Performance?

[Iggy]

I agree with Matt, don't buy that 400MHz G4 PowerMac, until you shop around, as you can probably find a faster G4 model for the same or less money.  I got a Dual 1.25GHz G4 model (the MDD model) for less than $40 and was able to pick it up locally, so I didn't have to pay any shipping either.

The 400MHz model will run MorphOS2.7 okay, but don't expect to playback any video content smoothly.

Shop around.

Yep, I'd agree with both Matt and David. Recently I saw a 733 Powermac sell for $20. That would be about the minimum I'd recommend.
I purchased a 733Mhz Quicksilver model that wasn't supposed to be functional on Ebay for about that much plus S&H. I reseated the processor card and its been working fine since (upgraded later to a 933Mhz processor and now to a 1.8Ghz processor).

You can do better.

[Iggy]

If you dont use application that need a heavy usage of cpu maybe 400mhz are enough, the bad side of the powermac g4 400mhz is the ati rage.

I think he mentioned that it had a Radeon 9XXX video card. An ATI Rage128 would be pretty painful (no 3D), but I understand the 2D driver works pretty good.
When compared to an Efika, a 400Mhz Powermac with 512MB of memory would definitely be superior.
And there's always the possibility of adding a CPU accelerator card.

[Iggy]

Forget it.  I'll go for 8500/9000

Yep, much better performance than the 7000. Right now probably the two best options.

[Iggy]

Well after reading this I am now tempted to try MorphOs. I just won an ebay 1.42 dual G4 so will be tying it soon!

Nice system, I hope you got a good price.
Since trying MorphOS is free, you've got nothing to lose.
What video card is installed in the MDD you bought?

[Iggy]

I got it for $95

Has a Radeon 9000 pro

Looking forward to it

Yep, great price, good video card for MorphOS, you did well.

[Iggy]

He said he had a Mobility Rage Pro GPU - it has hardware video decoding support. Makes all the difference.

Well, I've owned a few Rage 128 pro cards (including a couple of the relatively rare higher clocked ones) and I've got to agree that a 266MHz PII would be pushing it.
It wouldn't take much to see dropped frames on that type of system.

[Iggy]

9000 or 9200?
I heard that 9000 works better but 9200 has 128MB...

Identical except the 9200 is an AGP8X part (and therefore is found in PCs and requires flashing and taping pins 3 and 11).
The 9000 is available as a 128MB card too.
The 8500 is faster and with its slower derivative the 8500LE/9100 also has more texture units and vertex shaders.
However, the Apple 8500 only has 64MB so any PC card flashed with an Apple BIOS will also be limited to 64MB (regardless of the built in memory).

Avoid the 9200SE or the 9250 which has a 64bit memory bus and is slower.