stereobus Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 I have an aging Digital Audio PowerMac with dual 533MHz Processors 768MB SDRAM (PC133). This thing was awesome in it's day, and is still a good web surfer but it's getting slow on some video apps. Here's my question... Would it be worth it to get a 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz single processor upgrade card for this machine? The stock processors each have a 1MB cache memory and the upgrade cards have really small caches arpund 256k - 512k. With such a small cache and only one processor am I going to see any kind of boost in performance? Would it be worth shelling out $200? Thanks, Stereobus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 What video card do you have? I flashed a PC Radeon 9500 Pro to but in my Dual 500Mhz G4 and it made a huge difference for a just a couple bucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahbau Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 If you had a lot of money invested in RAM, Video Card, and PCI cards that wouldn't work on a newer system, I'd say it would be worth it, but otherwise I'd say it might make more sense to buy a newer, used system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedDrag0n Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 I would say, stay away from the Freescale 7447A processors just for that reason. Max 512k L2. In my opinion, i would say go for the Newertech 7448 cpu's. They have a full 1 meg L2 which would is around a 35 to 40% boost over the 7447A. Then i would go for a decent videocard. Either an ATI 9800 256 mac edition, or a third party Geforce card like a 6200, 6800 or even a 7800. Then pumping the machine to a full 1.5 gig of ram would help with the bottlenech of it being somewhat slow. The more ram in a mac, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stereobus Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share Posted August 30, 2007 Seems like I could build a pretty sweet Hackintosh for a similar amount of money. Thanks for the help everyone, I think I have my answer. -Stereobus- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 The G4 tower gives you 100% COMPATIBILITY. So if you don't want to give up on your old G4 (like I'm doing) then go for the upgrade. But it also depends on what you're doing. SO I must ask what you're doing that could possibly warrant an upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stereobus Posted September 10, 2007 Author Share Posted September 10, 2007 Multitrack audio recording and video rendering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Escape311 Posted September 10, 2007 Share Posted September 10, 2007 The thing to remember about L2 cache size is the speed. Some upgrade cards run their L2 cache at full processor speed so the size isn't the only factor. One could have 512KB cache at the full 1.6GHz speed where another would have 1MB at 800MHz speed. I personally think the upgrade is worth it. I upgraded my old Sawtooth from 400MHz to a 1.6GHz PowerLogix card and it made a world of difference. I just don't recommend using PowerLogix as they tend to be "buzzy". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactobacillus P Posted September 10, 2007 Share Posted September 10, 2007 My G4 - digital audio - Mac has been upgraded from a 477Mhz Stock CPU to a 1.2Ghz upgrade card including active CPU fan. Emulators run full speed, I can even run Prey and Doom3 on it. I did upgrade to a modified PC 6800 Radeon Pro sporting 256Mb memory as well. For me it was definitely worth it as a new Mac was out of my financial league at the time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pesho Posted September 10, 2007 Share Posted September 10, 2007 I also have a Digital Audio PowerMac with single 533MHz processor. I've just ordered a Sonnet 1.8GHz card. Could you (Mark1970) please tell me where did you get the modified PC 6800 Radeon Pro 256MB card? The other thing on my list is to boost the RAM to the max since I have only 640MB. And with my original configuration even browsing with Safari in Leopard OS X 10.5 9a527 is a pain.Thanks,Pesho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactobacillus P Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 I also have a Digital Audio PowerMac with single 533MHz processor. I've just ordered a Sonnet 1.8GHz card. Could you (Mark1970) please tell me where did you get the modified PC 6800 Radeon Pro 256MB card? The other thing on my list is to boost the RAM to the max since I have only 640MB. And with my original configuration even browsing with Safari in Leopard OS X 10.5 9a527 is a pain.Thanks,Pesho A guy from the Netherlands over here flashed it for me. I cannot find his contact info in my mail box anymore. There's tons of people who modify PC graphics cards for Macs in your neighborhood, just google a little! Ah Leopard, with only 640Mb must truly be a pain. Be sure to get 133Mhz memory! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Headrush69 Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 I also have a Digital Audio PowerMac with single 533MHz processor. I've just ordered a Sonnet 1.8GHz card. Could you (Mark1970) please tell me where did you get the modified PC 6800 Radeon Pro 256MB card? The other thing on my list is to boost the RAM to the max since I have only 640MB. And with my original configuration even browsing with Safari in Leopard OS X 10.5 9a527 is a pain.Thanks,Pesho Yes, they are extremely easy to flash as long as you pick the right cards. http://themacelite.wikispaces.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karmatose Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/ There is a buttload of info on there about flashing video cards. Edit: this is the same site as above but with a little different info. Its the non wiki version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scj312 Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 I myself would go for the upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onemanstrash Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 I have done many cpu upgrades. I have been very happy with my gigadesign 1.6 , 1.8 gig dual cpu. I have one in my girfriends gigabit g4 and my digital audio g4. I had dual 533 cpu and it still struggled with video and other files. Now it can handle most tasks without incident. But I have a question for you guys. I have a hackintosh that can do no wrong. Asus p5w deluxe with c2duo 6300, and xfx 7300. I run dual monitors on both machines but my g4 video cards are slow and lame. I don't want to have to get rid of my g4, but I need a video card that has core image and quartz extreme. What type of card can I use? My head is spinning with all of the possibilities. Does anyone know the most affordable upgrade graphics card for dual monitors( hack or not) for a g4 digital audio. I hav e been to the macelite and strangedogs, but I built my hackintosh just using info from insanelymac so I come here first to ask questions. At some point I'll have to get rid of my g4 but I want to use till it runs into the ground. But I don't want to throw money away trying to keep obsolete technology running, because my hackintosh cost the same amount as the damn cpu upgrade for the g4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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