[bbales]

Here's another upgrade question. I have a 400 MZ tower (G4 obviously). It has, according to the system profile, 1 MB L2 cache, bus speed of 100 mz and AGP graphics. Cards are ATV Rage 128 Pd and Rage 128 Pro.

I'm seriously considering upgrading to 800 MZ, which isn't that expensive. Does the upgrade card also do something to the L2 cache? Also I've read of others simply replacing the graphics card and leaving the processor alone. But let's face it, 400 is the low end of the totem pole. It's not even recommended for some things. So I'm thinking I'd get at least a year or more with this machine if I just upgraded the processor.

Advice, anyone?
Thanks in advance.

[NYCFarmboy]

For what its worth:

I have an old G4 400 tower...which I had intended to keep until the G5's come out.

However I had to be able to burn DVD's for work reasons.

This past spring I purchased a 1.42 dual tower which I'm in love with.

Yes the 1.42 is snappier/faster than the 400. But... it the difference is not earth shattering. Yes I can open more programs faster etc, but I was expecting more. I don't think a bump from 400 to 800 is going to be worth the effort if you are only going to keep it for a year.

What programs do you work in daily? If you are doing photoshop filters for a living/or imovie transitions then yes the speed increase would be worth it.

[DrBoar]

Have G4/400 that I put a GigaDesign 1.2 Ghz CPU in, now it feels as fast as the dual 1.25 at work.
There has been two kinds of 800 MHz upgrades around, one with an the the other without a L3 cache. The one without is as fast as a "old G4" at 500-600 MHz or so.

The lack of speed at 400 was a constant irritation in X with things like Word struggling to keep up and many games unplayable (UT2003) or marginal UT X, and many other).

I started with replacing the ATI 128 pro card with a Radeon 8500 that did nothing to anything outside games. Games got a bit better but the great jump came with the new CPU. I am very pleased with the new CPU from have being a constant source of irritation now I feel that the G4 will last me a year at least and then I will go for a midrange G5 or will it be G6 a dual CPU norht of 3 GHz

[typoon]

I'm going to get the Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade. I've already upgraded my video card. I got a Radeon 9000. It does help in games but the Processor upgrade will help with my Video editing while I save for a new machine.

[bbales]

And are you planning to go to Panther, too, despite the "official" non-support of processor upgrade cards? Just a question.

[tr]

Originally posted by bbales:
And are you planning to go to Panther, too, despite the "official" non-support of processor upgrade cards? Just a question.

the non-support thing is just something apple has to say, so that people don't bitch if something goes wrong with their upgraded CPU's. i think if you look back, X.1 and X.2 said the same thing.

apple is right; if something doesn't work right with the OS, it shouldn't be apple's fault, it should be the fault of the upgrade manufacturer.

tr

[DrBoar]

I sure will go Panther ( ordered it this week)
The GigaDesign require no drivers and replace one G4 with an other G4, there should be minimal risks for trouble

[bbales]

So DrBoar -- did you do the upgrade and how did it go?