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rkubasiak

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2003
1
0
I am curious if the architecture of the iMac flatscreen family allows for a processor upgrade in the future. I have noted that nothing is made so far and have my fingers crossed for a faster G4 someday!
 

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Re: iMac 700MHz processor upgrade?

Originally posted by rkubasiak
I am curious if the architecture of the iMac flatscreen family allows for a processor upgrade in the future. I have noted that nothing is made so far and have my fingers crossed for a faster G4 someday!

no, it doesn't. Its all soldered to the board.

Procesor upgrades often aren't worth it anyway. The processor is only 1 part of what makes a computer fast. The bus speed, graphics card, etc all contribute, so upgrading one part may simply get bottlenecked anyway. In terms of cost v. performance its often better to use the computer for as long as it will do what you want it to, then sell it and buy a new machine. This is especially true as computer prices come down and the availablity of previous generation hardware (which would be faster than then old stuff you have but cheaper than the newest generation).
 

daveg5

macrumors 6502a
Nov 28, 2001
741
0
Re: iMac 700MHz processor upgrade?

Originally posted by rkubasiak
I am curious if the architecture of the iMac flatscreen family allows for a processor upgrade in the future. I have noted that nothing is made so far and have my fingers crossed for a faster G4 someday!
the only way they can upgrade this if you send in the entire motherboard ala pismo upgrade or imac and wait 2 weeks for them to send it back lots for shipping and possible damage, i doubt sonnet or powerlogic will attempt this, would be cool to have a 1.4 g4 imac with 2MB L3 cache though and a radeon 9000, 8500 or 9800.
dont hold your breath though. they do have 900G3 upgrades for the crt imac dv and pismo and people said that could not be done. where thier is a will and lots of money someone will usually find away.
just dont hold your breath. i would buy an imac g4 if i could upgrade the processor/ video card.
 

jimthorn

macrumors 6502a
Apr 24, 2003
580
2
Huntington Beach, CA, USA
Also, I don't know how much memory you have in your iMac, but I highly recommend maxing it out (1GB, I think), since lots of memory dramatically inproves performance in OS X.
 

yzedf

macrumors 65816
Nov 1, 2002
1,161
0
Connecticut
Re: Re: iMac 700MHz processor upgrade?

Originally posted by strider42
no, it doesn't. Its all soldered to the board.

Procesor upgrades often aren't worth it anyway. The processor is only 1 part of what makes a computer fast. The bus speed, graphics card, etc all contribute, so upgrading one part may simply get bottlenecked anyway. In terms of cost v. performance its often better to use the computer for as long as it will do what you want it to, then sell it and buy a new machine. This is especially true as computer prices come down and the availablity of previous generation hardware (which would be faster than then old stuff you have but cheaper than the newest generation).
When compaing the 700mhz G4 to the 1ghz G4 with more cache, you would notice the difference.

To upgrade the hardware of the imac (aside from more ram or bigger hdd) is not the focus of that machine. You plug it it, it works. It's not fast, it's not the newest technology, but it still gets the job done.
 

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Re: Re: Re: iMac 700MHz processor upgrade?

Originally posted by yzedf
When compaing the 700mhz G4 to the 1ghz G4 with more cache, you would notice the difference.

To upgrade the hardware of the imac (aside from more ram or bigger hdd) is not the focus of that machine. You plug it it, it works. It's not fast, it's not the newest technology, but it still gets the job done.

I don't doubt you would notice the difference. But how much. If it was possible, would the money spent on such an upgrade to lengthen the life of the machine stack up against simply holding onto the machine a bit longer, selling it and then getting a new or slightly used machine that would be faster in all areas, not just the processor. I personally don't think upgrades make sense all that often.
 
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