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g4 powermac upgrade processors-will there be any more?

P

poe diddley

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 5, 2005
229
98
greensboro nc
so i upgraded my 400mhz AGP graphics PowerMac G4 a few years back to a 1ghz OWC, and put a newer 128mb ATI Radeon video card, and bumped up the ram.
i was considering getting the 2ghz 7448 upgrade for a while, but i noticed that they aren't selling it anywhere anymore.
does anyone know if there's a shortage of g4 chips or something?
suddenly no company has one for sale that i can find.
is there a new one about to be released or is it being phased out? just curious.
 
poe diddley said:
so i upgraded my 400mhz AGP graphics PowerMac G4 a few years back to a 1ghz OWC, and put a newer 128mb ATI Radeon video card, and bumped up the ram.
i was considering getting the 2ghz 7448 upgrade for a while, but i noticed that they aren't selling it anywhere anymore.
does anyone know if there's a shortage of g4 chips or something?
suddenly no company has one for sale that i can find.
is there a new one about to be released or is it being phased out? just curious.
Click to expand...

Those Sonnet cards a bit expensive though...Sonnet sells them for $500 for the dual 1.8GHz. To me...its not worth it. I would try to sell your G4. With the money that you spend for the processor upgrade, you could just get a new MacBook or even a fast G5. You could try eBay of course, but prices there will be about the same.
 
Sshhh... Keep your voices down. There are some G4 users out there that refuse to let them die... :p


But for 500 bucks, get a G5. I got my G5 for 700 bucks, and its pretty awesome with that whole using ddr2 and supporting 16 gigs - its practically a slower first gen Mac Pro.
 
well i have new computers. that's not the issue. i just love my g4 cause it's been so incredibly reliable. i've had it on 24-7 for nearly 9 years. no bs.
my question wasn't about the quality of the upgrade cards cause i already own one-they work great.
my question was whether anyone knew if the g4 chips were discontinued or something since the 2ghz models from newer technology and other manufacturers is currently unavailable.
if they are not coming back, i want to just go ahead and buy the fastest one i can get while i still can.
just wondered if anyone had heard, since i assumed macrumors forum would be the best place to look considering a google search turned up nothing.....
any news anyone?
 
really what i am looking for is a 2ghz or faster 7448 g4. until recently they were available from newer technology, and owc. then suddenly they aren't available-the fastest available being the 1.8ghz 7448 g4.
so maybe that narrows it down a bit. the 7448 was a pretty big improvement over the other g4 chips so that's why i'm after that one.
 
You might wanna try springing for a dual 1.8 or so. Barefeats has run many benchmarks over the years (though they would be buried) that might interest you.
 
um
ok nobody really seems to get what i'm asking.
i'm not interested in specs of these upgrade processors cause i've got one-a 1ghz.
but i want to get a newer, faster one. and i know all the specs. anyone with half a brain cell can go to owc's website and look at the specs of several different ones. or buy them. finding them or knowing any technical specs is not the problem at all.
i'm wondering about future availability of g4 upgrade cards. there used to be a 2ghz model that was available until very recently-and i've been watching it, waiting to purchase when i've got the extra $. now those cards are unavailable.
what i'm asking is are they discontinuing these chips?
i figured they would eventually, but freescale has released several revisions that have allowed manufacturers to come out with a newer faster card every once in a while.
is it possible they are coming out with new ones, and this is why the faster ones are not in stock? or have supplies run thin and they're about to stop making them?
 
People have figured out what a terrible value G4 upgrade cards are.

For the same price as a new dual 1.8GHz G4 upgrade card you can get an entire dual 1.8GHz G5 computer that will be faster in every way than the G4 ever could be.
 
Could you imagine intel not making Pentium 4s anymore? :eek::p
I know this doesnt really help you, but an ancient Mac Mini for approx. the same price as the CPU for your G4 would be a better choice.. or even a G5.
Remember... PPC is not going to be supported much longer,
 
Dustman said:
Could you imagine intel not making Pentium 4s anymore? :eek::p
I know this doesnt really help you, but an ancient Mac Mini for approx. the same price as the CPU for your G4 would be a better choice.. or even a G5.
Remember... PPC is not going to be supported much longer,
Click to expand...

They don't make Pentium 4s anymore.
 
I don't think I'd recommend getting a faster card for your computer (Sawtooth 400 MHz, right?) as a 1 GHz card is plenty fast for the memory, bus, etc.

Even with a 2 GHz chip the bus is still 100 MHz and the AGP is still 2x.

It won't make too much of a difference - especially for the price.
 
I wouldn't bother with an upgrade.

Simply because PPC is outdated and they may drop support. Just leave the g4 the way it is. And for some reason, I really love the G4s. I wish I could get one... but I can't justify it.
 
poe diddley said:
um
ok nobody really seems to get what i'm asking.
i'm not interested in specs of these upgrade processors cause i've got one-a 1ghz.
but i want to get a newer, faster one. and i know all the specs. anyone with half a brain cell can go to owc's website and look at the specs of several different ones. or buy them. finding them or knowing any technical specs is not the problem at all.
i'm wondering about future availability of g4 upgrade cards. there used to be a 2ghz model that was available until very recently-and i've been watching it, waiting to purchase when i've got the extra $. now those cards are unavailable.
what i'm asking is are they discontinuing these chips?
i figured they would eventually, but freescale has released several revisions that have allowed manufacturers to come out with a newer faster card every once in a while.
is it possible they are coming out with new ones, and this is why the faster ones are not in stock? or have supplies run thin and they're about to stop making them?
Click to expand...

The reason the 2Ghz was pulled was because of the failure rate of the upgrade card, it would easily over-heat . . . even with the tornado of twin fans that were attached to them. The were amazingly load and would give you what I call the "Multi-language screen of death" if you tried to do anything that would push the CPUs to full load.

tsice19 said:
I wouldn't bother with an upgrade.

Simply because PPC is outdated and they may drop support. Just leave the g4 the way it is. And for some reason, I really love the G4s. I wish I could get one... but I can't justify it.
Click to expand...

I disagree whole heartedly . . . . except for the part about ppc being dropped from future release of Mac OS X. G4 Machines are well worth the upgrade depending on why you are doing the upgrade.

The G4 Power Macs where some of the bests Macs to every be made IMO. Granted the Mirror Door and the Quicksilver models had sounds problems due to the fans, other than that, they were freaking tanks of machines that could process information all day long with no problems.

I love my G4 Cube which is probably the single most unique computer ever made again IMO. Also I loved my Digital Audio G4, I upgraded it with a Sonnet 1.6Ghz which quite literally was able in encode video for 74 hours straight at 100% CPU with absolutely no issues whatsoever. I regret to this day that I sold that machine, it was a tank and I loved it.

sushi said:
Sonnet Tech still has them.

I've used them before. They have nice upgrade cards.
Click to expand...

In total agreement here, if you want to upgrade your G4 with a card that will work flawlessly, I recommend the Sonnet cards hands down. Lets put it this way, if they made a G5 upgrade card, I would buy without a second thought before I would invest in a Mac Pro.

I think its a case of how people get connected to their computers. I have a G4 Cube that is so outdated its ridiculous, but I will never get it ride of that computer because it was my first Mac. I have a G4 Mac Mini that I am currently typing this post with and while yes I know I am going to get a Intel Mac Mini to replace it someday, I seriously doubt that I will ever get rid of this amazing little Mac. Same goes for my G5, its still plenty powerful, I would be extremely hesitant to replace it.

Funny enough, my Macbook Rev A with 2Gb of ram is the only Mac I have that I would let go in a heartbeat. I have never had a problem with that Mac, its plenty fast, I just never really got attached to it . . .

Well that my . . . um 80 cents!

-iGrant
 
Dustman said:
I'm saying how could you expect a company to still want to make processor upgrades for a card as old as the Pentium 3/4.
Click to expand...

Because the Apple's computers is not the only use of the G4. Its used in many many embedded devices like ATMs and and other dedicated machines. Freescale wouldn't continue developing the G4 to this day if the CPU upgrade group was its only market.

The Pentium line was a POS and desktop computers were basically its only use.
 
Lord Zedd said:
Because the Apple's computers is not the only use of the G4. Its used in many many embedded devices like ATMs and and other dedicated machines. Freescale wouldn't continue developing the G4 to this day if the CPU upgrade group was its only market.

The Pentium line was a POS and desktop computers were basically its only use.
Click to expand...

I second and third that statement. Wasn't the Pentium III the processor that had the huge floating point problem in terms of accuracy???

-iGrant
 
iGrant said:
I second and third that statement. Wasn't the Pentium III the processor that had the huge floating point problem in terms of accuracy???

-iGrant
Click to expand...

No. The Pentium 1 had those issues. The pentium 3 is one of the better cpus of its era, and far better then the ones in the macs at the time.
 
zmttoxics said:
No. The Pentium 1 had those issues. The pentium 3 is one of the better cpus of its era, and far better then the ones in the macs at the time.
Click to expand...

Huh . . . I could have sworn that was Pentium III. I had a Pentium III computer and it was aweful, I never liked the Pentium IV because of the extremely small cache built into the CPU.

Wasn't the G3 out and the beginning of the G4 out during the time of the Pentium III???

-iGrant
 
iGrant said:
Huh . . . I could have sworn that was Pentium III. I had a Pentium III computer and it was aweful, I never liked the Pentium IV because of the extremely small cache built into the CPU.

Wasn't the G3 out and the beginning of the G4 out during the time of the Pentium III???

-iGrant
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

The G4s and G3s out classed them for sure, but there is a lot to be had for the higher end p3 chips. I am not saying the P3 is the greatest chip ever made, but it was really efficient and still in use like crazy. I have 3 in my house till running.

EDIT: The G4s DID come out the same time as the p3s. My bad. And after some reading i realize they were a lot faster then the p3 class. The p3s were still good for that they were.
 
zmttoxics said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

The G4s and G3s out classed them for sure, but there is a lot to be had for the higher end p3 chips. I am not saying the P3 is the greatest chip ever made, but it was really efficient and still in use like crazy. I have 3 in my house till running.

EDIT: The G4s DID come out the same time as the p3s. My bad. And after some reading i realize they were a lot faster then the p3 class. The p3s were still good for that they were.
Click to expand...

HAHAHAH ok I remember that now, Lynchburg is my home town!!! That was a neat little read on wikipedia about the Floating point problem.

-iGrant
 
sweet
thanks to
iGrant for actually answering my question. now i know why the 2ghz model vanished.
and yes, i have become very attached to this PowerMac, and just wanted to upgrade it as best as possible before all my options went off the market. i agree, the PowerMac g4 is a tank. mine has literally been on 24/7 since 1999.
it's not an issue with me that they may or may not cease PPC support anytime soon. that doesn't mean my g4 will immediately dry up and stop working, it'll just mean that newer versions of OSX and applications may not work with it. which doesn't really matter to me. my computer is still useful to me-it's not a powerhouse, it's just what i use to surf the internet and some mild graphics here and there. i have a nice new graphics machine but i'll always love this g4.
some people feel like they must have the newest of the new in whatever comes out , but that's silly. if it works why worry about it? i have 4 computers, and i want to keep my g4 going for as long as i can because it's been a true soldier-much better than my last PC "powerhouse" windows turboxes... yuck if i didn't have to use them for work i'd never touch one again. i'd love to have a new mac pro, but it's not in the budget for now.
thanks again iGrant
 
poe diddley said:
sweet
thanks to
iGrant for actually answering my question. now i know why the 2ghz model vanished.
and yes, i have become very attached to this PowerMac, and just wanted to upgrade it as best as possible before all my options went off the market. i agree, the PowerMac g4 is a tank. mine has literally been on 24/7 since 1999.
it's not an issue with me that they may or may not cease PPC support anytime soon. that doesn't mean my g4 will immediately dry up and stop working, it'll just mean that newer versions of OSX and applications may not work with it. which doesn't really matter to me. my computer is still useful to me-it's not a powerhouse, it's just what i use to surf the internet and some mild graphics here and there. i have a nice new graphics machine but i'll always love this g4.
some people feel like they must have the newest of the new in whatever comes out , but that's silly. if it works why worry about it? i have 4 computers, and i want to keep my g4 going for as long as i can because it's been a true soldier-much better than my last PC "powerhouse" windows turboxes... yuck if i didn't have to use them for work i'd never touch one again. i'd love to have a new mac pro, but it's not in the budget for now.
thanks again iGrant
Click to expand...

No problem!!! I am actually trying to get my hands on an Apple G4 Xserve and then installed Sonnets MDX upgrade which would up the CPU to a dual 1.6Ghz.

I just think that would be an amazing machine!!! Of course, I really don't need one, I just think it would be neat to have one.

KingYaba said:
I doubt there is much of a difference between a dual 1.8ghz and 2.0ghz. Enjoy your G4.
Click to expand...

Hahahah yeah there was a big difference and it was called reliability!!!

I was not a fan of the 7448 G4 processors, they really did not fair that well under a full load where at the 7447A G4s could be under a full load all day long without any hick ups.

-iGrant
 
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