[OsakaBill]

I am sitting here with a soon to be three year old 450 MHz DP Gigabit PowerMac G4. This is the longest I have owned and used any Mac. It still suits my needs quite well, though it is a bit long in the tooth and not the fastest kid on the block any more.

What has kept my PowerMac going is the fact that I have upgraded it over the years, particularly this last year. To my PowerMac I have added an ACARD ATA-100/133 controller card (along with two 80GB ATA-133 drives), added a USB 2.0 PCI card, upgraded the video card to an ATi Radeon 9000 Pro, and upgraded the DVD-ROM drive to a Pioneer DVR-105 drive.

The one upgrade I have not made was to the CPU. I have thought about this off and on over the last year or two, but I have really wanted to keep dual processors. (Dual processors makes such a huge difference in performance!) Well, dual processor upgrades are now available from both PowerLogix and Giga Designs. At the moment, OWC is offering a 1.2GHz dual G4 processor upgrade from both of these companies for around $700.

So my first question is, at this price, is it worth it to upgrade the CPU in my old PowerMac? Dual 450MHz processors have lasted me 3 years. Would dual 1.2GHz processors last me two or three more years?

My second question is‚œassuming that I were to upgrade the CPU‚œshould I go with the PowerLogix or Giga Designs upgrade? The PowerLogix upgrade uses 7457 G4 chips which supposedly use less power and run cooler while having a 512KB L2 cache. The Giga Designs upgrade uses 7455B G4 chips use a little more power, run a little hotter, and have just 256KB L2 cache. The tech spec advantage seems to go to PowerLogix here. However, I know that PowerLogix has had significant issues with their PowerBook G4 CPU upgrades. Does this apply to their other upgrades? I have not heard anything negative about Giga Designs, but they are a new company without much history and their dual CPUs are just a couple of months old.

What's a poor teacher to do?

[Lateralus]

I am fond of the current 1.25-1.33GHz OWC upgrade. They have been known to overlock to 1.4-1.5GHz. Quite spiffy.

I can't firmly recommend either a dual or a single processor to you, since I am wrestling with the question myself. What I can tell you is to avoid PowerLogix. OWC and GigaDesigns upgrades are fantastic, each of them being of higher quality and allowing for easy overclocking via jumpers. GigaDesigns even honors the warranties on cards that are overclocked.

So, if you decide on a single processor upgrade, OWC is your best bet. Like I said, they are fantastic with great warranties and they are a little bit cheaper than the GigaDesigns upgrades. If you want to go dual, since we are pretending that PowerLogix does not exist, your only choice is GigaDesigns as OWC is not coming out with dual upgrades, I have written them and asked.

As far as the 7457: Yes, it is a nice little chip. But until somebody other than PowerLogix is using it, I'll have to keep looking at the 7455Bs.

As far as system longevity: I don't think you can count on another 2-3 years by going with any processor upgrade, but you might depending on how heavy of a user you are. A processor upgrade is a good thing if you're hoping to stick it out with your machine for another year or so. They do not do a good job at doubling the useful life of your system. Like I said though, it depends on how you use your machine. But in most cases, they will give your machine another year or so of usefulness.

That said, I can't see how you could go for a new machine with all the uprades you've already got in your current one. You are the kind of person that processor upgrade manufacturers are glad exist. Even with a single processor upgrade, your machine would scream and prove itself well against even the current MDD Power Macs.

[OsakaBill]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
So, if you decide on a single processor upgrade, OWC is your best bet. Like I said, they are fantastic with great warranties and they are a little bit cheaper than the GigaDesigns upgrades. If you want to go dual, since we are pretending that PowerLogix does not exist, your only choice is GigaDesigns as OWC is not coming out with dual upgrades, I have written them and asked.

I wonder why OWC is avoiding the DP upgrade option? If it were not for Giga Designs, my only option would be PowerLogix. I pestered Giga Designs about once a month until they released an upgrade. I guess I owe it to them to buy from them.

As far as the single vs dual processor argument goes, I just cannot bring myself to consider a single processor. Even though humming along at a slothy 450MHz, these dual processors keep up with the single 1GHz processor in my TiBook. (At least when the task is multi-processor aware.)