Ram & CPU Question

[DaveVegas]

Hey folks,

 

I'm running a stable retail version of snow leopard. Now I got a little bit money and I want to spent it on a new Cpu and Ram. I have a Gigabyte G41M-ES2L motherboard. I chose following cpu and ram:

 

Cpu: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650, Quad Core, 3.00 GHz, 2x6MB

Ram: Corsair ValueSelect 2x4GB Kit SO-DIMM, DDR2-800, CL5

 

So my questions are:

 

• Are they compatible with my motherboard (I checked it already but double check is always better)
  
• Will these components increase my performance alot?
  
• Will they work under Snow Leopard? (10.6)
  
• Should I buy them? (All together 700 Dollar)
  

Yeah so please answer them as fast as possible

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

PS: Other question: How do I activate 64 bit mode in Snow Leopard? I've heard that I have to delete in com.apple.Boot.plist this arch=i386. Is that true? Is it really so simple?

 

Dave

[MacUser2525]

Hey folks,

 

So my questions are:

 

 

Are they compatible with my motherboard (I checked it already but double check is always better)

 

Should be from the looking at the support pages.

 

Will these components increase my performance alot?

 

Depends on what you use the machine for if using a lot of ram/cpu intensive apps then yes if just surfing the web doing general computer stuff no.

 

Will they work under Snow Leopard? (10.6)

 

Yes.

 

Should I buy them? (All together 700 Dollar)

 

That is debatable for that kind of money or a little more I am thinking it should be possible to get a Core i7/i5 motherboard, processor, ram and video card upgrade which would be an even bigger speed increase than your present setup. As long as you have the power supply in your present build that will support the new hardware this is probably your best bet.

 

 

 

PS: Other question: How do I activate 64 bit mode in Snow Leopard? I've heard that I have to delete in com.apple.Boot.plist this arch=i386. Is that true? Is it really so simple?

 

Dave

 

Depends on the boot loader you are using to be sure you would want to use arch=x86_64.

[DaveVegas]

Depends on what you use the machine for if using a lot of ram/cpu intensive apps then yes if just surfing the web doing general computer stuff no.

 

 

 

Yes.

 

I'm a filmmaker, so I'll run after effects and other adobe programms. They're pretty ressource hungry

 

That is debatable for that kind of money or a little more I am thinking it should be possible to get a Core i7/i5 motherboard, processor, ram and video card upgrade which would be an even bigger speed increase than your present setup. As long as you have the power supply in your present build that will support the new hardware this is probably your best bet.

 

Is this for real? Could you tell me the exact components? That would be heavy sh*t!

 

Depends on the boot loader you are using to be sure you would want to use arch=x86_64.

 

I'm using the myHack bootloader. Do you know myHack?

 

Thanks!

 

Dave

[broken]

For the amount of money they are charging, I don't think either one of the upgrades are cost effective. Especially the CPU.

 

Going from a Q6600 to a Q9650 isn't much of a step up. I would look into Overclocking your Q6600 to get some extra speed.

 

The ram upgrade isn't a very good value considering you have to buy the more expensive, higher density 4GB dimms.

 

 

If I were you, I would take that money and put it into a i5 or i7 rig as was already suggested. Considering most of them have 4 to 6 dimm slots (depending on

chipset), its easy to get 8 gigs of DDR3 for far less than it would take to put 8 gigs in your G41 board. Probably half the cost or so.

 

 

$700 for a minor cpu bump and double your ram doesn't sound like a very good bargain.

[DaveVegas]

Could you give me names of components which I could buy for the same amount of money? Which (of course) would increase my performance more?

 

A question by the way: How much overclocking could I do on a Q6600? Should I buy a new CPU cooler for this?

 

Dave

[EricM]

I recommend the Gigabyte p55m-ud2. Some great guides have been written for it and its very cheap. This way you can spend more on a better cpu.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...5-214-_-Product

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...mp;Tpk=p55m-ud2

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...1-193-_-Product

[MacUser2525]

Could you give me names of components which I could buy for the same amount of money? Which (of course) would increase my performance more?

 

A question by the way: How much overclocking could I do on a Q6600? Should I buy a new CPU cooler for this?

 

Dave

 

When you over clock it is pretty much linear a 20% increase in speed gives the same in the decrease for time needed to do the work. With your chip it should really be just a matter of setting the FSB speed higher and lowering the multiplier of the ram. I would try 334mhz and 2x on the ram for a result of ~3ghz for the new speed. Now if it works that way without needing an increase of the voltage to the processor then the temperatures should not increase that much. Of course if they do then you can always put new cooler on there one that does not require taking out the motherboard to mount is the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 it works well I have one in my spare/test machine. For New hardware if wanting i7 I found this guide here the motherboard and processor in Canada go for ~$300 each and 6gb of triple channel ram for ~$150 plus you would want to make sure you have good quality power supply the rest of your parts you can re-use.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...204010&st=0

[LogicalUser]

I agree with EricM, purchasing a new quad core socket 775 CPU at this time is a waste of money unless you already have invested in a board and DDR2 RAM.

Likewise, 4GB DIMMs have ALWAYS been a waste of money for all but the most specific uses, and even moreso now that the platform is end-of-life.

 

If you want my opinion? Sell your G41M board & Q6600 locally, you should get at least $50 for the board & $90-125ish for the CPU, possibly more if you find a buyer uncomfortable with mailorder.

 

Use the cash to buy a P55 board with 4 RAM slots ($100ish), either a i3-530, i5-750 or i7-860 ($110/200/280) and some DDR3 RAM (4GB@$90ish). All three CPUs will be an upgrade over a Q6600 (even the dualcore i3) At stock speeds the i3-530 will beat it at about 80% of tasks (the other 20% being very multithreaded encoding tasks), and when both are overclocked will even beat it at the remaining 20%

[DaveVegas]

Thank you guys!

 

I just found this site: http://osx86.sojugarden.com/2009/09/myhack...0-rc3-released/

 

I'm using this bootloader. So how can I change it from 32bit to 64bit?

 

I see on the site that this bootloader has Chameleon 2 RC3 in it. Aswell as PC EFI 10.3.

 

In my com.Apple.boot.plist there is: arch=i386

 

What should I do to change it to 64bit?

 

Dave