The most reliable Power Macs

A reader recently asked me a question I have been asked several times before via email. The question is usually somewhere along the line of "since Power Macs (pro towers) are the most reliable Macs, can you please list the specific ones that are best".

First off... "best" can be different with different people, as it depends on personal need as much as anything. That is something which is obviously a bit different with everyone.  For myself, reliability is paramount, and more important than performance.  For many users though, that is not the case.  Not that reliability isn't important to these people, but rather that performance with the stock CPU might be more important.

As I mention in my Why the Sawtooth is the greatest Mac ever made post from 2012, the Sawtooth is the most reliable, but every Power Mac tower made from February 1997 - July 2002 has a level of reliability that every Mac before or since has lacked.

For people who don't want to buy CPU upgrades, the Sawtooth isn't as good of a choice.  The stock CPU's range from 350-500MHz singles.  If you want more ready to go power, then the later Power Mac systems are the way to go.

If you're one of the loyal 8600/9600 luddites, then you have some of the most vast expandability in this group.  Sporting 6 PCI slots, a 1.5GB RAM capacity (double the newer beige G3), and the early stages of the easy open cases Apple became known for, the 9600 is a true beast.  The 8600 holds 1GB RAM, and has 3 PCI.   If you do things that can still be done on a 604 CPU, these are a very good choice.  Many of them also have G3 and G4 upgrades, but via a PCI based CPU socket.  Not the onboard socket, as it cannot fit a G3/G4.  The 8600/9600 towers are also about the biggest Apple towers ever made.  The G5 towers are about 2" taller, but that includes the handles, and the 8600/9600 are wider/bulkier.

For doing more modern or internet based tasks, it would be best to stick with the AGP equipped G4 towers, which only excludes the Yikes.  The Sawtooth and up also have a much faster memory controller.  The 8600 through to the Yikes move the RAM at speeds ranging from 50-280MB/sec, compared to 500MB-1GB+/sec for the AGP fitted G4's.

This is a list of all the truly reliable Power Mac towers (in chronological order):

• Power Mac 8600
• Power Mac 9600
• Power Mac G3 Beige
• Power Mac G3 Blue & White
• Power Mac G4 Yikes (PCI Graphics)
• Power Mac G4 Sawtooth (AGP Graphics)
• Power Mac G4 Mystic (Gigabit Ethernet)
• Power Mac G4 Tangent (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 Titan (Quicksilver)

The nine systems listed above give the ultimate combination of reliability and expandability.  They are virtually immortal.

There is no Power Mac G4 MDD or any G5 tower in the mix, because they both don't deserve to be in the same company as the above systems, unless you're a fan of your hardware having a good chance of potentially being dead one day.  The MDD ranges from 2-11x in how many times less reliable than all the above systems, and the G5's range from being 10-30x less reliable.  No joke.  I'm a certified Mac tech (and have been since before any of these towers were ever made), and know exactly what I'm talking about.

If you need as much performance as possible; without a CPU upgrade, along with reliability, then a dual 1.0GHz Quicksilver would be the best choice.

If you're like me and want reliability first, but still have good performance; a heavily upgraded Sawtooth is the way to go.  You also get an extra 512MB memory capacity with the Sawtooth vs. the Quicksilver and Digital Audio.  I have invested well over $1000 in upgrades on my main Sawtooth, so be sure this is what you want first.

Please direct any other questions related to this in the comments here.  That way everyone gets to read it, and read my answers.

A Highly Rated Win

The donated hardware, from Mark who runs Rated Win, arrived today, and with a couple bonus video cards that I wasn't aware were being sent.  I love surprise video cards!


Here is what was inside of the very well packed box he sent:

-Mac Mini G4 1.25GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD

-iBook G3 600MHz, 14" screen, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD (painted blue)

-ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB AGP video card (DVI/ADC)

-ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB AGP video card (DVI/ADC)


A big thanks to Mark once again!  A true contributing member in the PowerPC community!

I have already ordered a 1GB memory stick for the mini.  Only $22 new.

Freescale and the missing plane from Malaysia

Freescale has confirmed what I heard on local news a couple days ago.  They announced in this release that 20 of their employees were on that flight.

For those that don't know, Freescale is the creation of its parent company, Motorola.  I have been a massive supporter of theirs for decades, and long before Freescale existed, and were just called the Motorola CPU division.

This is a very sad day for me, but I cannot even imagine what the people and families of Freescale must be going through.

My heart goes out to everyone involved.

I don't really know what else to say about it.  It's too stunning to really put into words properly.

Lubuntu Purge

As a BSD user since the 80's, Lubuntu was my first real venture into the Linux realm.  Prior to that I had only toyed with Linux a few times for brief periods.  This was pretty much at the same time I started this blog in 2012.

Lubuntu was the first distro I had ever given a true test drive to, and during my 'I know BSD, but I need to adapt that knowledge to a Linux' state.  I had always known of Debian through reputation, but somehow chose Lubuntu first.

In the end, Debian is a far better choice, and it will be the only Linux covered here moving forward.  All of the Lubuntu content here will be removed soon, so if you want to archive some of it, do it now.  I am no longer going to promote, in any manner, an OS I wouldn't use myself any longer.

By next weekend, all the Lubuntu content here will be gone.  As it should be. 

Lubuntu, and all the different flavours of Ubuntu, are all built on a foundation of Debian; upon which they then add their own shitty, unstable, user friendly and bloated code.

This is not meant as an insult to Canonical, but fact is fact, and I no longer want anything to do with what they call an OS.

Creative Commons

I have decided to drop the copyright I had, and adopt a Creative Commons 4.0 International license to protect the content here.  The reason is that CC gives the users/readers more freedom here, and it actually protects the content more with a recognized and legal license.

The truly great thing about Creative Commons licenses, is that you can customize them to suit you personally.  You can decide what freedoms and limitations people have with your work through some simple settings you select when creating your license.

The specific license I chose was a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.


Note the three terms listed in that license name (quoted text is CC's own summary):

Attribution -  "You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use."

Very simple and easy to understand language. 


Non-Commercial - "You may not use the material for commercial purposes."

This was added to prevent what happened with the copycat blog trying to mimic this blog for advertising money.


No Derivatives - "If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material."

I added this to stop the spread of misinformation, to stop people (like those that run Low End Mac) from latching on to my work, then adding ignorance to it.

If you feel you have worthy things to contribute to any and all content here, please feel free to contact me and ask permission.  If I find your additions sound and accurate, I will allow them.


A big thank you to Creative Commons for their nonprofit work.


Want to add a Creative Commons license to your work?  Create one here.

The copycat is no more

Good news!  Google has removed the copycat blog!

Before they did, I had the content thieves advertising funding source removed also.

A big thanks to Google for removing the blog, and to Click4Support.net for removing payments, and their ad, from the copycat blog.

I will tell the whole story in detail, and help others learn from my experience through all this.  For now I am a bit unmotivated to write here after having my work stolen.

I think this speaks largely about the current state of things in the world.  An individual is almost a rare thing now, and many people are not bothered by others stealing writing.  So many people pretend to know things now by latching on to the education, experience, and hard work, of others.  Originality, and more importantly self education, are how I got where I am.  Not emulating others, or even worse, stealing work from others.

Dan at PPC Luddite spoke up on his blog about it, so a big thanks also goes to him.  A true member of the PowerPC community, and someone I consider to be the greatest friend and ally of this blog.  He's a true individual also. 

More when I'm motivated again.