[erw]

Ok, now that I have got over the intial shock of Mactel, I need to decide what I am going to do with my ageing dual 533. I have been holding of on a G5 until there was a good speed bump. Which isn't going to happen now. So I have decided to hold off again until the new 'intel inside' machines are out.

In the mean time, l am thinking of getting a processor upgrade as things are getting a little slow, but I am at loss as to what to go for. I mostly photoshop, edit video (iMovie, FCE) and play some games. I have 1Gb of ram and a GF3 graphics card. What upgrade would be best?

I am thinking of the gigadesigns dual 1.3 (7455 chip), but they also have a dual 1.8 (7447A). I am told for video/PS the 7455 is better becasue of its L3 cache. Whould it still be faster than a Dual 1.8?

Has anyone got any benchmarks?

Sorry for all the rambling.

[OreoCookie]

So you're willing to wait another two years to buy a computer??

To answer your question, no, a dual G4 1.8 is slower than a Dual G5 1.8.

[Luca Rescigno]

If you think that the G5s won't get any more updates until Apple fully completes the transition to Intel, then you obviously weren't listening to the news Monday. Hmm... it's funny, I'm amazed at how many people out there are forming strong opinions based on a completely misinformed base of knowledge.

The transition to Intel is going to be gradual. There will still be regular updates to PPC Macs. Your software will still work. OS X will still work.

That said, I think you might want to consider a processor upgrade anyway. You've put a lot into that machine, and it won't make you a huge amount of money if you sell it. If you get a dual 1.3 GHz upgrade, you can make it faster and more modern for only about $500, while buying a dual G5 will cost you at least 3x that much. Obviously the G5 will also get you other modern components as well, but since your dual 533 already has several upgrades you might consider just getting the CPU upgrade.

[erw]

I realise that G5 will get more updates (I watched the keynote) and I realise that a G5 is going to be quicker!!! Doh!

What I should have said was my upgrade cycle is about every 4-5 years Shocking I know but true! So if I buy a G5 now I will have it for 3years after the Transition before changing it and I am thinking by that time it will not be supported very well (because the new Mactel machines will be sooo fast and therefore all the apps and OS will require so much more oomph).

If upgrade my machine now and get into Mactel fairly early then I will get good use out the machine.

Anyway to the point of the post does anyone have any pointer for me on upgrades?

[ajprice]

Same boat here with my G4 867 quicksilver. Looking at the Giga Designs cards (single or dual), this with a new graphics card should keep me going til Intel Macs.

I suppose the minimum speed I want to go for is 1.4GHz, anything below that isn't much of a step from 867MHz, might go dual if I can stretch to it.

[DrBoar]

tests at
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Fr...chmarking.html

[winterlandia]

Originally Posted by ajprice

Same boat here with my G4 867 quicksilver. Looking at the Giga Designs cards (single or dual), this with a new graphics card should keep me going til Intel Macs.

I suppose the minimum speed I want to go for is 1.4GHz, anything below that isn't much of a step from 867MHz, might go dual if I can stretch to it.

I had a 733 QS and went with a giga 1.4 card because I am in the same boat with lots of upgrades (pioneer 109, vidcard, lots of hds, lots of ram). Very happy-- the speed increase is very noticable (I had no L3 cache before either). It should last me another year or two. I still may get a g5 sometime if the price is right.. even when the intel models come out, the majority of software will still be ppc and I have no desire to run things in rosetta emulation as I'm pretty sure it will not be as seamless or fast as I would desire. Then a year or two longer down the road when apps start arriving as intel only (trust me-- not all developers are going to be making universal binaries forever, I just know at some point some freeware or something that I want to use will be intel only) I'll have to upgrade to an intel box.

[erw]

Originally Posted by DrBoar

tests at
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Fr...chmarking.html

Thnx- have had a look at XLR8 and they haven't test the dual cards. OWC was very interesting. Making me think about going to a G5 dual 2.0. If I sell my 533 the difference isn't too much more than the upgrade (considering the speed gain).

Can I plug an apple 17' CRT (the clear one with the USB sockets and with the power and video cable combined) into a G5?

[OreoCookie]

If you're talking about the one with the ADC connector, the answer is not without a converter.

[hotani]

Me too - I would be interested in an upgrade card for my DP 867 MDD if it would ever drop closer to the $400 mark. I'm hoping the Mactel news will influence those prices. Paying way more than a Mac Mini for a CPU upgrade is nuts.

Mac Mini: $500
Gigadesigns DP 1.4GHz upgrade card: $650.... WOWZERS!

[Lateralus]

I don't know why people are suddenly thinking no processor upgrade should cost more than the mini. How is a processor upgrade with two 1400MHz chips and a total of 4.5MBs of cache worth less than a machine with one 1250MHz chip and half a MB of cache?

[erw]

Motherboard, RAM, Video, hard drive, Firewire, USB...........

[Lateralus]

...huh?

[DrBoar]

G5 does not have that ADC crap! They have DVI and a DVI to VGA adapor is included.

The point "erw" has is that.
The CPU upgrade will be just that a new CPU. The mini brings faster bus, a new harddisk, GPU as well as native USB2

[ajprice]

The mini does not have the amount of RAM, hard drive storage or speed, graphics card or 16x DL DVD-R drive that my G4 has in it. The only thing it does have is USB2, and i don't have any USB2 devices. So the processor upgrade is making sense for me at the moment, a mini isn't.

[DrBoar]

Most of the first 3 generations of G4 towers came with ATI128 or Nvidia 2mx GPU, 10-27 GB HDs and a DVDreader. If you start with that I question the use of a CPU upgrade.

With spiffy optical drives, HDs and GPUs it is a different thing

[Luca Rescigno]

I bet a Mac mini would be slower than your dual 533 as it is now. It already has worse video, a lot less RAM, and a much slower hard drive. Contrary to what some of you think, "just get a mini they're only $500" isn't the answer to everything. A dual 1.4 GHz upgrade would scream. And you guys should read his original post first. That's why I recommended an upgrade. I'd never recommend anyone take a bone-stock Sawtooth and upgrade it... the cost is just too much for what it's worth. But if you already have a pretty good PowerMac and all you need to bring it up to speed is a CPU upgrade, it's worth it.

[hotani]

ok, I started the whole mini vs upgrade thing - sorry about that little hijack!

To answer the original question: I think a processor upgrade would rock. I'd love to do it. I would not love to spend $650 on it however, which is why I have not yet gone that route. Every time I think about it I look at the price and suddenly my dual 867s seem plenty fast. Of course, your 533 would notice significantly more gains than my system so maybe its worth it to you.

[macaddict0001]

I would definitely upgrade.

[MORT A POTTY]

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/PowerLogix/PF57DA13004M/

it's 600, but well worth it for the 7457, the best G4 ever. 512K of L2, 2MB of L3 cache per CPU. they also have a dual 1.4Ghz 7457 which will beat anything else and it's 730 or so.

[outsourced]

The recent WWDC news sealed my decision: I bought a Sonnet 1.4GHz upgrade and ATI 9000 video card for my G4/400 GigEthernet system.

I haven't installed them yet, but have previous experience with a GigaDesigns 1.2GHz upgrade. I went with Sonnet this time, since I don't like the dual fan (noisy) setup of the Giga product.

Also, I wanted the 7455 CPU for maximum backward compatibility. Sure, the 7455 runs hotter than the 7447, but I'm getting better compatibility and performance with the L3 cache. That's another reason I went with the 9000 instead of the 9800 video card. The latter runs too hot and consumes too much power.

Hopefully, this will be a sweet upgrade!

[ajprice]

Is anyone running Tiger with one of these processor upgrades?

[outsourced]

Originally Posted by ajprice

Is anyone running Tiger with one of these processor upgrades?

Not yet. Don't know if I want to wait until Leopard, now.

But...I'm a geek. I'll probably get Tiger -- lots of cool dev tools.

[ajprice]

I just Ran XBench on my G4, got a score of 107.76

G4 867 single processor
1152Mb RAM
60GB + 120GB hard drive
128Mb GeForce2 Twinview graphics card (AGP 4x)
16x DL Lite ON DVD-R Drive
802.11g PCI card
OS X 10.4.1

[erw]

Starting to think about a dual G5, hopefully drop in price soon and it would keep me going longer if Apple take longer to get the new Mactels out the door.

Not that they are ever slow at delivering

[ajprice]

Found these two GigaDesign cards for the same price within a couple of £.

Giga Designs G-celerator 7447A G4 1.6GHz (rated at 2.0GHz)
Giga Designs G-celerator 7455 Dual G4 1Ghz (rated at 1.2GHz)

So which one of these is going to be the best step up from my G4 867? is there a lot of difference between the 7447A and the 7455?

[bp6hell]

Originally Posted by MORT A POTTY

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/PowerLogix/PF57DA13004M/

it's 600, but well worth it for the 7457, the best G4 ever. 512K of L2, 2MB of L3 cache per CPU. they also have a dual 1.4Ghz 7457 which will beat anything else and it's 730 or so.

You have to be insane or just plain goofy to buy an upgrade from Powerlogix. These guys have a known history for bad products, no refunds and poor service.

Do yourself a favor, buy any upgrade you want, but don't buy one from Powerlogix.

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally Posted by bp6hell

You have to be insane or just plain goofy to buy an upgrade from Powerlogix. These guys have a known history for bad products, no refunds and poor service.

Do yourself a favor, buy any upgrade you want, but don't buy one from Powerlogix.

I am well aware of this, believe me. just find one of my threads in the PowerBook forum.

OWC has helped them dramatically get their **** together though, and OWC has some in stock.

I personally have the giga dual 1.8 upgrade and love it, but it's extremely hot and very VERY loud. I'm thrilled with the performance of it though, but the dual 1.3Ghz 7457 upgrade from PowerLogix is 100 bucks cheaper and is probably a bit quieter.

and yes, I am running tiger and there are zero problems.

[1800-whatever]

Originally Posted by hotani

Me too - I would be interested in an upgrade card for my DP 867 MDD if it would ever drop closer to the $400 mark. I'm hoping the Mactel news will influence those prices. Paying way more than a Mac Mini for a CPU upgrade is nuts.

Mac Mini: $500
Gigadesigns DP 1.4GHz upgrade card: $650.... WOWZERS!

I would love to upgrade my 1 ghz single MDD , but i have also been holding of for the same reason, I just thought it was too expensive, lately though I have noticed that the [b]DP 1.4 [/]upgrade is NO LONGER available from the giga store , the 1.3 upgrade is ...

Could that possibly mean new MDD upgrades are on the way ?

[Lateralus]

Probably.

Giga has said there will be MDD upgrades based on the 7448 when it ships. I'd count on something by fall.

Personal guess is Dual 2GHz based off of overclocked and voltage tweaked 1.7GHz rated chips. I'd normally count on a higher overclocked speed since the current 1.8GHz model is powered by a 1.42GHz chip and the 2GHz model by a 1.6GHz chip, but I think we're about to see the end of headroom for the G4's 7-stage pipeline.

We'll see though.

[outsourced]

I should have bought a dualie. But, I probably still wouldn't be satisfied with a dual 1.8 7447 or 1.4 7457 anyway. Can't wait to see what's coming with the 7448.

Anyway, my geek status is confirmed, since I just installed Tiger. Man, I'm glad I did. It seems more responsive that Panther running at the same speed (1.4GHz).

Also, MS Office 2000 running in Virtual PC 6 is actually FASTER than NeoOffice 1.1! (Damn.)

I don't know if I want to put more money into this aging system now by selling my BRAND NEW Sonnet 1.4 and upgrading it to a dual 1.8 + an ATI 9800 or not. Afraid of running into cooling/power issues. The system is really stable right now. Hate to mess with it.

Oh well. It's hard to do anything when you don't have your own monetary printing press.

[hotani]

I went in to check the prices today and MDD upgrade cards were gone. None seem to exist anywhere. I do like the idea of a 2GHz DP upgrade, but will believe it when I see it - then cry when I see the price (fingers crossed for something affordable and sub $400).

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by hotani

I went in to check the prices today and MDD upgrade cards were gone. None seem to exist anywhere. I do like the idea of a 2GHz DP upgrade, but will believe it when I see it - then cry when I see the price (fingers crossed for something affordable and sub $400).

I have found this Dual 1.33 GHz

Please note that the gigadesigns site says it is no longer in production

[hotani]

Yeah, I saw that on the gigadesigns site.

So $540 for a *slight* speed increase... Who's buying this stuff?

[Lateralus]

People with Dual 867s.

[hotani]

Thanks. Glad we got that cleared up.

Maybe you (or someone who has bought one) would like to explain it to me then? I don't see how $540 is worth it to go to 1.3GHz.

If they came out with a DP 2GHz for the same price, that would be more like it and I'd probably consider the purchase.

[Lateralus]

You asked a question, I answered it. Here's some eyes for you;

Reasons for a Dual 867 user to upgrade to a Dual 1.33GHz;

1) More than 50% jump in clock speed.
2) Double the L3 cache.
3) Ability to overclock.
4) Quiter operation, as the fan built into the upgrade keeps the CPUs cooler since it has a more direct contact to them than the MDD's main 120mm exhaust fan does.
5) Original CPU card died, replacement is needed.
6) They, uh... need the speed boost?

The cost of the upgrade can also be offset partly by eBaying the original Dual 867.

These upgrades obviously exist for a reason, they're reliable, adjustable and people are buying them.

[hotani]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

You asked a question, I answered it. Here's some eyes for you;

I rolly-eyed you because of your smartass, unhelpful, waste-of-space post. Thank you for posting some reasons.



1) More than 50% jump in clock speed.
2) Double the L3 cache.

Sounds good... So it should benchmark just below a 2GHz now, right? I kid. I don't know, maybe it does.

3) Ability to overclock.
I thought the 867s could be overclocked to 1GHz+? I'm too skeered to do it, but that was my understanding. Plus I wouldn't be chomping at the bit to potentially destroy my new $540 upgrade card.

4) Quiter operation, as the fan built into the upgrade keeps the CPUs cooler since it has a more direct contact to them than the MDD's main 120mm exhaust fan does.
I'd give em $200 for that alone.

5) Original CPU card died, replacement is needed.
Mine's not dead.... yet. Might be if I keep running at 61C+ (see above). Granted, if my processor card died I would pay to upgrade via replacement.

6) They, uh... need the speed boost?
See #1 - is the amount of speed boost worth $540+? If so, then awesome.

These upgrades obviously exist for a reason, they're reliable, adjustable and people are buying them.

Well, let me back up and say its not worth it to me. Better? And just because "people are buying them" doesn't make it the best thing since the fork. At this point I don't see it being more worth it than hocking my dual G4 for a G5 - or an inteliMac in the next couple of years which will probably be the case. Paying that much for 1.3GHz seems a bit silly when the standard today is 2GHz+.

[Lateralus]

I thought my reply was straight forward, not smart ass. I've talked to people from Giga and they even admit that the upgrade is targeted at Dual 867 owners. So drop the attitude.

Overclocking the Apple CPU requires soldering. Overclocking the Giga upgrade requires moving around a set of jumpers per documented settings, and it doesn't void the warranty.

[hotani]

That's handy. Overclock to what? Have you done it?

[Lateralus]

I've owned four Giga upgrades now. A Dual 1.33GHz/133MHz model that I ran at Dual 1.47GHz. A single 1.47GHz/133MHz which I ran for a while at 1.53GHz. And two of the Dual 1.8GHz/133MHz models, both of which I've played with and ran at 1.87GHz.

[ajprice]

I've just come back to this subject, looking at my xbench score of 107, which, to me, compares pretty well with the iMac G5 and some of the Powermac G5 scores listed (system index page here), but then maybe I'm reading it wrong!

[hotani]

wow - I looked up mine on there and it gets a whopping 38!

[QuadG5Man]

I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned:

http://barefeats.com/kwik.html

I own a single 800 MHz Quicksilver just like the barefeats test. Notice the G4 beats the G5 in single processor Photoshop actions and in iMovie. These G4 upgrades are nothing to sneeze at. I'm going with the dual 1.8 gigi designs!!!!!

[dave49er]

Originally Posted by hotani

2x867 MDD G4 - 768MB RAM | 2x120GB mirrored HDs | GeForce Ti | M-Audio Revolution 5.1 | Cu Heatsink upgrade

I have a similar system:
2x867 MDD G4 FW800
1.25GB RAM
3x160GB HDs
NEC ND-3500 DL DVD+-RW
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Mac Edition

These buggers run hot. How / where did you get the Cu Heatsink upgrade?

Thanks,
Dave

[hotani]

Small Dog has them for $65: http://www.smalldog.com/product/44140

[dave49er]

Originally Posted by hotani

Small Dog has them for $65: http://www.smalldog.com/product/44140

Are you running at 61 degrees with that heatsink? I think the hottest mine ever got was 58.7. I use the CPU Nap trick now, along with a few HDD Cooler fans I mounted behind the main HDD bay (2 small fans) and the CPU (2 small fans).

I noticed that it runs much cooler if I only have 1 HD in the main bay and 1 optical drive.

Mine was actually a single 1GHz FW 800, but the L3 died on it and the original owner was offered the choice of a single 1GHz or dual 867MHz for replacement, and he chose the dual, which is how I got it.

I was looking at that Giga upgrade, but they pulled them.

[hotani]

I'm usually running about 59C with the heatsink, it depends on the temerature in the room too. I had a slot fan for a while, but since the GeForce Ti completely seals off the top of the case from the bottom, it didn't do any good. Eventually it died and I didn't replace it.

I replaced the main CPU fan for the sake of quieter operation (and my sanity), but it doesn't move the air like the original so I'm sure I lost a degree or 2 with that mod... maybe the heatsink made up for it. The MDD is an obnoxiously loud and hot machine and takes a lot of convincing to get it to shut up and cool down!

[dave49er]

What I've noticed using Temperature Monitor is that having two drives on the ATA-100 bus is not good. The drives (both of them) run much hotter because the near one is right next to the CPU heatsink, and also seems to obstruct the flow of air from the main CPU fan. The drives then seem to help keep the CPU running toasty.

I decided that I could live with only one drive (System) on it and two drives on the ATA-66 bus. They run several degrees cooler than the ATA-100 bus drive, which seems to run about 6 degrees cooler (45 -> 39) without the second drive between it and the CPU.

It's probably worse in my machine because of the 9800 Pro ME that I have that runs really hot (a replacement for a GeForce4 MX that looked like it melted from the CPU heat), as it is directly above the CPU. Not real good design IMHO. Maybe it was OK with a single processor.

[dave49er]

BTW, I'm normally running around 48, 50-51 when it's real warm in the room. It only goes up to 58 when I have both CPUs cranking around 90% + for a while.