New G4 and DDR RAM?

[Paul C]

I'm looking to upgrade my mac to a Sonnet Encore G4 1.2ghz but can I use my old PC100/133 RAM or do I have to upgrade to DDR?

 

[mdnky]

You keep your existing RAM. All that is is a CPU card.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_stg4.html

 

[Paul C]

Thats great, thanks

 

[MBHockey]

Thats great, thanks

Not really, because now your 1.2 GHz processor will be bottlenecked by your old ram

 

[bobw]

He'll be very happy with the speed increase in that new processor.

 

[Paul C]

K I'll get some new RAM when I can actually afford the processor (probably next month) but at least I've been able to order my ATi Radeon 9000 Pro

 

[Paul C]

It's going to be either the 1ghz or 1.2ghz, might be the 1ghz cos their is a big step in price between the two

Oh well it's better than 400mhz

What speed DDR memory will work with the Sonnet Encore ST? as I've never bought DDR

 

[bobw]

Don't get the DDR memory, not for your machine.

 

[Paul C]

Cool, I'll stick with the cheap stuff *thumbs upto Bob*

 

[bobw]

OWC is the best place to buy these upgrades. This page lists all the processors for your machine;

http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upg...I=#TimeFormat(Now(),+&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

Check http://www.xlr8yourmac.com for other peoples reviews.

I have the PowerLogix 1GHz in my G4/450/AGP and it works very well.

 

[Paul C]

Are the Powerlogix and Sonnet the same performance wise? I was going to go with the Sonnet as it's suppose to be easy to install and no hassle as it's hasn't got jumers, etc to configure.

 

[bobw]

Both are simple to install. Should take less than 5 minutes. Even if you had one with jumpers, still simple. The PL I have doesn't have jumpers. Performance about the same. Powerlogix is supposed to have bad tech support from threads I've read. I contacted them once right after I bought my upgrade because they came out with a newer version, same speed, but higher cache. They had me send mine back and they replaced it with the newer one, and they even paid for shipping both ways. People seem to like both GigaDesigns and Mercury Extreme the best.

You get a 3 year warranty with all of them except PL, (2 year), so you shouldn't have any problems that way.

 

[Paul C]

I've read some reveiws of the Sonnet upgrades on www.xlr8yourmac.com and some people had problems with overheating using the orginal heatsink which caused kernal panics, would I need an upgraded heatsink too?

 

[bobw]

I used the same heatsink. The fan and power supply on the Powerlogix is why I decided on that one. I have no problems with heat.

 

[Paul C]

Reviewers say the original heatsink (cleaned up) and some of this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3469188358&category=3673 solved the problem.

 

[bobw]

You could probably buy Thermal paste in a computer store, if there's one near you.