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dlgraves · Sep 1, 2005, 01:38 AM

Hi,

I'm trying to build a Mac to tide my graphic-design mom over for the next couple of years during the transition to Intel chips (shudder); her five-year-old PowerBook is about to crack. I'm trying to put together something reasonably fast and still leave enough to buy a nice 19" LCD.

So: I bought an old 450 MHz Sawtooth with 768 GB RAM, and bumped it up to 1.2 GHz with an OWC G4 processor upgrade. It already kicks the ass of my 12" 1.33 GHz PowerBook. I have maybe $250 of her money left for some choice upgrades, but I don't know what will make the most difference on a graphics workstation:

--replace the old 30GB HD? It's 7200 rpm, but three years old so probably kind of slow. (She has a big external FW drive so space isn't a big issue.)

--replace the GeForce2 MX 32MB video card? I was looking at a Radeon 9800 128MB on ebay for $170, but that seems like overkill since she's not exactly a big gamer. There are also some Radeon 9000 64MB cards out there.

--double the RAM? I have two open slots. I also wondered if I should replace the funky offbrand 512MB with something reliable, but if it ain't broke don't fix it, I think.

If one of those options (or another one) screams out to anyone, please lemme know.

thanks
Lucas

yikes600 · Sep 1, 2005, 02:38 AM

If you're going to upgrade the hard drive remember that the Sawtooth's built in IDE controller doesn't have big drive support (it only sees 128GB). You'd need to buy an IDE controller to use drives bigger than that (~$55).
I'd upgrade the RAM first to at least 1GB. Your machine supports up to 2GB under OS X.
The Radeon 9000 is too slow to warrant the price they go for, and is equally as slow as your GeForce2 MX. The 9800 you mentioned on Ebay is most likely a flashed PC version. If you're going to go the flashed-card route, there's some GeForce 5200s on EBay too that might make more sense if you're not a gamer. These support Core Image under OS X 10.4, unlike the crusty old Radeon 9000.

bowwowman · Sep 1, 2005, 08:20 AM

For 2D graphic design, a super fast/top-of-the-line video card is a waste of money. Just get an AGP card that supports core-image and be done with it......

Just MAX DA RAMMMMM.....with design apps, this will do more to improve performance than any other upgrades besides the cpu, which you already have done

as for the HD, probably the best thing to do there is to reformat it and start with a completely new install of Tiger and her design apps. And set the FW HD as the scratch disk for the design apps........

dlgraves · Sep 2, 2005, 10:24 AM

Thanks to both, found a 5200 on ebay and loading up on RAM. Can't wait to see what it does to xbench.

cheers
Lucas

partybymarty · Sep 2, 2005, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by bowwowman

Just MAX DA RAMMMMM.....with design apps, this will do more to improve performance than any other upgrades besides the cpu, which you already have done

If you want better overall system improvement as well as your design app improvement, buy an Ultra ATA 133 card or SATA card and set up a RAID. If you run a benchmark, you'll find that maxxing the RAM is a waste of money compared to setting up a fast disk storage subsystem.

bowwowman · Sep 5, 2005, 07:47 PM

Design apps are known ram hogs, and all the raids & pci cards in the world wont help you if 98% of your data is being swapped back & forth to the HD's....

But, if your wanna/gotta/needa add new HD's and pci cards, go with SATA, the best bang for your buck right now, they are as cheap (or cheaper) than PATA units ...

DrBoar · Sep 6, 2005, 10:30 AM

The G4/450 is 2xAGP and I am not sure that the 5200 card will work in that

partybymarty · Sep 6, 2005, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by bowwowman

Design apps are known ram hogs, and all the raids & pci cards in the world wont help you if 98% of your data is being swapped back & forth to the HD's....

That depends greatly on the size of the file in question. 98% of graphic files will exceed the limits of the RAM and require accesses to the scratch disk--often. Unless you're designing postage stamps with very few edits 90% of your computing time, having ridiculous amounts of RAM is a complete waste of money (i.e., very low R.O.I. compared to fast disk storage that benefits the OS & all apps, all the time).

Don't believe me? Run a benchmark and try to prove me wrong. Compare 768MB to 1.5GB and tell us if there's a difference worth the extra $160 to make a couple of design apps run a little smoother. How much faster does it make your OS and other non-design apps?

I have a friend running Photshop 80% of the time on an iMac G5/1.8. He moved from 512MB to 1GB with no improvement in Photoshop performance and wanted to go to 2GB, even at a cost of $250 more, without being able to reuse the old RAM. However, using an external firewire drive for a scratch disk (at my suggestion), instead of the same internal drive that holds his OS and apps, made all the difference.

In addition, fast storage can always be migrated to another machine. Not so with old memory. If you're going throw money to the wind, you might as well buy a new machine. Obviously, if you're upgrading an old machine to put off the purchase of a new one, then money is an issue.

dlgraves · Sep 7, 2005, 12:32 AM

Originally Posted by DrBoar

The G4/450 is 2xAGP and I am not sure that the 5200 card will work in that

...it's supposed to go down to 2x, i checked various sources including nvidia site. but i'll let you know if it doesn't fly, should get here shortly.

i'll post some xbench results. but definitely going to set up FW sratch disk too as per this discussion...

cheers
lucas

jjmcwill · Nov 11, 2005, 08:31 AM

Did you ever get that 5200 working in your SawTooth?

I recently acquired a Sawtooth system and will be looking to upgrade the video on it.

Thanks,

Jeff

Originally Posted by dlgraves

...it's supposed to go down to 2x, i checked various sources including nvidia site. but i'll let you know if it doesn't fly, should get here shortly.

i'll post some xbench results. but definitely going to set up FW sratch disk too as per this discussion...

cheers
lucas

centered effect · Nov 27, 2005, 06:44 PM

I too am looking to upgrade my Sawtooth, but I believe I read somewhere that the 5200 voltage is different and would not work on an older G4 AGP system.

Originally Posted by jjmcwill

Did you ever get that 5200 working in your SawTooth?

I recently acquired a Sawtooth system and will be looking to upgrade the video on it.

Thanks,

Jeff

SuvsareRetarded · Dec 1, 2005, 03:47 AM

Upgrade the ram. The video card is kinda pointless unless she's doing 3d tasks.

DrBoar · Dec 1, 2005, 09:52 AM

The only core image card there is for the sawtooth is the 9800. Not sure how much of a difference it does. I have a Sawtooth 1.2 GHz and a ATI 8500, I would never spend those amount of money on asuch a outdated card as the 9800. (Anandtech recently called the 9800 outdated as budget card" The nvidia 6600 PCIe is the new "budget gamers" card). So some more RAM and a freshly installad OS is just about right

Big Mac · Dec 2, 2005, 07:39 AM

The 6600 is about equal to, and in some cases slower than, the 9800, but the point is moot within the context of this discussion anyway. The 9800 is definitely overpriced, but there are so few graphics card upgrade options for the Mac that if you are in the market for one you're going to get ripped off in real money terms no matter what you opt for.