# Upgrading a Mac motherboard
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/upgrading-a-mac-motherboard/244448
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 10, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/upgrading-a-mac-motherboard/244448 "2004-05-10T13:58:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/upgrading-a-mac-motherboard/244448/1 "2004-05-10T13:58:34Z")
I might have an occasion to purchase a second hand Mac motherboard for just a symbolic charge. The guy describes it as being a Apple Mac G3 Blue/White Motherboard, and gave me a model number of 820-0987-A. I tried my luck on Google, but it is much easier to find specs for whole Macs than for their parts.
I’m thinking about buying it and putting a G4 on it if it is possible. First of all, does it make sense? In any case, do you know of a site reporting this kind of technical specs, and possibly some kind of tutorial/HowTo?
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/upgrading-a-mac-motherboard/244448/2 "2004-05-10T15:26:06Z")
I believe the G3 motherboard has a ZIF socket for the processor itself (if I’m wrong, the most likely alternative config would be processor-on-a-daughercard). Yes, you can upgrade it to a G4. Sonnet, XLR8, Newer Technologies, and PowerLogix all produce upgrade CPUs for the G3.
Won’t do you a hell of a lot of good without the rest of the machine’s boards and ports to wrap around it, of course 😛
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### Author:  [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/upgrading-a-mac-motherboard/244448/3 "2004-05-10T15:38:57Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> Won’t do you a hell of a lot of good without the rest of the machine’s boards and ports to wrap around it, of course 😛
Absolutely! 🙂 Well, the motherboard comes with a power supply, and I think I can grab a video card, keyboard and mouse on Ebay. If there is an IDE controller on board, fleshing out the machine shouldn’t be a big problem. Hopefully…