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powerbook867 · Nov 13, 2005, 08:35 AM

Did some searching and came up empty. Don't want to really want to drop the coin on a new machine, but doing photoshop work, the box could be a lot faster. Anyone hear any vendor/timeframe for a processor upgrade to this machine?

If I missed a thread all ready discussing this, just throw me that way...

thanks!

Big Mac · Nov 13, 2005, 08:50 AM

The answer is, most likely, no. There are substantial technical impediments to G5 processor upgrades, and since the upgrade companies have not made any by now it's most likely not going to happen. And that's too bad, because options are good.

powerbook867 · Nov 13, 2005, 08:58 AM

thanks Big Mac. Not the answer I wanted to hear, but even after googling the question, there were real limited answers. Maybe I'll have to start looking at refurbs in the coming months to try and save some cash.

Would love to use Aperture when it comes out , but my 1.6 probably won't have enough horsepower...

Kristoff · Nov 13, 2005, 09:59 AM

They said......swore....that they would NEVER make a CPU upgrade for the Pismo.
Couldn't be done. Too hot, voltage differences, blah blah blah.

Now, you can buy 900MHz G3 AND 550MHz G4 cpus for it.

Never say never.

BTW, I just stuffed a 1.7 GHz G4 and a GeForce3 in my old Cube (kids machine).
It's like a brand new machine! They can play Call of Duty with all the pretties turned on.

The G5 upgrades will come, it's just a matter of time.

Big Mac · Nov 13, 2005, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by Kristoff

They said......swore....that they would NEVER make a CPU upgrade for the Pismo.
Couldn't be done. Too hot, voltage differences, blah blah blah.

Now, you can buy 900MHz G3 AND 550MHz G4 cpus for it.

Never say never.

BTW, I just stuffed a 1.7 GHz G4 and a GeForce3 in my old Cube (kids machine).
It's like a brand new machine! They can play Call of Duty with all the pretties turned on.

The G5 upgrades will come, it's just a matter of time.

I like your optimism, but the G5 situation is more complicated than any previous Mac upgrade. I tried to find that old thread in which all of this was explained, but I was unable to.

Eriamjh · Nov 13, 2005, 11:43 AM

It's been 2+ years since the first G5 and no upgrades. Meanwhile, G4 upgrades have reached 2GHz (although severely crippled due to a lack of cache).

There may never be upgrades for G5s. Ironically, it may be easier than ever to upgrade once Apple switches to Intel. Unless Apple solders the damn CPUs!!

Lateralus · Nov 13, 2005, 12:11 PM

I'm sure there will be G5 upgrades in time, when there is less focus on the technologies surrounding the G5 chip and thus it becomes cheaper for the upgrade manufacturers to develop some sort of upgrade. Plus, a year or so back a Sonnt rep had said the company was in the early stages of design and development on G5 upgrades.

Just keep in mind that there are G3 and G4 processor upgrades for the L2 cache slots of 'unupgradable' machines.

mduell · Nov 13, 2005, 02:37 PM

Apple has an interest in not allowing users to upgrade their CPU (selling more new Macs). With the G4s the cat was out of the bag, but with the G5 they siezed the opportunity to eliminate the CPU upgrade market. Most of the PowerMacs have socketed CPUs, but iMacs and some PowerMacs (not sure about Xserves) have the CPU soldered in. There will be no upgrades for those and upgrades for the socketed G5s appear unlikely.

Looking forward, I'd expect Intel to continue their current lineup: all of the mobile chips have solderable versions, but none of the desktop/server chips do.

Big Mac · Nov 13, 2005, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Apple has an interest in not allowing users to upgrade their CPU (selling more new Macs). With the G4s the cat was out of the bag, but with the G5 they siezed the opportunity to eliminate the CPU upgrade market. Most of the PowerMacs have socketed CPUs, but iMacs and some PowerMacs (not sure about Xserves) have the CPU soldered in. There will be no upgrades for those and upgrades for the socketed G5s appear unlikely.

Looking forward, I'd expect Intel to continue their current lineup: all of the mobile chips have solderable versions, but none of the desktop/server chips do.

I may have misread your post, but the Power Mac's 970s are not soldered.

mduell · Nov 13, 2005, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I may have misread your post, but the Power Mac's 970s are not soldered.

Some of them are (one of the 1.8Ghz revisions comes to mind). The old PowerMac 7200s had the PPC601 soldered in, so it's not the first time.
Links:
Hardmac
Macosxhints forums

Lateralus · Nov 13, 2005, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Some of them are (one of the 1.8Ghz revisions comes to mind). The old PowerMac 7200s had the PPC601 soldered in, so it's not the first time.

And there's CPU upgrades for the 7200, so what is your point exactly?

Luca Rescigno · Nov 13, 2005, 04:52 PM

It seems as though the only PowerMac with a soldered processor is the single 1.8 GHz G5, and even that is full of conflicting reports (though I'm guessing the people who say that it isn't soldered are confusing the recent single 1.8 with the original single 1.8). Do ANY of the other models have their CPUs soldered in place? As far as I know, no. And what evidence do you have to suggest that there won't be processor upgrades for G5s? They haven't even increased in speed enough to justify upgrades yet... I guess upgrading a single 1.6 to a single 2.7 would be a nice jump, but that's about it.

Give the CPU upgrade companies a little more time to come up with upgrades. They take quite some time to develop, and I don't think the market is even quite ready for them yet. There may also be some tighter technical restrictions for a few reasons - the G5's cooling system is tightly integrated with the whole system, making replacing the processor a bigger hassle. Also, the G5 doesn't support as many bus speed multiples as the G4, which limits how many possible CPU speeds there are.

But those issues are pretty minor. You mention the PowerMac 7200, and that was far more of a technical challenge, yet there are CPU upgrades even for that machine! The technical hurdles to making G5 upgrades for PowerMac G5s (minus the neutered single 1.8, which is a crap machine anyway) are comparatively small.

SpaceMonkey · Nov 13, 2005, 05:04 PM

Isn't another challenge for the upgrade companies going to be just finding a supplier of G5 chips? I mean, once Apple finishes the transition to Intel, is the CPU upgrade business large enough to give IBM enough incentive to produce Mac-compatible G5 chips? I say Mac-compatible because, although I know very little about the technical aspects of these things, I suspect that it would be a non-trivial task to modify the PowerPC chips that are used in the X-Box 360 and other future products to make them work easily in a PowerMac.

mduell · 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

And there's CPU upgrades for the 7200, so what is your point exactly?

Yea, on PCI cards. I can't wait to see the performance of a PCI based G5 upgrade!

Even if you put the upgrade in an 8x PCIe slot (good luck fitting the heatsink!), you've got less than a third of the normal duals bus' bandwidth.

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

They haven't even increased in speed enough to justify upgrades yet...
<snip>
There may also be some tighter technical restrictions for a few reasons - the G5's cooling system is tightly integrated with the whole system, making replacing the processor a bigger hassle. Also, the G5 doesn't support as many bus speed multiples as the G4, which limits how many possible CPU speeds there are.
<snip>
You mention the PowerMac 7200, and that was far more of a technical challenge, yet there are CPU upgrades even for that machine!

Yes, they've only increased clockrate 56-69%, doubed or quadrupled the number of cores, and doubled the cache. Hardly worth bothering indeed!

The PowerMacs cooling system has already been designed to cover a wide range of speeds and configurations. There have been only two multipliers used (4x and 6x), but we've seen a huge range of busses (266, 300, 333, 400, 450, 500, 575, 625, and 675Mhz off the top of my head).

See my comment above.

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Isn't another challenge for the upgrade companies going to be just finding a supplier of G5 chips? I mean, once Apple finishes the transition to Intel, is the CPU upgrade business large enough to give IBM enough incentive to produce Mac-compatible G5 chips? I say Mac-compatible because, although I know very little about the technical aspects of these things, I suspect that it would be a non-trivial task to modify the PowerPC chips that are used in the X-Box 360 and other future products to make them work easily in a PowerMac.

The Xbox 360 uses a totally different chip (that just uses the same instruction set) and shouldn't be considered in the same thought. The PPC970 chips used in the G5s should be the same as the PPC970 chips used in the JS20s and such.

t500 · Nov 17, 2005, 12:30 AM

They are still going to supply Apple with G5 chips for the next few years. At least 3 years after the last G5 machine rolls off the line (need to support apple care?). I know the G5's hit a speed bump, but how about cramming a multicore into an older G5?

Todd Madson · Nov 17, 2005, 03:22 PM

That's one of the discussed bits at macosrumors, that supposedly multicores were tested
using the older G5 chassis so it would be simple in effect to create an aftermarket product.

In the case of the older 2.5s it would be easiest since the bus speed is identical to that
of the quad.

bowwowman · Nov 18, 2005, 07:23 AM

Although some good points have been raised so far, the one fact missing is that in order for anyone to make upgrade cards, they need the chips!

and my guess would be that Apple has 100% exclusive contracts for every single G5 chip that rolls off the production lines, at least for the forseeable future anyways

So the upgrade mfgr's are SOL for now.......

Once the transition to intel gets underway, then perhaps a small supply of G5's will start to become available, only time will tell ...........

mduell · Nov 18, 2005, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by bowwowman

Although some good points have been raised so far, the one fact missing is that in order for anyone to make upgrade cards, they need the chips!

and my guess would be that Apple has 100% exclusive contracts for every single G5 chip that rolls off the production lines, at least for the forseeable future anyways

So the upgrade mfgr's are SOL for now.......

Nope. IBM has other PPC970 products, like the JS20s. If you're big/serious enough I'm sure they'll sell you just the chips.