Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

darkecho · Jul 5, 2005, 01:44 PM

Ok guys, I am not very Mac-Savvy but my boss just asked me to research something, we have some people here at the company who use macs for photoshopping mainly and they are using 400mhz g4s currently, he wants me to find out if upgrading to 900mhz g4s is worth the money and time... what do you guys think, is there a significant increase in productivity or would it be better to build up some funds and get more expensive hardware? I would assume that being over half the speed it should be noticeable faster..but really now, its still a g4 and 900 megahertz isnt all that crazy in todays world

thanks alot you guys!

d.fine · Jul 5, 2005, 03:36 PM

I think a 900MHz G4 will hold its place, and they are decent performers. The performance increase over the original 400MHz would be worth it in my eyes. I'd also consider upgrading the RAM on those machines.

Of course it all kinds of depends on the budget. I'd consider it, it is after all more than twice the original MHz...

iREZ · Jul 5, 2005, 04:20 PM

400 to 900 is a big boost...(i did the same switch at work about three months ago, 400mhz to 867mhz) but the world of G4 is slowly passing by. we do a one computer upgrade here at work...where the people who are swamped with the more advanced work get the newer tech and each individual who ranks behind them gets their hand me downs...not a bad scheme if ya ask me.

osiris · Jul 5, 2005, 04:42 PM

I upgraded a G4 400 to a OWC 1.4 ghz and maxed out the ram to 2gbs. There is an enormous difference in everything, night and day compared to the original 400.

From 400 to 900 you should see a significant improvement - but I'd also upgrade the ram to the max to get the most out of the upgrade.

Luca Rescigno · Jul 5, 2005, 04:45 PM

How much would it cost per unit to upgrade? Are you using processor upgrades, or replacing the systems? G4/400 to G4/900 is a worthwhile jump for sure, but only if it's cheap. I wouldn't pay more than $150 per unit for that.

EDIT: And yes, if the machines don't already have at least 512 MB of RAM, bumping them up to that much for another $50 per unit is money well spent.

darkecho · Jul 5, 2005, 07:08 PM

thank you guys very very much, I think my boss will be pleased to hear that upgrading to 900s will be fine. I will definately make sure we upgrade the ram as well that sounds like a good plan :-D I still need to see how much we are going to spend on the upgrade however...

suvsr4terrorists · Jul 5, 2005, 08:50 PM

Get a mini. They'd be cheaper than the upgraded systems, and they're a LOT faster.

Superchicken · Jul 5, 2005, 10:36 PM

If you have people working with software that costs 600 dollars a seat, and you're paying them X amount of money a day... why not set them up with REAL machines? Unless they're running OS 9 I'd say just get new Macs. If they are running OS 9 I still say get new Macs and new copies of PS that run on OS X. The money you spend on that should be easily made up in lack of render times and lack of work lost to crashes and system instability.

doucy2 · Jul 5, 2005, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists

Get a mini. They'd be cheaper than the upgraded systems, and they're a LOT faster.

mac minis are horrible
they are better off upgrading their G4's than buying a mini

superchicken i like your comment they will get more work done

suvsr4terrorists · Jul 6, 2005, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by doucy2

mac minis are horrible
they are better off upgrading their G4's than buying a mini

superchicken i like your comment they will get more work done

How do you figure? They get a 1.2 ghz G4 for $500, - the cost of their current systems.

A 900mhz G4 isn't going to come close. With a firewire external drive and some ram they'll be all set.

iREZ · Jul 7, 2005, 11:47 AM

because doucy2 had a bad experience with his... so he'll spread bad recommendations to justify his argument. I agree that mac mini's would be lots better but some companies like lots of storage and unless the company is willing to buy external drives vs internal, towers are still the way to go.

Luca Rescigno · Jul 7, 2005, 02:25 PM

Gawd. People seem to think the answer to ANY predicament is "Mac mini." It's not.

A G4/1 GHz upgrade (can't find any 900 MHz ones...) costs about $200.
An additional 512 MB of PC100/133 costs about $80.
(Both prices taken from Other World Computing)
$280 takes you from slow to fast, and all you have to do is drop the door and install the parts.

A Mac mini costs $500 for the base model.
Upgrading to 512 MB (the minimum usable amount) costs $50.
An 80 GB Firewire hard drive for each one costs about $120
(Again, prices are from OWC)
That's $670 per unit, and now you have to disconnect every PowerMac G4 and set up every Mini in its place, as well as configuring it. With the PowerMacs, you don't have to do anything to the hard drives.

Later on down the line, you will need to upgrade your systems. But why spend 2-3x as much for brand new minis? Just get a bunch of G4/1 GHz processors and you're set for maybe another year.

As for selling the old G4 towers... wouldn't that just be even more work? I can't imagine they'd get much for them at a corporate auction. The price would still be lower to upgrade the G4 towers, and there'd be less hassle.

Eug Wanker · Jul 7, 2005, 02:33 PM

Mac minis would suck for Photoshop if you ever hit the hard drive.

BTW, my G4 450 made me want to rip my hair out for general usage. My G4 1 GHz doesn't, but I still find it a bit slow sometimes. My G4 1.7 and my G5 2.0 both feel rather speedy though.

Luca Rescigno · Jul 7, 2005, 02:54 PM

Yeah, if you want these to last a little longer you could go for a bit of a higher end upgrade. Going to a $400 1.4 GHz G4 upgrade with L3 cache should do the trick, and it would still cost less than using Mac minis. I'd hesitate to recommend dual processor upgrades... while they're very fast, they're also not necessarily compatible with old Sawtooth G4s. Plus they cost a lot.

suvsr4terrorists · Jul 7, 2005, 03:00 PM

Geez. Didn't realize a 1ghz G4 upgrade was so cheap these days.

Luca Rescigno · Jul 7, 2005, 03:16 PM

Yeah, they've really dropped in price. Actually you can get a 1.3 or 1.4 GHz upgrade with L3 cache for around $300. Bumping it up to $400 brings you up to 1.467 or 1.5 GHz. After that (in the 1.6-1.8 GHz range), you lose the L3 cache and thus end up paying about the same price for about the same performance (despite a higher clock speed).

Eug Wanker · Jul 7, 2005, 03:32 PM

I have the L3 cache-less 1.7 and the benefit here is that on certain apps it IS much faster than a 1.3 GHz with L3, but on other apps it's only marginally faster. Thus overall, the difference in cost may not be justified.

So yeah, considering cost, I'd recommend a 1.3-1.4 GHz G4 with L3.

The other issue is that the G4 7447A upgrades REQUIRE 10.3.5 or later. They won't boot off a 10.3 install disk. (They work fine though in Tiger, including the Tiger install disk.) The cache-endowed G4 7455 upgrades work just fine in Panther (and should with Classic too).

astepanuks · Jul 15, 2005, 09:39 PM

Sawtooth has only 200W power supply. How does this affect ever faster PU upgrades that suck more power? I guess new L3 cache less use less power, but where does it max out?
I have 3 hard drives, 1.2 Ghz upgrade, DVD burner, 2 video cards. At this stage the Mac is VERY stable (10.3.9). I popped in 1.4 Ghz upgarde and I got crash city.
Just a thought