G4 "Sawtooth" cpu upgrade...

PsychoSync

Registered
Hello

I want to gather information about cpu upgrades for the G4 "Sawtooth" (not upgrade cards like Sonnet stuff) so that i know what to find for a future upgrade.

First: My Mac is a 400Mhz G4 AGP slot 2x, i want to know if i can swap the cpu card from that mac with the faster cpu from that family, in that case, a 500Mhz cpu.

Second: Can i swap the 400Mhz cpu for a Dual 500Mhz cpu from the "Gigabit Ethernet" model?

Third: Can i swap it with a cpu from a "Digital Audio" model?

I know that my Mac has a multiplier of 4.0x and a bus speed of 100Mhz and that the FBS can be changed soldering or desoldering resistors on the motherboard. But how is the multiplier controlled? Is it defined by the cpu?

Well that's it. Thanks for any info!
 
I know there is a lot of upgrades from 3rd party companies but i don't want that, its so expensive. What i want is to take a processor card from another mac G4 and put it in mine.

Anyone here who did that?
 
1) Yes
2) no
3) most likely not ..

I got a 1.2Ghz G4 upgrade processor card from OWC and replaced the 350Mhz board in my old Sawtooth with it. Worked like a charm .. was about $250 -- which if you put it in terms of the Intel/AMD crowd, is about par with a jump in processor speed.

Even tho there are "G4" processors in the multiple variants of the Powermac G4 family (Sawtooth, Digital Audio, MDD, QS, etc) most of the processor replacements need to be within the same "family" of the model set -- that's why I said yes to #1.
 
I checked and i have a uni-n 7 motherboard and it is compatible! Great, now i have to find a dual 500Mhz. That is going to be tuff.
 
Back
Top