model number M8493

“Wicked fast” is the phrase that best summarizes the breakthrough performance of the Power Mac G4 – the first personal computer classified as munitions and under export restriction because of its power. Offering up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G3 and three times the power of a Pentium III at the same clock speed, the G4 was Apple’s first serious pro computer after Steve Jobs became iCEO.

Designed in graphite gray, silver, and clear plastic, it even looks professional. And with 1-4 gigaflops (billion floating point operations per second) performance at 500 MHz, it was a supercomputer by government definition when it was released.

Note that there were two very different versions of the Power Mac G4. Even though both looked the same from the front and sides, they have different motherboards and features. The Yikes! models uses a modified Yosemite (Blue & White) motherboard, while the AGP model covered here is based on the superior Sawtooth motherboard.

Specs (via Low End Mac)

• Cpu: 350/400/450/500 MHz PPC G4
• Bus: 100 MHz
• Performance: Geekbench 2 (Leopard): 309 (450 MHz) Geekbench 2 (Tiger): 343 (500 MHz), 291 (450 MHz), 245 (400 MHz), 232 (350 MHz) Speedmark: 159 (500 MHz), 146 (450 MHz) MacBench 5 (Beige G3/300 = 1000): CPU/FPU: 1218/1438 (400 MHz), 1321/1609 (450 MHz) Speedometer 4.02 (Quadra 605 = 1.0): CPU: 23.4, FPU: 850 (350 MHz) 217,984 (450 MHz) Whetstones
• Ram: 64/128/256 MB standard on 400/450/500 MHz models, expandable to 2 GB (although Mac OS 9 will only recognize 1.5 GB) using PC100 SDRAM (3.3V, unbuffered, 64-bit, 168-pin, 100 MHz) in 4 DIMM slots
• L2 Cache: 1 MB 2:1 backside cache
• Hard Drive: 10/20/27 GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA/66 on 400/450/500 MHz models. Maximum IDE drive size is 128 GB without third-party support. See How Big a Hard Drive Can I Put in My iMac, eMac, Power Mac, PowerBook, or iBook? for three options.
• Video: ATI Rage 128 Pro in AGP 2x slot (was Rage 128 prior to December 1999); supports resolutions to 1600 x 1200 with 32-bit support, includes VGA and DVI ports.
• Vram: 16 MB
• Gestalt Id: n/a
• Upgrade Path: via CPU upgrades
• Pram Battery: 3.6V half-AA
• Weight: 30.0 lb.
• Speedmark: 159 (500 MHz), 146 (450 MHz)
• Microphone: standard 3.5mm minijack, compatible with line-level input including Apple’s PlainTalk microphone
• Part Numbers: M6921, M7232, M7824, M7825, M7827
• See: Online resources and links for the Sawtooth Power Mac G4