[urban]

Why isnt upgrading the CPU of a Powermac as simple as buying a brand new processor and sticking it to the motherboard like PCs do? What's stopping users from doing so?

Thank you.

[Conscript]

Originally posted by urban:
Why isnt upgrading the CPU of a Powermac as simple as buying a brand new processor and sticking it to the motherboard like PCs do? What's stopping users from doing so?

Thank you.

they do?

[AssassyN]

Well typically Mac CPU upgrades consist of replacing the entire daughtercard w/ the CPU and L3 cache on it. Check them out for yourself at www.macsales.com.

[Buckaroo]

Originally posted by urban:
Why isnt upgrading the CPU of a Powermac as simple as buying a brand new processor and sticking it to the motherboard like PCs do? What's stopping users from doing so?

Thank you.

That's odd, when I upgraded the CPU on my Windows machine, I had to upgrade the motherboard, the memory, the hard drive, video card and CD-rom drive.

What old PC motherboard were you able to upgrade the CPU on?

[jessejlt]

Originally posted by Buckaroo:
That's odd, when I upgraded the CPU on my Windows machine, I had to upgrade the motherboard, the memory, the hard drive, video card and CD-rom drive.

What old PC motherboard were you able to upgrade the CPU on?

You probably had a highly proprietary system, such as a Dell or Gateway. If you BYO rig, you can usually get away with swapping your processor one or two times, by then it's usually worth it to upgrade the mobo because the old mobo simple won't support the newer chips.

I'm an AVID mac user, but there's no question in my mind that upgrading a PC is a reality, and upgrading a Mac isn't. Well, strike that, a Mac is just as upgradable as a PC, less the mobo / processor. Everything else is fair game though.
jesse ;-)

[saru boy]

Also, if you've checked the price of some of these G4 processor upgrades, you'd think twice about whether it's really worth it. A single 1.25Ghz G4 chip costs something like $450...you can thank Motorola for that.

Compare on the PC side, where $450 will get you a 3Ghz P4 with money left over, or an Athlon XP3200.

[Graymalkin]

With G4 PowerMacs paying $450 for an upgrade is like buying a new Mac for $450. Save for relatively small changes the G4 PowerMacs are pretty similar to one another. A GigEther dogging in Photoshop or FCP can get quite a boost out of a $450 infusion of gigahertz. Hell, a single 800MHz G4 and a Radeon 9000 would make a pretty nice upgrade to most GigEther and Sawtooth systems.

While PC processors might be cheaper not everyone can simply drop the money they've put into their Mac and be on their way. If you've got a couple grand sunk into Mac software it is no cheap deal to suddenly switch to a PC. Four and a half grand of hardware and software is well worth the $450 three years later to keep it running smoothly another three years.

[Eriamjh]

Originally posted by urban:
Why isnt upgrading the CPU of a Powermac as simple as buying a brand new processor and sticking it to the motherboard like PCs do? What's stopping users from doing so?

Thank you.

Sometimes it has to do with the "Apple ROM" located on the daughtercard.

The Beige G3s, B&W G3s, and Yikes! G4s had their processors on a ZIF socket and were cake to replace. The problem is that speedy upgrades above 500MHz didn't exist until recently. I think the fastest you can go is 900MHz right now.

[osiris]

Maybe I'm missing somethng here, but most Pro tower models are very easy to upgrade. Processors are cheap, OWC computing has 800mhz cpus for <$280. All you do is remove the old cpu and pop in the new one. Not that hard.

[saru boy]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
While PC processors might be cheaper not everyone can simply drop the money they've put into their Mac and be on their way. If you've got a couple grand sunk into Mac software it is no cheap deal to suddenly switch to a PC. Four and a half grand of hardware and software is well worth the $450 three years later to keep it running smoothly another three years.

Who said anything about switching to a PC? I think most Mac users who think about upgrading their processors will be weighing the cost of upgrading vs the cost of a new Mac.

Originally posted by osiris:
Maybe I'm missing somethng here, but most Pro tower models are very easy to upgrade. Processors are cheap, OWC computing has 800mhz cpus for <$280. All you do is remove the old cpu and pop in the new one. Not that hard.

Those cheaper 800Mhz upgrades might be worth it if you have a 450Mhz G4 or something in that range, but say you have a dual 800Mhz G4 or a single 933Mhz G4? I'd think the only attractive upgrades are the dual 1.2Ghz or dual 1.4Ghz upgrades, which run about $800+. At that point it is likley that people will also be considering buying a completely new Mac, given the cost of the faster upgrades and the fact that they won't be seeing a huge performance boost (or at least not a boost worth $800).

[DeathMan]

There is sort of a different mentality among most mac users, and I don't think there is as much of a market for cheap CPU upgrades. Most Mac users only upgrade every 3 to 4 years. By then, even with a PC, you'd be better off buying a whole new system, since cost wise, you're pretty close to that, once you've added all the new technologies included in the next generation of macs.

I'm not all worried that my friend has dual 800Mhz, and I only have dual 500Mhz.

If anything, I'd like to upgrade my video card, and ATI and NVidea just aren't making that affordable for Mac users right now.

Generally Mac users aren't gamers (for sad, sad reasons, I know), and it seems like only gamers really care if they have the uberfastest CPU right as it comes out.