Is it worth the upgrade?

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So I've been searching on the Net for places to buy some stuff to upgrade my old G4 tower (specs in my sig).

I've ran some rough numbers, and it's going to cost me just under $1000 CDN to dump 2gb ram, and dual 1.6ghz cpu's into it.. It currently has an ATI RAge 128 PRo 16mb video card, which I was thinking about replacing with a 128mb 9800 Pro AGP (~$70 CDN)

Plain and simple, would it be worth it? I'll be doing some Photoshop stuff, video encoding, sound recording with Garageband.. oppions? Thoughts? Should I just go and buy new?

I'm starting to get into game design.. I've read and heard that Windows is better for this, since 3Ds Max is Windows-only.. What about Maya? I'll be trying to do some development for the Xbox/360 consoles..

I'm currently running a Wintel 3.2ghz (Prescott), 1gb DDR2-533mhz, 6800GT 256mb gfx, which I was going to sell to fund this project to upgrade my G4.. I love Macs and OS X, I find it cleaner and better to use, but you all know that.. Should I stick with Windows or upgrade this beast?
 
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id say go for it
 
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I mean, realistically, that'd be a fast computer.. dual 1.6ghz CPU's, 2gb PC100, 128mb 9800 Pro.. That'd even play games decently, heh.. But it's mainly for Photoshop/C++ Programming (you can write C++ on a Mac right?)
 
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Im pretty sure you can write it even though i dont know how to program anything... :( but with ps it should be reallllly good maybe even faster than the intel macs..
 
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Im doin that as well...I ahve a quicksilver 733 and im going max with eveything

dual 1.6'
1.5gig ram,
9800 pro mac edition
250 gig hd,
and superdrive.

should be able to run what I want then.:spook:
 
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Steve, sounds good.. I figured I won't even bother with an Intel Mac until CS3 is released.. I currently have CS2 Premium Mac Edition (PPC) and I love it.. However, when handling lots of images on my poor-old TiBook, it gets a bit sluggish..
 
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yeah,

im not really a mac fan but its better for photo and video I think, so im going to build it...going to cost about 500 to do, and will be close to a new mac in speed, for 1/3 the cost.
 
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You're spending a grand on a upgrading a computer that will not be supported in two or three years time. You've really got to jump to Intel in the next couple of years, otherwise you're heading down a dead end.

I'd get a new iMac personally.
 
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The main reason I want to do it is because I have Photoshop CS2.. I've heard it doesn't run as well compared to PPC Macs because of Rosetta and whatnot, so I might just wait till CS3 comes out to get an Intel Mac.
 
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I think you would be fine with the upgrades and CS2 myself. plenty of speed with the duals.....
 
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Well, I upgraded my old 400Mhz Sawtooth G4 to to a single 1.2Ghz G4 and it bought me 2.5 years. What your looking at might be worth the effort. What G4 model is it and what is the internal bus speed?
 
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It's a 400mhz AGP Sawtooth... 100mhz System Bus..

Here's my upgrade list (I actually started a fundraiser to pay for this):

4 x 512mb PC100 - ~$65 USD each. (dang stuff is hard to find cheap! DDR is half the price!)
1 x dual 1.6ghz G4 CPU card - ~$450 USD (MacSales.com)
1 x 128mb ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - ~$70 USD (eBay)

I've been putting a custom RAZR Portfolio I wanted to send to Motorola (even though it'll most likely get shot down), and using my TiBook is getting sluggish (dealing with super-high res images [stuff like 2524x4432]).

Judging from the benchmarks on MacSales.com, the performace quadruples overall. They don't give too much info on whether or not the system was stock (so I assumed it was). And stock on my G4 is 128mb RAM and a 16mb ATI Rage Pro 128.

Given with 2gb of ram, dual 1.6ghz cpu's and a 128mb 9800 Pro, this thing will fly compared to it now, and my TiBook. I'm really looking forward to this project, and am trying to get a video camera to tape the whole thing.

Feel free to donate me cash! Anythign is appreciated! lol.. I'm aiming to raise $1200 CDN for this project. :)
 
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Your looking at doing more or less exactly what I did, 3 years ago.

Save the money and go with a faster single chip upgrade. The Dual chip won't do you much good with the 100Mhz system bus. That was the same machine I had and in the end I bought my Quad because the G4 was at the point of diminishing returns. The 100Mhz system bus is to big of a bottle neck. In the end, anything past a single 1.6 or 1.8 isn't going to make any noticeable difference (because of the bus) and you're just wasting your money. Anything over $500 - $600 tops is a wast of your cash, better to save it and buy a new machine.

Check about the video card. I think I went with a 9200 since the Sawtooth only has a 4X AGP slot and the 9800 would have been overkill.
 
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money is not the object, its the fun of building something usefull out of something not so useful. im going with the duals, why? because I can! and the duals do make the machine run faster in all the benchmarks. I think his machine is pc 133 bus not 100....i know its not much but everything counts.
 
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CS2 is fine on Rosetta. It can be a bit slow at times, but overall it's not at all bad and very useable.

If money isn't the object, buy a shiny, fast new machine which will be far more future proof than flogging a dead horse. A dual G4 is still a poor processor, however much fun it might be to strap two together.
 
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You're spending a grand on a upgrading a computer that will not be supported in two or three years time. You've really got to jump to Intel in the next couple of years, otherwise you're heading down a dead end.

I'd get a new iMac personally.

By doing that you're still heading down a dead end, allbeit a different street; Upgrade to a G5 tower. PPC is by no means redundant and a G5 is cheaper than a Mac Pro and more expandable than an iMac so it's probably the best choice.
 
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PPC software won't be made in a couple of years, no matter what Apple may say.

Intel x86 programs are so fundamental to the future of the Mac, it would be silly not to switch if you've got the chance.
 
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Just to add to this:

I bought a Mini (Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz), expecting not to use it for Photoshop due to the Rosetta issue. As it turns out, the Core Duo has enough *umph* to take up the slack and make it just as fast as my Powerbook (1.67Ghz), which in my opinion is pretty quick.

The integrated video on the Mini, though, makes for some pretty slow draw times, but overall, it works a lot better than I thought it would.
 
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money is not the object, its the fun of building something usefull out of something not so useful. im going with the duals, why? because I can! and the duals do make the machine run faster in all the benchmarks. I think his machine is pc 133 bus not 100....i know its not much but everything counts.

Sure it's fun, but benchmarks don't tell the whole story. It's your money. His machine has a 100Mhz bus. All the upgrading in the world is never going to change that.

PPC software won't be made in a couple of years, no matter what Apple may say.

Intel x86 programs are so fundamental to the future of the Mac, it would be silly not to switch if you've got the chance.

Wether he has the chance or not is not the question. Universal (PPC & Intel compliant) software is going to be around for quite some time. Heck they only dropped support for the Pre-PPC software a few years ago. Yes, X86 is clearly the future and upgrading is wise when one can. Completely writing off PPC, for the foreseeable future, is not realistic however.
 
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The guy has CN$1000 to spend though, so he does have the chance!

Heck they only dropped support for the Pre-PPC software a few years ago.
When did OS X become a stable, useable OS? Probably the end of 2002 with Jaguar. So assuming most people started to ditch OS 9 at the end of 2002, and Tiger arrived in 2005 which is when Classic apps pretty much vanished, I make that about 3 years of lifespan.

I think it's naive to think PPC programs will be around longer than 3 years. Apple will shift an enormous number of Intel Macs when CS 3 comes out and it won't be long before x86 Macs outnumber PPC ones. Few companies will find it viable to create similar Mac x86 and PC x86 programs and then relic PPC apps for a dwindling customer base.
 

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