[ImpishLM]

More and more apps (read "games") are coming out requiring more power than I have.

What's the best?

xlr8yourmac has closed its forums so I can't ask there. That site, however, seems to think highly of CPU upgrades made by both OWC and Giga Designs. Anyone with experience dealing with either of these two?

Anyone with a recommendation?

Thanks!

Currect system:

PowerMac G4 "Digital Audio," 466 mghz, 1G RAM, Radeon 8500 AGP card.

[Lateralus]

Hello.

Yes, I have noticed that XLR8s forums are down as well. A shame for the geek world to say the least.

I personally am going for the GigaDesigns Dual 1.25-1.33GHz processor upgrade from OWC for my QuickSilver. The reports on them are great, with the few people that have bought one reporting good overclocks. One guy running at Dual 1.53 for weeks now with perfect stability. Talk about a way to turn your Digital Audio/My-QuickSilver into a low-end G5 eating machine.

The only reason I am going for a Dual is because my processor is a 933MHz G4 with 2MBs of L3 cache. Upgrading to anything less than a Dual would be hard for me to justify as the performance increase would be debateable.

If you're looking for a good single processor upgrade, I would recommend OWC's 1.3-1.33GHz processor upgrade. It is based on the 7455A G4, meaning that you might not get as good of an overclock out of it as you would if you went with one of the 7455B based upgrades. But, we're talking a matter of 66MHz in overclock difference, so it doesn't matter to most people.

The best thing about the 1.3-1.33 that I just pointed you to is that it has the fastest L2 cache of all of the G4 processor upgrades. Which can provide more of a performance boost than a more overclock-friendly 7455B upgrade.

No matter what you get, you are going to see a dramatic performance increase. You are not just going from a G4 to a faster G4, but to a different generation G4.

Your Digital Audio has a 7400 series G4 processor in it. That processor was essentially the first G4 chip. It had two AltiVec units and two Integer Units. The upgrades are based off of the 7450 series design, which has four AltiVec units and four Integer Units, twice as many of each as your current G4. Because of that difference, many people call the 7450 derived G4s the G4e or the G4+.

Like I said, you'll enjoy whatever you get, because it will surely breathe new life into your machine.

[ImpishLM]

Wow! THANK YOU for your thorough explanation of my situation.

The OWC 1.33 CPU has been at the top of my list, and your recommendation may well have cinched the deal.

I have only one question remaining: should I consider a dual CPU? Is that even possible on my system?

If it is possible, would you be so kind as to explain the pros and cons of upgrading to a dual CPU?

Again, thanks!

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by ImpishLM:
Wow! THANK YOU for your thorough explanation of my situation.

The OWC 1.33 CPU has been at the top of my list, and your recommendation may well have cinched the deal.

I have only one question remaining: should I consider a dual CPU? Is that even possible on my system?

If it is possible, would you be so kind as to explain the pros and cons of upgrading to a dual CPU?

Again, thanks!

No problem.

The Placid Casual and I took a stab at explaining the Single vs Dual processor situation in this thread. And yes, your system would work fine with a dual processor upgrade. The only systems that you ever have to worry about Dual processor compatability on is the original G4s, the Sawtooth series. Some of them will work with Duals, some wont. But, you don't need to worry since you've got a Digital Audio.

The reason I am eyeing a Dualie upgrade is because I would like to run a distributed client on each processor, particularly SETI.

[emark]

Actually, a small correction to note:

The tricky one's to worry about aren't the last of the PCI macs, it is the first of the AGP macs (which were released at about the same speeds at the same price points, but had upgraded motherboard w/ agp slot among other improvements, easily distinguished as the additional dvi output).


Not All G4 Macs are Dual Processor Compatible. You must have an ASIC revision of the uni-Nuni-N revision of 7 or greater.

http://www.buygiganow.com/dualcomp.html


I bought a cheap 350 agp w/ the intention of upgrading it for my dad and found out after the fact about this little snag...

good luck all and post back your experience w/ the upgrade, love to hear how it's going.

[motti]

Originally posted by emark:
Not All G4 Macs are Dual Processor Compatible. You must have an ASIC revision of the uni-Nuni-N revision of 7 or greater.

The 466 Digital Audio is compatible with Dual Processors iirc. I once checked it myself for my G4 but came to the conclusion that I'd better o'clock it and save some money for a G5 later.