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Interchangability of G4 chips in PowerMacs?

drj434343

drj434343

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Jan 11, 2006
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I've got a PowerMac dual 533 digital audio. I've been exploring various upgrade options, including Powerlogix upgrade CPU's, later revisions of the PM G4, and even the PM G5 and Mac Pro. Here is my dilema. This computer is an always on web, music, and video server. It needs to be relatively quiet and cool. That's why I've stayed away from the wind tunnel Quicksilvers. My HD setup also requires I have a case that can fit 3 HD's. That rules out the PM G5. I don't want to spend more than a couple hundred dollars, and don't need the power of the new Mac Pros, so they're ruled out too. That leaves me to sqeeze as much juice out of my dual 533 as possible.

If I were to get my hands on a dual 800 Mhz, or dual 1 Ghz chip from a later Quicksilver model, could I plug that safely into my digital audio dual 533? Mactracker lists the CPU in my current computer as either a PowerPC 7410 v1.3, or PowerPC 7450 v2.0. The CPU that came in the dual 800 Mhz Quicksilver is the PowerPC 7450 v2.1. How interchangable are these CPU's?
 
F

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you can fit quite a few harddrives in a Powermac G5, grant it you need an after market kit but i think you can fit like 6 (maybe 4).

also whats wrong with an old mini and couple of external drives?
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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drj434343 said:
If I were to get my hands on a dual 800 Mhz, or dual 1 Ghz chip from a later Quicksilver model, could I plug that safely into my digital audio dual 533? Mactracker lists the CPU in my current computer as either a PowerPC 7410 v1.3, or PowerPC 7450 v2.0. The CPU that came in the dual 800 Mhz Quicksilver is the PowerPC 7450 v2.1. How interchangable are these CPU's?
Click to expand...


I have a Dual 533 as well, with an OWC 1.4GHz single CPU upgrade. I'm very satisfied.

In terms of swapping OEM CPUs, your machine will take only 7410 CPUs AFAIK if you are swapping OEM CPU modules...and from what I've read the only possible swaps you could do would be to downgrade to a single 533 or single 466 - you can't use the 733 or higher CPUs.

I'd just get an aftermarket CPU.
 
TDM21

TDM21

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The QuickSilver and Digital Audio PowerMacs have the same motherboard layouts and bus speeds. A QuickSilver processor might work, but there is no guarantee.

Like Lord Blackadder mentioned, your best bet is to buy an aftermarket processor. NewerTechnology finally released the 7448 edition G4 processors and I'm waiting to see how they stack up against the current 7447 offerings. I emailed barefeats.com about the new processors and they replied saying they were testing one now and would have a review soon. Of course that was before the 8 core Mac Pro was released.
 
drj434343

drj434343

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Rokem said:
you can fit quite a few harddrives in a Powermac G5, grant it you need an after market kit but i think you can fit like 6 (maybe 4).

also whats wrong with an old mini and couple of external drives?
Click to expand...

The aftermarket kits for more hard drives in the G5 sounds great, I haven't heard of that before. I had figured there were only 2 serial-ATA ports to be used with the two drive bays. Are there more built in ports than I realized, or do you have to add an additional card?

I can obviously Google the expansion possibilities myself, but if someone has a good link to a recommended option, let me know.
 
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The G5jive is good its about 100$ http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technology/ENCG53HD/


then you add a card which comes in 2 extra ports for around 80$-100$, or 4 ports for 100$-200$.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Criteria=SATA Controller PCI&sort=pop&cat=1535


soo this could give you the two up top and three more down bottom, you could also get rid of the optical drive and stuff a pata drive there. So in theory you could stuff 6 drives in there, 5 keeping the optical drive.
 
drj434343

drj434343

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Jan 11, 2006
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Portland, OR
F

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drj434343 said:
Looks like a very clean solution. I'll have to sleep on that for a while to feel OK dishing out $80 for a small piece of aluminium. At least this opens back up the G5 option for me.
Click to expand...

The aluminum for 80$ made my jaw drop too, but you get all the cables you need and the assurance that it just works.
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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drj434343 said:
Looks like a very clean solution. I'll have to sleep on that for a while to feel OK dishing out $80 for a small piece of aluminium. At least this opens back up the G5 option for me.
Click to expand...

I would take the G5 with the hard drive cage over a G4 tower any day - quieter, faster. As much as I love G4 towers I would trade mine for a G5 tower without a second thought - even if it was one of the crippled single 1.6GHz ones. They are just faster and more economical to upgrade in the long run...

Even if you get the fastest G4 upgrade card and a quality SATA controller card, you still have the noise and slow FSB of the G4 to live with.
 
disconap

disconap

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It's not that much quiter, Blackadder. The extra drives cause the fans to kick in pretty often, which is more noticable than the constant fans of the G4.

Speedwise, however, I'm way happier.

Oh, and a cheaper solution for adding drives--I bought a cheaper set-up, and after receiving it realized that you could probably just screw the drives in through the front screen, since that's all the bit of aluminum does (you screw the drives to the aluminum and the aluminum to the front). You still need the cables and PCI chord/power adapter, though, and looking for a power adapter will probably be more of a headache than the $80 for the kit. But yeah, there are cheaper workarounds.
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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disconap said:
It's not that much quiter, Blackadder. The extra drives cause the fans to kick in pretty often, which is more noticable than the constant fans of the G4.

Speedwise, however, I'm way happier.
Click to expand...

It depends really...I use a dual 1.8Ghz G5 with 2 hard drives and a Radeon 9600XT at work daily. It's pretty quiet all the time. Machines with the Radeon 9800XT or better GPUs can get a little noisy, and if all the fans run high it can be loud.

Still, most G4 towers (and especially ones that have had CPU/GPU/HDD upgrades like mine) are as loud at idle as the G5 is with all the fans kicked up - though the Mirrored Drive Door G4s are worse than my Digital Audio G4.

In my experience, the G5s, even with all the fans going, are less noisy than a G4 tower with 3-4 HDDs, a CPU upgrade and a decent video card.
 
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Maybe It's just my G5 and what i do with it but, its noisy.... well it might have to do do with the little fan on the 7800gs(from BFG. this card is so damn loud) that goes at a bazillion rpm.

But before i upgraded i found my Dual 1.8 much quieter than a G4 of any make.

edit: also if you get a single core model, the spot where the other heat sink for the chip would go is empty and you could stuff more drives there.
(im like 90% sure anyways)

I wounder how many drives one could stuff in a G5.
 
disconap

disconap

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Lord Blackadder said:
It depends really...I use a dual 1.8Ghz G5 with 2 hard drives and a Radeon 9600XT at work daily. It's pretty quiet all the time. Machines with the Radeon 9800XT or better GPUs can get a little noisy, and if all the fans run high it can be loud.

Still, most G4 towers (and especially ones that have had CPU/GPU/HDD upgrades like mine) are as loud at idle as the G5 is with all the fans kicked up - though the Mirrored Drive Door G4s are worse than my Digital Audio G4.

In my experience, the G5s, even with all the fans going, are less noisy than a G4 tower with 3-4 HDDs, a CPU upgrade and a decent video card.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but the G4 becomes white noise. The G5's fans kick in at random times, which is far more noticeable, and the added HDDs make them kick in more often (as they generate heat directly in front of the fans/processors). Probably overall volume would be lower, I haven't tested that, but I definitely find the G5 more annoying...
 
disconap

disconap

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Rokem said:
I wounder how many drives one could stuff in a G5.
Click to expand...

I think it depends on the model/configuration. Spacewise, my dual 2.0 could probably fit 7 or 8 REALLY cramped (and probably running too hot), but you'd need to find a way to power them...
 
drj434343

drj434343

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Jan 11, 2006
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Portland, OR
disconap said:
Perhaps, but the G4 becomes white noise. The G5's fans kick in at random times, which is far more noticeable, and the added HDDs make them kick in more often (as they generate heat directly in front of the fans/processors). Probably overall volume would be lower, I haven't tested that, but I definitely find the G5 more annoying...
Click to expand...

I have to fully agree with that. It might sound weird, but I happen to sleep in the same room as my G4, and having a constant white noise, even if it is louder, is a better alternative because the uniformity makes it easier for me to fall asleep. Constantly changing fans drive me crazy when I'm lying there.
 
drj434343

drj434343

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All this upgrade talk between new G4 cpu's versus a low end G5 still comes down to money for me. I could go out and buy a Mac Pro if I wanted, but it would be such a waste of power for what this machine does. Basically file and web serving, and the ocasional divx encode or mpeg4 playback. It seems stupid to spend more than a few hundred on that upgrade request. A dual 1.0 or 1.2 Ghz cpu upgrade would probably be perfect.

I've gone through OWC's choices, as well as eBay's offerings, and am just amazed at the prices they're willing to charge for these upgrade G4's. The slowest dual 1.6 from Powerlogix will run me $450. That does not seem worth the price at all.

It seems like the best choice is for me to keep my eyes out for a used dual 1.0 or 1.2 Powerlogix, or just go for a single G5 1.6 and try to live with the noise variations.

Does anyone know if Powerlogix 100 Mhz bus G4's are fixed at 100Mhz, or are they selling the same processor for the 133Mhz bus that just auto switches? I ask because OWC still sells a 100Mhz bus 1.2 Ghz dual for $299, which is just sliding into my price range; but I'd want to make sure I could get the 133Mhz out of it for my digital audio. Any ideas?
 
C

ChrisA

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drj434343 said:
I've got a PowerMac dual 533 digital audio. I've been exploring various upgrade options, including Powerlogix upgrade CPU's, later revisions of the PM G4, and even the PM G5 and Mac Pro. Here is my dilema. This computer is an always on web,
Click to expand...

I also have the G4 "digital audio" but mine has the single 1.2Ghz upgrade. This makes the machine about as fast as my 1.2Ghz G4 Mini.

The trouble is, I think the power supply needs to put out a bit more power. I'm looking now to see if I can upgrade the power supply.
 
C

ChrisA

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drj434343 said:
I've gone through OWC's choices, as well as eBay's offerings, and am just amazed at the prices they're willing to charge for these upgrade G4's. The slowest dual 1.6 from Powerlogix will run me $450. That does not seem worth the price at all.
Click to expand...

I paid $380 at the apple.com web store for a re-furb'd G4 Mini. That's less than the $450 upgrade and the mini is dead silent. Just add some firewire drives. Heck it you really like the look of the G4 tower just "super glue" a mini where the old G4 mother board goes. Cheaper then a $450 CPU upgrade.
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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ChrisA said:
I also have the G4 "digital audio" but mine has the single 1.2Ghz upgrade. This makes the machine about as fast as my 1.2Ghz G4 Mini.

The trouble is, I think the power supply needs to put out a bit more power. I'm looking now to see if I can upgrade the power supply.
Click to expand...

I'm running a lot of stuff (see sig) of my Digital Audio's stock PSU. It pumps out 338W if I recall correctly, so unless you've got a GeForce 7-class video card and a 4 hard drives you're probably OK.

To the OP - unless you simply can't stand the G5's fans, I'd go with a G5. You might even be able to find some software to manually control the fans at some constant speed, giving you the "white noise" effect.
 
drj434343

drj434343

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Jan 11, 2006
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Portland, OR
I can't really go the mini route because I have several PCI devices that I need; like a TV tuner and a second Gbit ethernet port. Plus I don't like the idea of stacking a bunch of external enclosures next to the mini; the clean look of the tower with everything inside suits me better. Call me crazy.

It might come down to finding a G5, but as of now, even those prices seem a little crazy for me. I'm seeing stock 1.6 machines still going for $700-$800 on ebay. I'm always happy about the value holding ability of Macs when I sell mine, but not when I have to buy someone else's. It might just be that I have to play a waiting game until prices come down more.

Maybe one additional question relevant to this thread is to ask people's opinion about dual versus single processors. I got this dual 533 convinced the added horsepower for what I do was worth the cost; and I wasn't disappointed. Dual CPU's are so much better. I could go for a single G4 1.6 Powerlogix upgrade, but I'm afraid of the potential hits I might take with going back to a single. Any opinions?
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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drj434343 said:
Maybe one additional question relevant to this thread is to ask people's opinion about dual versus single processors. I got this dual 533 convinced the added horsepower for what I do was worth the cost; and I wasn't disappointed. Dual CPU's are so much better. I could go for a single G4 1.6 Powerlogix upgrade, but I'm afraid of the potential hits I might take with going back to a single. Any opinions?
Click to expand...

I went from dual 533s to a single 1.4GHz (this was with a 7455 chip with L3 cache; the 7447s are not as fast at the same clock speed). The improvement was quite significant; the twin CPUs helped a lot with iTunes and other MP-aware apps but the faster clock made a huge difference in games and other non-mp-aware apps. It all depepnds on what you're running. Dual-CPU kits are quite expensive so make sure your software will take advantage of them.

I'd go with the fastest single CPU you can.
 
drj434343

drj434343

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Blackadder, I think your arguments are sound, although I think it's just reaffirmed my belief that I'm a dual CPU user. I have a 200 GB+ iTunes library that gets pretty unbelieveably slow with my dual 533. Based on the improvement numbers I've seen, a single 1.6 might only offer marginal improvement on dual aware apps. I'm also encoding with handbrake and final cut half the time, so again, dual seems a better solution. I don't ever game on this machine, so those advantages of a fast single are lost on me. Unless I could make the software I use signifigantly peppier with a single 1.6 (which I doubt), I might be back to finding some sort of dual solution.
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

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I agree completely - if you are using lots of mp-aware apps you'll see big gains from the dual-cpu kits. Just keep an eye on costs; the dual 1.7 & 1.8 CPU kits cost as much as a brand new Mini! :eek:
 
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