[G4] More CPU for G4 450.

[Joseph B. Gurman]

     Mel wrote:

>Tiger,
>You need to upgrade your processor. You can buy a faster processor that
>should give you much improved performance. One place to check out is
>Other World Computing, www.macsales.com to find out what upgrades will
>work with your machine. You can get upgrades from 800 MHz to 1.2 GHz
>that should give your machine a big kick in the pants. A second item
>you might want to consider is a faster graphics card if you are doing
>any rendering or playing 3D games. If you haven't got at least 512 MB
>RAM you should probably get at least that much. And finally, if your
>hard drive(s) are only 5400 rpm, you could get 7200 rpm drives that
>would somewhat improve your disk performance.
>HTH,
>Mel
>
>On Saturday, June 28, 2003, at 10:46  AM, tigerk wrote:
>
>>  I am hoping that someone can recommend how I can change my
>>  motherboeard on
>>  my G4 450Mhz tower and where I can find this product?. Which product I
>>  should specifically buy, that is. Whats the best I can do? I need more
>>  CPU
>>  power for my Pro Tools Pluggins and I don't have $3,500.00 to spend.
>>
>>                                                  Tiger K

     Well, let's look at the cost of that approach:

1. OWC's lowest-priced CPU upgrade for the Sawtooth, the Mercury 
Extreme 1.25 GHz, is $500

2. (1) above with an NVidia GeForce 4MX (bundle) video card, add $100

3. 256 Mbyte PC100 DIMM from Data Memory Systems is $34.50 this weekend

4. 80 Gbyte Hitachi (IBM) DeskStar 7200 RPM drive from OWC is $87.95

     Ignoring taxes (if any) and shipping, that's around $720.

     Tiger says he doesn't have $3500, but let's say he goes to the 
Apple Store and CTO's his own G4 Dual 1.25 GHz, which for all the 
griping about its architecture is way faster than a single 1.25 GHz 
in a Sawtooth (and I mean _way_). If he gets two processors, but cuts 
corners and gets only 256 Mbyte of Apple's overpriced memory, an 80 
Gbyte drive (IBM DeskStars usually, 7200 rpm) instead of the stock 
160, a Combo drive instead of the SuperDrive, the Radeon 9000Pro 
instead of the GeForce Titanium, and no modem (does anybody still use 
those?), the Apple Store price is $1570. throw in 512 Mbyte of memory 
from Data Memory Systems ($72 this weekend), and it tops out at $1642.

     Over $900 difference, but what a difference in performance. If he 
wants a single-processor 1.25 GHz dual mirrored doors system from 
Apple, it would be $300 less.

     Now I don't know what the bottlenecks in ProTools plug-ins are, 
but I suspect all of the several dozen ones listed on Digidesign's 
site benefit from the following differences:

		Sawtooth			Dual Mirrored Doors
		--------			------------------
Bus speed		100 MHz			167 MHz
Disk controller	ATA-66			ATA-100 (at least first controller)

and maybe from:

Graphics slot:	2X AGP			4X AGP

     I don't have any CPU ugprades in desktop G4's, only one 1 GHz 
card in a Cube (the stock version of which has the same bus, ATA 
controller, and AGP slot as the Sawtooth). It helps a lot for general 
system zippiness (startup time, scrolling speed, time to apply 
Software Updates), and a little for real work like Photoshop. 
Absolutely no comparison with a dual 1.0-GHz desktop G4, much less a 
dual-1.25.

     It all depends on how much cash Tiger has to burn, and how much 
time he wants to spend watching beachballs spin.

						Joe Gurman
-- 
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
                                                             - Douglas 
Adams, 1952 - 2001

Joseph B. Gurman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics
Branch, Greenbelt MD 20771 USA