CPU upgrade for G4?

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garretwp

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I currently have a g4 400 apg mac. I want to get a cpu upgrade for it. I want to get a dual cpu upgrade. My question is what would you recommend? Will i notice a difference if i bought the sonnet g4 500 duet (dual) cpu or should i go with the Powerlogix dual 800 upgrade. What i really want to know is, is it worth spending the money for the sonnet dual 500 upgrade? Even thought its a 100 mhz higher and has two cpus instead of one?

Garrett
 
I don't think you'd really find a great speed increase going from 400mhz to dual 500mhz. In the case of being a normal user or even a power user, you are better off going for lets say a single 800 or 1ghz upgrade than dual 500's on that machine. Unless you are doing lots of photoshop work or other things that really take advantage of dual processing you will barely notice the extra speed. Go for something speedier :)
 
You have one of the original AGP G4's. May not be able to use a Dual upgrade in it. Go to PowerLogix's site for compatibility for duals.

I have a G4/450/AGP and it's not compatible. I bought the 1Ghz Powerlogix and a Radeon 8500 card. It's like a new machine now. 10.2.1 runs great on it.
 
I just checked the compatibility and it says my machine is dual compatible. Just want to know if its worth the money to spend on an upgrade.By the way does anyone know of any places with good prices for these units? Thanks

Garrett
 
Originally posted by garretwp
I just checked the compatibility and it says my machine is dual compatible. Just want to know if its worth the money to spend on an upgrade.By the way does anyone know of any places with good prices for these units? Thanks

Garrett
Click to expand...

If you can upgrade to the dualie, I'd say go for it. I had a G4 450 AGP and it was not upgradable to a dp, so I sold it and got a DP 1 GHz. If it had been upgradable, I think the upgrade is a smart way to go - this DDRAM is expensive!

I don't understand how the 400 can use the dp and the 450 cannot.
 
Yeah, I would go for the dual processors. Under OS X, you will actually see better performance when under a load from multiple apps, where a single-processor machine will start to buckle under a heavy load while you are trying to jump around between applications.

A 800Mhz/1Ghz is nice yes, but I would personally just get a dual upgrade. With OS X out, the use for dual processors is much broader than under OS 9. Whenever you run many apps (more than 1) you will see a boost. Whenever you run multithreaded apps (Complex apps are usually multithreaded these days) apps, you will see a boost. Whenever you run an app designed for multiple processors... well, not much will happen there ;)
 
bobw .. i have the exact same machine configuration. how much did you spent total for the CPU upgrade & ATI 8500? was it definitely worth it or should i try selling this machine and getting a new one?
 
I paid $800.00 including shipping for the PowerLogix processor from OWC, but I believe it's down about a $100.00 now. I bought the 8500 card for about $169.00.

I thought it was worth it, great speed boost, and I didn't have to worry about my SCSI card, IDE card, drives etc, swapping to a new machine.

Like I said, it's like a new machine now. 10.2.1 runs great.
 
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