Power Mac G4(FireWire 800)

Background

The PowerMac G4 (FireWire 800) was primarily a speed bump of the G4 MDD line, although it did include several architecture enhancements. The most exciting new features were the inclusion of a single FireWire 800 port, internal support for the BlueTooth wireless standard, and support for the AirPort Extreme wireless networking system. AirPort Extreme was the Apple moniker for the 802.11g standard, which supported speeds of up to 54 Mbps and was backward compatible with existing 802.11b/AirPort devices. The PowerMac G4 (FW800) represented the fastest and least expensive line of PowerMacs Apple had ever introduced. The 1.0 GHz model, with 256 MB of RAM, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, a 60 GB hard drive and a 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card, sold for $1499 U.S. The dual 1.25 GHz model, with 256 MB of RAM, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, an 80 GB hard drive, and a 64 MB ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, sold for $1999 U.S. The high-end dual 1.42 GHz model, with 512 MB of RAM, a CD-RW/DVD-R drive, a 120 GB hard disk and a 64 MB ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, was a modest $2699 U.S., making it the cheapest high-end Power Mac ever.