[gururafiki]

My friend is considering upgrading his G4 450 AGP Graphics to Sonnet Encore/ST G4 1.4ghz, and wanted to know if this would make games like unreal 2004 playable on his machine. He's also got an Geforce 4MX 64 megs o' ram. Will this graphics card handle unreal, and if not is there an better card compatable with his machine? Thanks.

[Lateralus]

Well, Unreal 2004 is not exactly refined right now, not even out yet, actually. The demo runs like ass on most computers. So, judging any computers performance by Unreal 2004 would be a bad idea. Unreal 2003 is another story.

That said, avoid Sonnet and PowerLogix. I would strongly recommend the OWC G4 1.33 for $399. My friend bought one of these two weeks ago and his is running solidly at 1.467GHz.

That processor, combined with the GeForce 4MX already in his machine (same card I have) would make Unreal 2003 fly.

[gururafiki]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
That said, avoid Sonnet and PowerLogix. I would strongly recommend the OWC G4 1.33 for $399. My friend bought one of these two weeks ago and his is running solidly at 1.467GHz.[/B]

How come sonnet and powerlogix aren't as good? Benchmark tests give it a good score in unreal 2003. And what about the OWC Mercury Extreme @ 1.4ghz?

[Luca Rescigno]

The benchmarks are fine... performance shouldn't show much of a difference between a PowerLogix, Gigadesigns, OWC, or Sonnet processor upgrade. The difference is reliability, customer service, and ability to overclock. Sonnet, for example, doesn't allow ANY overclocking of their chips, and requires you use the factory heat sink instead of providing you with one. Good luck trying to sell your old processor without a heat sink. PowerLogix provides a heat sink, but you still can't overclock their chips.

OWC and Gigadesigns are pretty new in the processor upgrade market but they're both pretty good. I haven't heard reports of wake-from-sleep issues or heat issues with them, unlike Sonnet and PL. I think they have corrected those problems by now but I'm not sure.

All else being equal, you can overclock the OWC and Gigadesigns processors. Who wouldn't want to be able to run a 1.33 GHz chip at 1.4 or 1.467 GHz? I think one of the two even puts a warranty on their chips that will allow you to get a replacement if they burn out while overclocking.

[gururafiki]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
The benchmarks are fine... performance shouldn't show much of a difference between a PowerLogix, Gigadesigns, OWC, or Sonnet processor upgrade. The difference is reliability, customer service, and ability to overclock. Sonnet, for example, doesn't allow ANY overclocking of their chips, and requires you use the factory heat sink instead of providing you with one. Good luck trying to sell your old processor without a heat sink. PowerLogix provides a heat sink, but you still can't overclock their chips.

OWC and Gigadesigns are pretty new in the processor upgrade market but they're both pretty good. I haven't heard reports of wake-from-sleep issues or heat issues with them, unlike Sonnet and PL. I think they have corrected those problems by now but I'm not sure.

All else being equal, you can overclock the OWC and Gigadesigns processors. Who wouldn't want to be able to run a 1.33 GHz chip at 1.4 or 1.467 GHz? I think one of the two even puts a warranty on their chips that will allow you to get a replacement if they burn out while overclocking.

Do you mean overclocking yourself, or is this something the company does when you buy the chip from them? If you have to do it yourself, how would you go about doing it?

[|GM|]

check out this site www.xlr8yourmac.com they have reviews of all the cpu upgrades available for the mac.

[delete]

Also be aware that some first rev G4/450's cannot be upgraded because of some sort of chip snafu. Look on the XLR8 site and there should be a note about it and will give insturctions on how to tell what you have. I have one of them.

[bbales]

How about G4 400s? Any issues with them? I looked on the accelrate (can't remember the exact wording with the numbers and letters) and couldn't find exactly my machine, but I don't recall seeing anything that said my gigabit ethernet machine coudn't be upgraded. And that's what I'm giving serious consideration to. (Just added 256 mb of ram yesterday (from 512) and it's already a bit speedier.)

[Luca Rescigno]

The only upgrade problems with early PowerMac G4s is that some early ones are not compatible with dual processor upgrades.

Overclocking is done by flipping dip switches on the processor card. There are instructions included with the card to change which speed you run the processor at. If it's unstable at a certain clock speed, take it down a notch and try again until it's stable.

[neon_duke]

Well, after Uncle Sam pays back my hard earned money, it's time for a new furnace. Hopefully, we'll have enough left over for a OWC 1.33 G4 upgrade and maybe a Radeon 9000.

I'd like to be able to run X-plane...