the footnotes on any internal drive listed below, to see if there are any issues as described above.

The PowerMac G4 Dual Optical can can take internal IDE hard drives of sizes up to 250GB. Up to two extra drives can be added alongside your existing hard drive - a straight replacement is obviously possible as well.

If you want to use a larger hard drive you will need to use a SATA drive and install a SATA controller into a PCI socket. See the expansion cards section at the end of this page for details on available cards.

If you don't want to fit a new hard drive yourself, you can take advantage of the MacUpgrades Installation Service. Add the installation service from the list below to your cart along with your chosen hard drive. We can also clone your existing hard drive onto the new one, simply add the Clone Original Hard Drive service below to your cart.

Once you have booked the service, send your machine to us, we will carry out the work and return it to you. Alternatively, we do offer a Collection Service with our courier, please see here for details.

Your PowerMac G4 Dual Optical has one available AGP socket for upgrading your video capabilities. You also have three 33MHz PCI slots, which can take a second graphics card - however the AGP socket is superior and should be used for the primary graphics card.

This PowerMac G4 has four PCI sockets for connectivity expansion. Since the machine was released FireWire 800, USB 2.0, faster internal IDE controllers, faster wireless and wired connectivity, and much more, has become available.

With the use of PCI expansion cards, you can update your machine to use current spec connectivity types. Please note that some cards have an operating system version requirement - see the notes in the table below for any that apply to this machine.

The following keyboards and mice are compatible with this Mac.

Listed below are power supplies, batteries and related products we supply for this Mac.

Listed below are power cables, tools and related products we supply for this Mac.

This Mac can use any of the following external hard drives.

Any complete machines of this type or similar that we have for sale are listed here. Please note that these are refurbished models with a 3 month warranty, and that delivery is likely to take 3 - 5 working days. These can be purchased online with the standard website courier delivery charge for the mainland UK only. Please contact us for a quote on shipping to other areas.

Here are the various repair services we offer for this Mac. You can have us take the machine in for evaluation, or book a fixed-price repair if you already know what the fault is and the service is listed below (for services without parts, please see the relevant tab on this page for compatible parts that we sell). If you know what the fault is, but we don't have a fixed-price repair listed below, please contact us for a quote.