Power Mac i5

Power Mac i5 is an old Power Mac G3 Blue and White, partially gutted and converted to a modern PC. It retains as much as the original look as possible while being a practical PC. It is very modular and standards-compliant, so swapping parts is easy. The PC itself is brand new and quite fast and powerful (full specs are below). At some point, we decided to make this my dad’s new PC, so it’s outfitted accordingly.

Power Mac i5

I never thought I’d get a G3 Blue and White, but I got lucky and scored one (and a half-complete one) on Craigslist in mid-2014. Compared to webPC, this build was much more straightforward and made use of more prefabricated parts. It was a much easier build, though not without its challenges. Most of the work was done after I finished school for the year, and the project was completed at the end of June 2015. The end result is a practical, yet cool looking computer.

Spec-wise, the Power Mac i5 is leaps and bounds above the original G3 that once filled the case.

Power Mac G3 Power Mac i5
CPU PowerPC 750 Intel Core i5-4460
Motherboard Custom Apple MSI H81M-P33
RAM 128MB PC100 SDRAM 8GB DDR3-1600
Graphics ATI Rage 128 GL 16MB Intel HD Graphics 4600
Storage 20GB Ultra ATA HDD 250GB Crucial MX200 SSD
2TB Western Digital Caviar Black
Optical Drive 5X DVD-ROM LG CH12LS28 BD/DVD-RW combo
Operating System Mac OS 8.5.1 Windows 7 x64
Mac OS X 10.4.11 Windows 10 x64 (1703)

Build Log 1: Design and Components
Build Log 2: Teardown
Build Log 3: Cooling
Build Log 4: HDD Mount
Build Log 5: Door
Build Log 6: Assembly
Finishing Touches