Upgrading My Sawtooth for Gaming [Archive]

Patmian212

Apr 15, 2006, 08:42 AM

Hey all,
Yesterday I acquired a sawtooth for real cheap.
This is what the sawtooth looks like now.
G4@500mhz
896MB SD RAM
160GB ATA 7200rpm
16MB Rage Pro

Now I want to upgrade this to do some moderate gaming(WoW, Football Manager, Unreal Tournament 2004). So I have 2 questions.

1. Ok so I was thinking of getting a processor upgrade but I have a low budget. What do you all think of this one http://eshop.macsales.com/item/PowerLogix/PF47S1600AG/ ?

2. How would my sawtooth with the above proccessor upgrade and a newer lets say Radeon 9600 or 8500 64mb compare to playing WoW with my:

12"ibook
1,2ghz G4
768 MB DDR Ram
30gb 4200rpm
Radeon 9200 Mobility 32mb

Now the iBook has a faster bus and faster ram but the sawtooth has more ram and more processing power and has a faster GFX card(but in a 2X AGP slot), which would get more FPS?

eXan

Apr 15, 2006, 09:29 AM

Get radeon 9800, it will last longer. 1.6 GHz CPU should be fine, but getting something faster would be a better option (maybe get ether dual or 1.8/2)

Patmian212

Apr 15, 2006, 11:53 AM

TDM21

Apr 15, 2006, 12:42 PM

The cache will make a big improvement in just about everything. Between those to choices of processors I say get the 1.4 because it will probably out preform the 1.6.

Dont Hurt Me

Apr 15, 2006, 12:57 PM

I still think there isnt nothing like a clock cycle, TDM21 does make a valid point though. Im sure in real world test some games will do better with the 1.4 and some with the 1.6 Let price decide but either of those mated to a 9600 or better should do very nice. My 1.4 with a geforce 3 wasnt bad but i would without a doubt go higher then a 8500. Nvidia has some good stuff,im very happy with my 6800GT.

Demon Hunter

Apr 15, 2006, 02:33 PM

A 9800 is probably overkill. The bus saturates too quickly.

jamesi

Apr 15, 2006, 06:02 PM

hmmm i would say dont buy that. look for a dual 400 or so old G4 and get a dual 1.6 or so and then buy a 6600 GT PC and flash it to make. maybe its a 6800, i cant remember. that would give you a whole new computer.

Patmian212

Apr 15, 2006, 06:28 PM

Demon Hunter

Apr 15, 2006, 06:47 PM

Well as bang for the buck goes I felt like this processor should do the trick. 1.6 isnt too slow so I just oredered it. Now all I need is a semi-decent(tight budget) 64MB+ graphics card. I also picked up another 128mb stick bringing my total to 1gb of ram.

I checked around, and I couldn't find any better for the CPU. If you flash the graphics card, you'll save a lot.

ASUS N6600/TD/128 Geforce 6600 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121197)

Patmian212

Apr 15, 2006, 07:08 PM

I checked around, and I couldn't find any better for the CPU. If you flash the graphics card, you'll save a lot.

ASUS N6600/TD/128 Geforce 6600 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121197)
I would but apart for the fact that I dont know how to flash a graphics card I dont own a PC:(

TDM21

Apr 15, 2006, 08:10 PM

The people over at the StrangeDogs.com forums are leading the way in flashing video cards (http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/). You can look through there and see what they have to offer. I know they are selling flashed 6800s and 6600s in the $200-$300 range depending on what you want. You can also send a card of your own to them and get it flashed for a resonable price.

Foxglove9

Apr 16, 2006, 12:38 AM

eXan

Apr 16, 2006, 02:56 AM

I upgraded my sawtooth to a 1 Ghz sonnet card and ATI 9800pro video card and Unreal 2004 was still barely playable on the lowest settings.

Yet my new G5 1.8 Ghz (rev B) with the same 9800 video card plays Unreal 2K4 perfectly at the highest settings.

Yes, UT2004 is very CPU-intensive, so of you have the fastest GPU and slow CPU, the game will sow down considerably.

Patmian212

Apr 16, 2006, 07:30 AM

I think I should be fine with a 1.6Ghz and 1GB of ram. They should compensate for a slower bus.

mo0805

Apr 16, 2006, 11:21 AM

the bus speed on the sawtooth g4 500 motherboard won't run any faster than 1,4 gHz, so there is no point in getting a 1,6.

Patmian212

Apr 16, 2006, 12:27 PM

the bus speed on the sawtooth g4 500 motherboard won't run any faster than 1,4 gHz, so there is no point in getting a 1,6.

So why are the amking upgrades up to 2ghz then? Are you saying the extra 200mhz will have NO effect?

Foxglove9

Apr 16, 2006, 12:58 PM

Try this on your sawtooth, maybe it can give more answers. Or maybe not, I haven't tried it on mine.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13551

Patmian212

Apr 16, 2006, 01:12 PM

Try this on your sawtooth, maybe it can give more answers. Or maybe not, I haven't tried it on mine.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13551
Hehehe, I dont get it, whats the point of running the app I didnt buy a dual CPU chip anyway.

EDIT: My sawtooth is rev 3, doesnt support dual processors.

Demon Hunter

Apr 16, 2006, 01:59 PM

I upgraded my sawtooth to a 1 Ghz sonnet card and ATI 9800pro video card and Unreal 2004 was still barely playable on the lowest settings.

Yet my new G5 1.8 Ghz (rev B) with the same 9800 video card plays Unreal 2K4 perfectly at the highest settings.

I had a similar experience with my (overclocked) 800 MHz and 9600 Pro.

The untold suffering we endure to play games on our Macs... these future generations will never know! :mad:

jhu

Apr 16, 2006, 02:11 PM

i hope you didn't get this just to play games

disconap

Apr 16, 2006, 04:26 PM

The only 2 processors I can afford is either this 1.6ghz with 512k l2 cache or a 1.4 with a 2mb l3 cache. Which would be better for gaming and will this system still be too slow to run most new games out today decently at medium settings?

Where did you see the 1.4 w/ l3? I've been looking around for those for a few weeks now and haven't found any...

Patmian212

Apr 16, 2006, 04:57 PM

i hope you didn't get this just to play games

Of course not, I got it mostly for my music production cuz my ibook is to uncomfortable to use for long periods of times because of the size. But I thought I can turn it into a PSUDO gaming machine for some WoW.

The processor I found at OWC, its a powerlogix that costs $299(the one with the L3 cache)

SC68Cal

Apr 17, 2006, 05:03 PM

I'm in a similar situation actually. I've already picked up a Nvidia Geforce FX5200 with 256 MB ram. I'm worried that now what is going to hold me back is the fact that my processor is a dual 500mhz and it won't have enough oomph.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 17, 2006, 07:18 PM

In my experience, gaming on a G4 is an expensive proposition...

My stock Digital Audio Dual 533 with a 32MB Radeon 7500 could barely play Halo and Call of Duty at the lowest settings. IMHO the following upgrades are must-haves for the would-be G4 gamer:

- At least 1GB RAM, preferably 1.5 or 2GB, whatever your G4's max amount is.

- A GeForce 5200/Radeon 9600 Pro or better (ideally a Radeon 9700/9800, X800XT, GeForce 6800GS/GT/Ultra or better). A GeForce4ti will give better performance than the 5200 in some games but does not support many newer features (like Core Image).

- A fast hard drive with an appropriate PCI controller card, either Ultra ATA/133 or SATA. With the SATA controller you could buy a Western Digital Raptor hard drive for an added speed boost and brag factor, but either bus will noticably enhance performance.

- If you are serious about trying to play games, a 1.4GHz (L3 cache) or 1.7 GHz (no L3 cache) CPU is the absolute minimum you should be shopping. Dual CPUs are of limited usefulness for gaming (except Quake 3), though they are great for ripping/encoding video etc. If you already have a 1GHz/1.25Ghz QS or MDD Mac, those might be OK for many games, but nothing slower will give acceptable performance.

Doom 3, for instance, asks for a 1.5GHz CPU. My 1.4GHz runs it decently for casual gaming but don't expect to average 30FPS, even with a card like my GeForce6800GT - the FSB is just too slow.

With the right mods a G4 can be a pretty passable gaming box but keep the following in mind - a cheap refurb G5 tower (usually a dual 1.8GHz) from the Apple Store costs around $1300, which is very close to the cost of all the upgrades I mentioned. And right out of the box it will equal all but the most heavily upgraded G4s, and with a few upgrades is faster than any G4. If you can at all afford one, get one.

Still, for those of us who have a G4, there's definitely no reason to chuck it just yet.

eXan

Apr 18, 2006, 03:50 AM

a cheap refurb G5 tower (usually a dual 1.8GHz) from the Apple Store costs around $1300, which is very close to the cost of all the upgrades I mentioned.

I agree with the G5 thing. You don't even have to buy dual processor machine to play games. If you can find a single 1.8 (rev. A or the 600 MHz-bus one) it would be awesome! Through in the X800 XT and you're ready for ride!

clykins90

Apr 18, 2006, 08:53 AM

I did my research and found the best thing you can put in there is a radeon 9000 (that's what is in mine). Anything else the increase won't be noticeable. It's not very good at games. I can play Call of Duty on lowest settings and I can play warcraft III at mostly all settings high. I'd say its equal to maybe slightly better than an iBook. As far as speed goes, a gig of ram and a 7200 rpm drive really help the zippyness :D :cool:

cubist

Apr 18, 2006, 08:55 AM

Well, I guess you've already bought it so that's that, but I wouldn't have recommended fixing up a Sawtooth to play games, you can build a much faster PC for less money. The bus (and main memory speed) of the Sawtooth is only 100MHz, and the video card slot is only AGP 2. But now that you've started, you might as well keep going. You've got plenty of RAM and a 7200RPM HD, so that's good.

UT2004 will play acceptably, but you'll always have terrible lag in WoW (especially in Ironforge AH area).

Patmian212

Apr 18, 2006, 12:08 PM

I dont expect this to be a hardcore gaming machine I just want more then 15 average FPS in WoW. I now have more ram and a faster hd and processor then my ibook so I think it will do a bit better. All I need now is some sort of graphics card cuz my rage card is pathetic! Can anyone sell me a card please, pretty please hehe:D

Lord Blackadder

Apr 18, 2006, 01:43 PM

I did my research and found the best thing you can put in there is a radeon 9000 (that's what is in mine). Anything else the increase won't be noticeable.

I disagree. Check out Barefeats' benchmarks of various video cards. A GeForce 5200, Radeon 9600 or 9800 (or better) will make a big difference, plus they are core image compatible.

patmian212, I recommend you go to the Strangedogs video card flashing forum and look at their cards for sale. The guys and gals that run the forum will sell you a flashed card of your choice. The Sawtooth should be able to take a Radeon 9600 Pro/XT, 9700 Pro, 9800 Pro/XT, X800XT or a GeForce 5200, 5500, 6800GS/GT or 7800GS (I'm not 100% sure on all of those; the 9800 is by far the most common). They are more helpful and reliable than some of the shady sellers on ebay and have competitive prices. A flashed card will be much cheaper than a "real" Apple card.

Patmian212

Apr 18, 2006, 01:54 PM

I disagree. Check out Barefeats' benchmarks of various video cards. A GeForce 5200, Radeon 9600 or 9800 (or better) will make a big difference, plus they are core image compatible.

patmian212, I recommend you go to the Strangedogs video card flashing forum and look at their cards for sale. The guys and gals that run the forum will sell you a flashed card of your choice. The Sawtooth should be able to take a Radeon 9600 Pro/XT, 9700 Pro, 9800 Pro/XT, X800XT or a GeForce 5200, 5500, 6800GS/GT or 7800GS (I'm not 100% sure on all of those; the 9800 is by far the most common). They are more helpful and reliable than some of the shady sellers on ebay and have competitive prices. A flashed card will be much cheaper than a "real" Apple card.

Posted there already but no replies in the past 2 days.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 18, 2006, 02:30 PM

Posted there already but no replies in the past 2 days.

I checked over there just now...they probably are not interested in trades. Go to this thread (http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=sale&action=display&thread=1106704963) or private message the OP or one of the mods. Generally, you buy the card, send it to them with a fee, and they do the conversion for you.

If you can't afford to spend more than $50, you should consider buying a GeForce 5200/5500 or even possibly a 6200 (but that might require soldering) and doing the conversion yourself. It isn't all that difficult really.

Patmian212

Apr 19, 2006, 03:19 PM

I locally found a radeon 9600 OWC modded 4x agp card, is there an easy mod to make it work in my sawtooth?

Lord Blackadder

Apr 19, 2006, 03:55 PM

Nope, the OWC-modified 9600 Pro is 4x only, and cannot be made to run at 2x, which the sawtooth needs.

Foxglove9

Apr 19, 2006, 04:00 PM

Since the sawtooth is only 2x AGP putting the 2x/4x AGP card in there should work without doing anything. I'm pretty sure that 9600 doesn't support 2x at all since it's a modded card so you might not be able to use it.

If it's an 8x card then all you'll need to put tape on one of the connectors before you insert the AGP card. Strangedogs had all the simple info, as well as a nice compatibility chart. Again, each card is different, especially if you are using flashed or modded PC cards.

I did a lot of research into Sawtooth video cards for gaming last year and the options were really really small..even with flashing.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 19, 2006, 04:14 PM

According to Strangedogs and OWC, the 9600 is 4x only, which rules out the Sawtooth.

Oddly enough though, after taping pins 3 & 11 on my GeForce 6800GT, my PC showed it as running at AGP 2x... not sure if that was correct but if it was it means the 6800 will work in a Sawtooth (not that you'd be interested, it's a $200+ card).

The Radeon 9800 is a pretty good buy right now - you can usually get a new one for around $100 online, and it will run at 2x. Otherwise, like I said before, look into flashing a GeForce 5200/5500.

Patmian212

Apr 20, 2006, 06:15 AM

Well I found another card locally dor $30. A Nvidia Geforce 3 Ti200 64MB. I am 99% sure this card will work, can anyone confirm this please. Also how good is it compared to a ATI Radeon 9200 Mobility 32MB and the ATI Radeon 9200 in general.

I also got offered a radeon 8500, which is the better choice?

EDIT2: Will a ti4400 work in my tooth lol, sorry for asking this question for the 100000 time

eXan

Apr 20, 2006, 06:22 AM

GF3 would be faster IMO

I always thought that nVIDIA's Ti cards are really fast

electronboy

Apr 20, 2006, 09:35 AM

WHY? The limitation for you with the sawtooth will not be processor speed--after the upgrade--but pitiful AGP performance. No matter what new graphics card you put in there it will still be limited to AGP 2X. Also, most new cards do not even support AGP 2x any longer.

You should have saved your money and at least went for a mirrored drive doors. Even the quicksilver is too slow. Unload your Mac for what you have got in it--if you can--and get something with a faster AGP bus.

Also, the ATI Radeon 9600 will NOT work in a quicksilver. Been there done that. It does however work great in the mirrored drive doors model.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 20, 2006, 10:43 AM

I don't know much about the older GeForce cards...if the ones you are talking about are Mac Editions, I'm pretty sure the GeForce 3 would work but not so sure about the GeForce 4 (which I think was actually a Ti4600 in the Mac Edition card). The Ti4600 is probably a 4x only card but again I don't know.

If they are not Mac Edition cards then I know nothing about doing a flash and you have to spend some time over at Strangedogs reading threads about those cards.

Both cards are good performers overall but don't expect fast performance in WoW. Also, none of these cards are on the Core Image compatibility list.

The Radeon 8500 is a little slower (http://www.barefeats.com/graf31.html) than the GeForce 3, but may be easier to flash. Again, check on Strangedogs...

Patmian212

Apr 20, 2006, 06:06 PM

Ok well I got the geforce 3 ti.
Here is a break down of my sawtooth.

G4@ 1.6Ghz 512k L2 Cache
1GB SD Ram
7200 RPM ATA 66 HDDs
Nvidia Geforce 3 Ti 200 64MB 2X AGP
100Mhz BUS

IBOOK:
G4@ 1.2 Ghz 512K L2 Cache
768 MB DDR Ram
4200 RPM HDD(dunno the bus)
ATI Radeon 9200 Mobility 32MB (dunno AGP speed)
133 Mhz BUS(I think)

My question now is what will run WoW and 3D games better?

PS: Before someone mentions it again I am aware my sawtooth isnt a gaming machine :rolleyes:

Lord Blackadder

Apr 20, 2006, 06:10 PM

Was the GeForce 3 a Mac Edition, and does it work? Glad to see you got things running.

Patmian212

Apr 20, 2006, 06:15 PM

Was the GeForce 3 a Mac Edition, and does it work? Glad to see you got things running.

I have no clue, all the seller said was it was pulled from a mac and that it was 2X/4X AGP. I am guessing it is a mac addition:D but it could be flashed. I will know in a few days.

By the way if anyone knows where I can find benchmarks comparing the GF3 and the 9200(already checked barefeats) drop a line in the thread.

Foxglove9

Apr 20, 2006, 07:24 PM

Lord Blackadder

Apr 20, 2006, 07:31 PM

I have no clue, all the seller said was it was pulled from a mac and that it was 2X/4X AGP. I am guessing it is a mac addition:D but it could be flashed. I will know in a few days.

By the way if anyone knows where I can find benchmarks comparing the GF3 and the 9200(already checked barefeats) drop a line in the thread.

The Mobility Radeon 9200 in your iBook is basically a downclocked, re-badged Radeon 8500. The GeForce 3 should be noticably faster. Real OEM Apple GeForce 3s are a fairly hot commodity because they will fit in a Cube, and are the fastest OEM card in existence for that computer.

I'm not sure what performance to expect in WoW. My guess is that it will be playable with settings turned down.

Patmian212

Apr 20, 2006, 07:37 PM

I'm going to go with the ibook for better performance for gaming, but in other apps I think the G4 will be better because of more ram and a faster hard drive.

Benchmarks on both those video cards are weak for 3D gaming. It'll be interesting to see how WoW runs for you.
I run it decently on my iBook now as is. With everyhting turned down I get from 15-23 FPS. Not too bad especially since it isnt a first person shooter. I just would Like to play on my desktop for the full size keyboard, mouse and bigger screen(17" CRT apple studi display:D ). However I wouldnt mind a few more FPS.

Can tell me where to find benchmarks comparing the two cards?

Foxglove9

Apr 20, 2006, 09:00 PM

I don't have any links bookmarked, I would say just keep googling it that's how I found lots of benchmarks for cards when I was in the market last year. Especially check out xlr8yourmac or lowendmac websites. You might not see a "vs" comparison but most of those cards were benchmarked by some website.

I forgot you upgraded your sawtooth to 1.6GHz (thought it was lower). performance should be better on that not the ibook.

The 8500 wasn't much faster than a Rage128. The GeForce card will be better for sure. Just be cautious getting cards that were flashed. A lot of the time it disables or doesn't even have a DVI port. That was a big issue for me since I use a DVI LCD monitor and wouldn't ever think of going back to VGA again.

If you go with an ATI card, remember you can use ATI accelerator and overclock it a bit. Not sure you can do that on Nvidia. Not that overclocking with make a huge difference on a 2xAGP/133 bus speed G4. But anything is better than nothing I guess.

I run it decently on my iBook now as is. With everyhting turned down I get from 15-23 FPS. Not too bad especially since it isnt a first person shooter. I just would Like to play on my desktop for the full size keyboard, mouse and bigger screen(17" CRT apple studi display:D ). However I wouldnt mind a few more FPS.

Can tell me where to find benchmarks comparing the two cards?

disconap

Apr 20, 2006, 09:09 PM

This is a bit pricey, but IMO anyone with a Sawtooth running OSX should max their RAM to 2 gigs. I used to say that that was ********, I had 1.25 in there for a long time, then I upgraded from 400mHz to 1gHz and things sped up a bit. But then I bumped it to 2gigs of RAM and the thing just started cooking! I'm not sure how huge a difference it would be for gaming, but it's made a huge difference with audio/video editing and adobe CS2.

So that's my two cents. That and do your research before flashing (I suggest buying a bunch of cheap refurbs from NewEgg to test with, that's what I did)...

Patmian212

Apr 21, 2006, 12:58 PM

Lord Blackadder

Apr 21, 2006, 01:04 PM

Well my CPU upgrade just arrived today after being stuck in customs. I ran XBENCH with both my 500MHZ and my 1.6GHZ cpu. The 1.6 outperformed it quite a bit even with the open GL and quartz test(still with the stock 16mb rage pro)

500mhz scored-18.9
1.6ghz scored- 29.1

There was an improvement but I still think these scores are VERY low. The ibook in my signature scored in the high 80s-low 90s.

Are you running the same version of xBench on both machines? The new version is baselined off a G5 so the scores will be much lower than the older version on the same machine.

Patmian212

Apr 21, 2006, 01:26 PM

Are you running the same version of xBench on both machines? The new version is baselined off a G5 so the scores will be much lower than the older version on the same machine.

OH THANK GOD sawtooth is running 1.2 the ibook is running 1.13. I will run the tests again in a while and post the results. Thanks Lord Blackadder

Foxglove9

Apr 21, 2006, 01:39 PM

It's funny you mention it because when I got my G5 I was comparing the benchmarks with the G5 to my old G4 and the G4 was blowing away the G5 by twice as much. I went nuts trying to figure out why because it felt faster.

I eventually redid the xbench using the latest version and the numbers balanced out the right way.

Are you running the same version of xBench on both machines? The new version is baselined off a G5 so the scores will be much lower than the older version on the same machine.

Patmian212

Apr 21, 2006, 01:39 PM

iBook got 33.1. My sawtooth should surpass the ibook once it gets its new graphics card. Also the sawtooth is on panther and the ibook on tiger.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 21, 2006, 01:41 PM

The last time I ran XBench I scored a 45.25 or so with my heavily upgraded Digital Audio (from sig, but with a Radeon 9600 instead of a GeForce 6800GT).

Be careful though - XBench is wildly innacurate. Try doing three runs, rebooting after each run. I've had it give scores that varied by 20% or more on the exact same machine. :eek:

benpatient

Apr 21, 2006, 02:14 PM

ha, try 50%.

at one point, my dual 1.8 G5 with 2GB of RAM was in the top 20 results on xbench's site. I have a RAID 0 array, and every 2 or 3 runs, I'd get a huge disk access read/write score, which would increase my total score by like 50 points over "regular," sometimes even more. On one run, my disk scores pushed my 1.8 (with the 5200 Unultra) higher than almost all of the dual 2.0 G5s that had submitted results...

some of those had RAID 0 WD 10,000 rpm drives and a 9800 pro with the RAM maxed out. xbench is about as consistent as our government's policy on torture.

Lord Blackadder

Apr 21, 2006, 02:34 PM

When I switched from a 64MB RAdeon 9600 Pro to a 256MB GeForce 6800GT (a WAY more powerful card), XBench scores dropped down about 5 points on average, even though game benchmarks showed significant improvement (as did Cinebench).

So yeah, XBench is pretty darn flaky. The best synthetic benchmark is Cinebench, but overall the best method is to time real-world apps (time to boot, iMovie render times, Mac The Ripper DVD-ripping times, as well as game FPS scores).