[X4U] [OT] Processor Upgrades

[Adrian Stubbs]

Zane H. Healy wrote:

>> Thinking about upgrading my Sawtooth 450 G4.  It really seems worth 
>> getting an upgrade but I wondered what your opinions would be. 
>> Apparently mine is compatible with Mutli-processors but the price and 
>> the lower clock speed of these Dual Processor cards makes me wonder 
>> if a) it will be slower and b) it will be more expensive.
>
>
> Are you sure it's a Sawtooth?  I thought those were only available as 
> 400Mhz and slower.  The Sawtooth is the one with PCI graphics, right? 
> I actually seriously considered doing this with my G4/450 AGP system 
> (to old for a dual upgrade) until the G5's came out.
>
Sawtooth is the AGP.  Yikes is what you are thinking of... Some 
sawtooths are not DP compatible... you have to check the ASIC version 
and mine is compatible.... I just don't really know if I need DP.

>> I was tempted in the 400$ range and see:
>>
>> PowerLogix PowerForce47 G4/2.0GHz with 512K 1:1 L2 Cache Per 
>> Processor        $399
>> PowerLogix PowerForce47 Dual G4/1.2GHz with 512K 1:1 L2 Cache Per 
>> Processor   $419
>
>
> Try to find out how one of these would compare to a Mac Mini.  It 
> seems to me that a Mac Mini *might* be a good cheap upgrade.  At the 
> same time there are quite a few arguments against the Mini and 
> upgrading your Sawtooth.

Thought about that too... which would give me the an OSX upgrade from 
Jag as well...


>> Also, should I think of spending less and getting a graphic card 
>> upgrade as I'm stuck with the ATI Rage 128 Pro.
>
>
> I upgraded my G4/450 AGP to an ATI Radion 9000 Pro, I'd like to think 
> it made a difference, but as I moved from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X 10.2 at 
> the same time, who knows :^)
>
Yes. OSX REALLY made this box feel slow.  os9 interface is very snappy 
on the rare occasion that I boot up in it.

>> I'm not a gamer but maybe cos my machine is to slow :) ... just a 
>> surfer, connect to work,  listen to music, mess with iMovie/iPhoto 
>> etc.... would be nice to run Virtual PC at a reasonable rate too but 
>> I don't think that is possible on a 2.5 Gig G5.  My wife dabbles with 
>> Adobe Apps.
>
>
> You might be surprised at how much a faster system helps in surfing. 
> As much as I hate to admit it, there were really only two things that 
> I needed the G5 upgrade for, one was Adobe InDesign 2.0, the other 
> surfing.  Of course once I got the G5 2x2 I started playing with Video 
> Editing.
>
>         Zane
>
>
/thanks

-Adrian