Looking into purchasing a 1.4GHz Sonnet CPU upgrade for my 400MHz Sawtooth. Worth it?

I have the same upgrade in my secondary Sawtooth and it performs very well for me.

-You're going from a 400MHz 7400 to a 14.GHz 7455B which would be equal to about a 1.7+ GHz 7400 if one existed. You will see a bare min. of 3x faster in everything and up to 5-6x faster in CPU heavy stuff.

-If you have at least 1GB of RAM and a Core Image capable video card it will run 10.5 like a dream.

-Of course it will help your gaming experience. Isn't it obvious that a 1GHz increase from a G4 several generations newer will "help" everything?

Once again I will point out as I often do that any computer is only as capable as the person using it so how much of a boost you get is also reliant on your skills and habits.

So do you make a habit of asking for help and then ignoring it? I will remember that when you ask for help in the future.

What he means is: Just buy it and try it out. If there are problems, then let him know.

I think thats what he meant

alexreich said:

I asked a question, and you supplied good information in response to the question. There's not really much else to say until I get the chance to buy the new CPU and use it?

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alexreich said:

I asked a question, and you supplied good information in response to the question. There's not really much else to say until I get the chance to buy the new CPU and use it?

Click to expand...

Well there is this thing called thanking or at least acknowledging that someone helped you. I don't work for you.

As I said... I will remember this in the future.

he does have a point there
and considering that he uses his free time to help others who are having problems with there macs the least you could do is thank him

zen.state said:

-You're going from a 400MHz 7400 to a 14.GHz 7455B which would be equal to about a 1.7+ GHz 7400 if one existed. You will see a bare min. of 3x faster in everything and up to 5-6x faster in CPU heavy stuff.

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isn't the sawtooth a 100mhz bus? How would a 1.4ghz @ 100mhz fab compare to an mdd running 1.0ghz @ 167mhz?

The reason I ask is I am curious if it makes more sense to do the sonnet or purchase a mdd instead.

he asked about buying a new processor

this thread is about upgrading a sawtooth

not about buying an mdd

If it were me, I would probably just get the Mirror Drive Door G4 Dual 1.42 which is the fastest of the Power Mac G4 series, UNLESS... the OP has a lot invested already in the sawtooth, such as everyday applications, tons of games, etc.. and is only interested in putting in an upgrade processor.

If this isn't the case, I think that money could be put into an MDD 1.42 Dual or even a Dual Core G5 2.3(assuming he is watching youtube and hulu).

alexreich said:

I asked a question, and you supplied good information in response to the question. There's not really much else to say until I get the chance to buy the new CPU and use it?

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Zeke D said:

isn't the sawtooth a 100mhz bus? How would a 1.4ghz @ 100mhz fab compare to an mdd running 1.0ghz @ 167mhz?

The reason I ask is I am curious if it makes more sense to do the sonnet or purchase a mdd instead.

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MDD are by far the most unreliable of all the G4 towers. I actually moved from 2 MDD to 2 Sawtooth in 2009.

I am a hardware professional and I much prefer the Sawtooth over all the other G4 towers. I certainly don't have 5 of them because they suck. They are about the most reliable Mac ever made.

The fact that people recommend things left and right based on nothing more than looking at bus and CPU specs is a bit concerning when someone wants legitimate advice. He owns a Sawtooth already and wants to upgrade the CPU and people tell him to buy a computer (MDD) that could very well blow the PSU at this age.

Looking at numbers and picking the higher one is something that literally anyone can do. It takes actual understanding of the history of all the hardware involved to make the best choice.

About performance.. my single 1.8GHz 7448 powered Sawtooth is about 5-8% faster than my dual 1.42 MDD was in real world performance. This single 1.4GHz 7455 in a Sawtooth would be about equal to a dual 1GHz MDD.

Yeah, I should have really thought about this a bit longer although I used to have an MDD, I was one of the lucky ones who got one that didn't cause me problems. But, yes.. I should have known about the reliability rate of the G4 MDD series. Like you, I too hate the G5 but if it was a choice between the dual core 2.3 vs the Quad.. I would take the dual core since it doesn't have the LCS in it.

But getting back to the OP's situation. I now believe that the Sawtooth G4 was the most reliable mac ever built. I guess the same can be said of the Gigabit Ethernet model as well. Those G4's never gave me any ounce of trouble when I once had one, and they were quiet also.

So, I guess just because the MDD has a 167 mhz bus doesn't mean its that much better compared to the G4 processor 7448 upgrade. If anything, the 7448 would help speed things up. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the G4 7448 have L3 cache?

Most G4 upgrade processors with the exception of the 7447 series have L3 cache which helped compensate for the slow 100 mhz bus, but also the 7450/7455 series ran hotter, while the 7447 and 7448 ran cooler.

zen.state said:

MDD are by far the most unreliable of all the G4 towers. I actually moved from 2 MDD to 2 Sawtooth in 2009.

I am a hardware professional and I much prefer the Sawtooth over all the other G4 towers. I certainly don't have 5 of them because they suck. They are about the most reliable Mac ever made.

The fact that people recommend things left and right based on nothing more than looking at bus and CPU specs is a bit concerning when someone wants legitimate advice. He owns a Sawtooth already and wants to upgrade the CPU and people tell him to buy a computer (MDD) that could very well blow the PSU at this age.

Looking at numbers and picking the higher one is something that literally anyone can do. It takes actual understanding of the history of all the hardware involved to make the best choice.

About performance.. my single 1.8GHz 7448 powered Sawtooth is about 5-8% faster than my dual 1.42 MDD was in real world performance. This single 1.4GHz 7455 in a Sawtooth would be about equal to a dual 1GHz MDD.

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The 7448 has no L3 like the 7447 but it has double the L2 (1MB vs 512KB) which runs at full CPU speed. The main thing that makes the 7448 faster is it's 90nm technology vs the 130nm 7447 or 180nm 7455.

The 7455 has L3 which can help but it only runs at about 20% the CPU speed and the L2 at half speed. It still outperforms a 7447 by a good amount. In my experiences you can add about 400MHz to any 7455 for what it will equal in 7447 performance.

In the real world the top 3 G4 chips in terms of performance per MHz would be like this:

1. 7448
2. 7455
3. 7447

Since the 7448 is almost impossible to find anymore the used 7455 upgrades still around are the next best choice. The new single 1.6ghz that OWC sells will be outperformed by this single 1.4GHz 7455 in question.

alexreich said:

I sincerely apologize for not thanking you at the time you supplied the information. Your input is always appreciated as you are probably the most knowledgable user in this forum. In no way was I ungreatful for your input.

After posting that question I went out to do stuff with family and hadn't checked that forum post until today.

Thank you for the info Zen.

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It's really not that big a deal and it was maybe not even worth mentioning. I guess it sometimes seems like the more experienced people here are taken for granted so I spoke up.

666sheep helps more than me and is often never thanked so I had that on my mind also.

alexreich said:

After looking into the CPU upgrades online I have found one that appears to be worth buying. At 6 cents/megahertz, I could get a 1.4GHz CPU upgrade for $90. What do you think about this buy? My main questions are:

-What kind of performance increase will I see?
-Would Leopard run well?
-Would this help out my gaming experience on this machine quite a bit?

Thanks for the help MR!

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Yes it is very much worth it , 400mhz ? a ipod touch is more than twice the speed than that lol and it probably has better graphics . It will be a very good speed increase over the 400mhz so I think you will be happy with it .

made my own thread for this question.