03-17-2009, 12:57 AM

ok heres whats up:

My girlfriend hooked me up with a PowerMac G4 including studio monitor, keyboard and mouse. (Digital Audio 2001, Dual 533Mhz, Upgraded Memory: 2X256MB, Upgraded from OS 9 to OS X 10.3 Panther, and a 30GB 5400RPM Hard Drive)

Now i have Native Instruments Kore 2 and Komplete 5 software and eventually Logic Studio, and thats all i plan on running on this computer, no internet.

I want to upgrade this G4 with a Newertech 7448 processor either 2.0 Ghz or Dual 1.6 Ghz, 3x512MB RAM, OS X 10.5 Leopard and 80GB 7200RPM internal Hard Drive and 1TB external Hard Drive.

Question being will these upgrades be enough to run these programs without problems? Without problems meaning functions properly, no pops, no clicks no headaches!

But for the price i would put into this computer i could get a Mac Mini with 2.26 Ghz Processor, 4GB of RAM and 120GB Hard Drive and just get a 1TB External Hard Drive. BUT Newertechs website claims that their processor installed into a G4 makes it 2 times faster than a Mac Mini but im sure they are refering to the 1.66 Ghz 1GB RAM Mini?

With that being said, Second question being would the 2.26 Ghz Mini be better for music production than a G4 with the earlier mentioned upgrades?

I only have $1000 to work with and thinking about this is keeping me up at night! You guys are my last hope at getting a stright answer. Everyone else just scratches their head and goes uhhh i dont know! Thanks!!!

03-17-2009, 01:15 AM

This might give you an idea of speed differences between modded G4's and Intel Mini's.

I have a G4 Digital Audio like you do. I installed a 1.8Ghz Giga Design G4, 1.5GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 120 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive, USB 2.0 card, 350 Watt Sparkle Power Supply. I also have a Intel Mini which I recently modded with a 2.16Ghz C2D out of the last generation White 24" iMac. Even before I modded the Mini and it had the 1.66 Core Duo, doing video conversion from say AVI to DVD took around 3 hours on G4 and under 30 minutes on the Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz Mini. Now with the C2d it's under 20 minutes for the same video conversion. My 2.1 Ghz G5 is in the middle somewhere but still takes 1.5 hours most of the time where the mini around 20 minutes.

Not sure about Logic.

I have a feeling they are talking G4 mini when they give you those figures on the CPU site. I have a 1.5Ghz G4 Mini and my 1.8 Ghz DA is a bit faster.

Forgot to mention, same exact Video application on both machines set the same way and same exact video file. Same exact version of OSX 10.5.6. Did it for a comparison test.

03-17-2009, 03:01 AM

THANK YOU! Thats all i needed to hear! I wasted a week of my life searching and searching and searching for an answer like that! Every place i went to gave me the reach around or some stupid answer that didn't pertain to the question im asking. But in all honesty...after i wrote that i figured it would take 1100 to upgrade the G4 and i figured whats another 450$ to get a 20" iMac and a 1TB External Hard Drive. $450 is worth avoiding pulling your hair out and putting your fist through a wall to get all those upgrades to work well and then it not even being enough to run the programs.

Thanks Again!!!