PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics Upgrades

The PowerMac G4 "PCI Graphics" was announced in September 1999, along with the PowerMac G4 "AGP Graphics" - although these PCI Graphics machines started shipping earlier, and would generally be considered the first PowerMac G4s.

These PowerMacs are based on the same Yosemite motherboard as the PowerMac G3 "Blue & White" - the G4 PCI added a Motorola MPC 7400 processor to an already successful machine.

Apple billed the 7400 as a "Super Computer on a chip", due to the fact that it was capable of executing more than a billion instructions per second (a gigaflop). Much of the 7400's speed increase was due to a new set of instructions, which were executed by a new unit on the chip. Motorola refers to this new unit as the "AltiVec" unit, while Apple publicly refers to it as the "Velocity Engine." The Velocity Engine vastly increased the speed of many common processor-intensive tasks.

The PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics is an upgradeable machine, however it does suffer somewhat from its older motherboard architecture when compared to the AGP Graphics PowerMac G4.

Apple's own specifications for the PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics can be found here.

The G4 PCI Graphite can be easily distinguished from other G4 PowerMacs.

The rear of the G4 has two audio sockets which are aligned horizontally from the bottom of the port panel. The only other Graphite PowerMac with horizontally aligned audio sockets is the PowerMac G4 Digital Audio (the DIgital Audio however has only three RAM slots, see below).

You can also check the components inside the case:

Turn the machine off and open the side of the case. Internally all G4 PCIs have four memory sockets (black in line sockets - see picture) towards the top of the case.

The PowerMac G4 AGP Graphics, and PowerMac G4 Gigabit Ethernet also have four RAM slots, but the audio ports on the back of these machines are aligned vertically. Graphite coloured PowerMac G4s later than the Gigabit Ethernet range have only three RAM slots.

You will notice four differing expansion sockets. All of these sockets should be cream in colour, but one of them will be segmented into two - this is a faster slot and will probably contain your graphics card. The other 3 sockets are for PCI Expansion cards.

If you have a brown socket instead of a segmented cream one, you may have an AGP Graphics PowerMac G4 instead.

Apple's own specifications for the PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics can be found here.

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 your upgrades then we can help. Simply ask our engineers for further details.

The PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics have 4 RAM slots, each of which can take up to a 256MB module, for a maximum of 1GB.

An internal CD/DVD drive would replace your existing optical drive. 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 PCI can can take internal IDE hard drives of sizes up to 120GB. 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 AGP Graphics has one available 66MHz PCI socket for upgrading your video capabilities. You also have three 33MHz PCI slots, which can take a second graphics card - however the 66MHz PCI socket is superior and should be used for the primary graphics card.

High-end graphics cards are useful for 3D applications and games - also a lot of the effects within OSX use the graphics card, so upgrading the card will make your OSX desktop smoother and nicer to look at.

Your PowerMac G4 has to three 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.