[G4] Processor upgrades... Worth it? Fast? Groovy, even?

[James Asherman]

On Tuesday, August 3, 2004, at 12:38  PM, Brian L. Matthews wrote:

>> Having some L2/L3 cache is significantly better than having none, as 
>> some machines did. L2 cache is on the processor chip itself and 
>> usually runs at the same speed as the processor. The L3 is on the 
>> processor daughterboard and usually runs at half or one-third the 
>> processor speed. Although you didn't say, I'm sure that the 1.2/1.33 
>> GHz processors would have L3 cache, which is almost as good as L2. 
>> You would certainly notice a dramatic difference when you double your 
>> processor speed. A friend of mine upped his machine to a 1.33 GHz and 
>> the difference was eye-opening.
>
> Which leads to my question, which company's processor upgrade should I 
> go with? I've got a 500Mhz G4 Sawtooth. I believe PowerLogix, OWC, 
> Giga, and Sonnet all make processor upgrades for my machine, and they 
> all sound good from the companies' web sites, but I'd like to hear 
> some real-world experiences before dropping what in all cases is a 
> decent chunk of change.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>

I have an OWC mercury and a sonnet.
OWC has more options some of which might be incompatible.
My OWC was sold as a 1.26g.  FCP only sees 1.26 as 600 because of ASP. 
This greatly confuses FCP4.
At 1.33 it screams for most things but fails on renders.
So I run it at 1.2.  Trouble free fast and stable.
The sonnet (my second) works good and requires no set up or thinking 
about it.
  But it does take a bit of software on my machine which must be 
upgraded sometimes.
So all in all they both work but the Sonnet is easier.
Jim