which processor upgrade?

i want to bring back to life a G4 400mhz Power Mac Sawtooth AGP and i can not decide where the performance versus cost benefit begins and ends?

i am looking at these units and i know i want at least a 1.8 if it is going to be a single processor but i cant decide what i should do.

i am going to be running leopard and mainly using it for media playing and general web use. i will not be using photoshop or anything like that. i will most likely be putting a video card in it that allows for 1080 and hooking it up to my LCD tv and networking it to my home network HDD. itunes and movies willbe its main use.

i will not be:

1. adding a superdrive - i have plenty of machines that can burn dvd's/cd's

2. playing games

3. using photoshopish (LOL) type software

i will be:

1. wanting a great video picture on my 52" LCD. i will get a good AGP DVI out video card after i get it running

2. surfing the web

3. using itunes

4. editing or converting video/audio with programs like audacity and visualhub etc...


thanks for any input or suggestions.

if it were my money I would go for

Newer Technology MAXPower G4/7447A 1.6GHz Processor

good price / performance and in the middle of the pack

thanks louishen!!!!

what about the dual 1.6's or 1.4's?

i guess that is where i am kind of at a loss on which to order.

i think the dual 1.8 is too much money to spend but how much of an advantage is 1.6 vs 1.6 dual?

also some of my other questions were:

1. what is the big difference between L2 AND L3 ?

2. what is the big difference between 7447a and 7448?

i realize i have to break down and just buy something but if L3 or 7448 or dual processing adds a significant increase and i can get that for less that $100 difference then i would make that jump.

it seems to me that the breaking point on the processor is around $275 when i think about the other parts i am going to need to pick up.

i am 100% open for thoughts.

thanks

Any with the 2MB of L3 cache.

I was waiting for harryb2448's response

he knows more about G4 upgrades than me

louishen said:

I was waiting for harryb2448's response

he knows more about G4 upgrades than me

Click to expand...

LOL i just got my reply PM from him

im thinking this one?

any reason i should look closer at another one?

personally, i would not upgrade any old macs, it is just not cost-effective, but i would buy a new mac mini, or a newer mac pro or something to that nature....

justin_clark93 said:

personally, i would not upgrade any old macs, it is just not cost-effective, but i would buy a new mac mini, or a newer mac pro or something to that nature....

Click to expand...

well i have a new iMac and Blackbook both with the 2.0ghz C2D and i will get the new macbook when the newer processors are released but this was given to me and i have all the extra parts i would need laying around my house like memory, HDD's, and a video card so i thought spending less than $300 to make this thing a media tower to connect to my living room LCD would be nice. certainly much cheaper than a new mini or anything and from what i have read it will more than compete with the newer mini's and certainly has more ability to add upgraded parts.

i currently use my iMac for media which forces me to keep it close to my tv. this would free it up to be placed anywhere.

i just want it to play all my media and surf on the lcd. i keep all my things i want to view and listen to on it on a networked 4TB RAID 10 400mhz linux box so it really just needs a good DVI video card, gigabit ethernet and the ability to be a good media player.

ooh and i will probably hook my printer to it to also allow my iMac to just be plugged into the wall and have nothing else around it or connected to it.

Just ignore Justin his post are all so negative. It is your machine Fletch, your cash and your decision.

Enjoy.

Not really. He only gave the opinion that upgrading an old Mac would not be cost effective. Which is true.

But in this case we were given the G4 and have loads of bits about to use in it.

fletch33 said:

im thinking this one?

any reason i should look closer at another one?

Click to expand...

Fletch, I like that CPU. Was going to get one for my Digital Audio as it's faster with that large L3 than my 1.8 Ghz Giga Designs with the 512 L2. That is a great upgrade.

Only issue is your 100Mhz Bus will have an impact on performance, but that CPU will work well. I have a 500Mhz G4 Sawtooth. Was thinking of getting that OWC for my DA and putting the Giga Design in the Sawtooth.

I love upgrading old Macs. I have newer ones also. It's a hobby to me also!

Go ahead and have fun!

Alexis, also it's a fun hobby to some and as long as they know what they are getting into, I try and help them. NO way would it be as fast as a modern Intel Mac, but it will still be quite useable for some uses like he intends to use it for.

My G4 Digital Audio with 133Mhz Bus and 1.8Ghz G4 is still a pretty fast machine.

disregard this post because i couldnt find delete LOL

i am going with the one i linked to above and i will post back my results.

thanks for all your help.

well i went with the processor i linked to above and it is running at 1.5ghz and flying

just thought i would give an update to my little project.

i took a bunch of stuff i had laying around my house and the 1999 G4 is very impressive.

i added:

1. a 60GB HDD 7200 as the main drive and a 160GB secondary for storage
2. i added a DVD Burner
3. added a USB 2 high speed card with 5 ports. 1 inner and 4 outer.
4. added a linksys WMP-54G card which i had to play with a bit since it wasn't designed for mac but it is working great. i had a D-link wireless N card but was not able to get it going so i am stuck with the G.
5. since i got this mac free and only had to spend money on the processor i decided to throw a little more money at it and get a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128mb video card. picked one up on ebay for $100

the new video card isn't here yet but i installed Leopard, iWork, iLife, Toast, etc... and i am very impressed at how fast it runs. i only had 896 mb's of pc133 ram laying around so i imagine that when i get that up to 2GB and install the new video card it will be even faster than it is now.

i was so impressed my buddy is getting me another one from his work and we are going to build him one as well

Very cool. You will like that 9800 Pro. I have one in my Digital Audio. It made a big difference for a few things I do with the system.

Great stuff Fletch. Only comment is I have installed ATI Radeon 9600 Mac Pro with 256MB VRAM which is cool and silent with no fan only a heat sink, as there are many reports of the fan unit failing on 9800's and frying the card.

Keep us posted?

harryb2448 said:

Great stuff Fletch. Only comment is I have installed ATI Radeon 9600 Mac Pro with 256MB VRAM which is cool and silent with no fan only a heat sink, as there are many reports of the fan unit failing on 9800's and frying the card.

Keep us posted?

Click to expand...

So far the one in my DA has been great. No fan issues. I have seen a few PC 9800's fans die and the GPU go bye bye. I have had this one for almost 2 years now.

update:

as i mentioned earlier i added:
1. the owc extreme G4 1.5ghz L3 2MB processor
2. a 60GB HDD 7200 as the main drive and a 160GB secondary for storage
3. i added a DVD Burner
4. added a USB 2 high speed card with 5 ports. 1 inner and 4 outer.
5. added a linksys WMP-54G card which i had to play with a bit since it wasn't designed for mac but it is working great. i had a D-link wireless N card but was not able to get it going so i am stuck with the G.
6. since i got this mac free and only had to spend money on the processor i decided to throw a little more money at it and get a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128mb video card.

now i think it has become a challenge to see how nice i can make this thing. it really runs better than i ever thought it would with 10.5.4 installed. i just watched a movie on it on my 52" lcd and it looked great.

one major thing that i realized it was lacking was usb/firewire etc... on the front side. i have 4 USB2 on the back but it is no fun trying to get to those to plug in a camera, ipod, portable HDD etc...

to solve this i picked up a creme colored 3.5 internal adapter and with a little spray paint and some configuration i added 2 x USB2, 1 Firewire, Audio In, 1 Audio Out to the front of the tower. it also included a serial port which would be useless today so i am considering turning that into a SATA port. this is not yet complete but it is looking like it will turn out nice when im finished.

i still need to give it a lot more love to make it look better but this is version 1.0



i think i may remove the grey lining on the sides and give it a clear see through look.

i realize this isn't the greatest machine but it still runs better than some of my friends brand new vista machines