I've got a 1Ghz FW800 G4, and I'd like to know if anyone could tell me whether it would be worth it to buy this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=174&type=Processor&TI=4631&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades
Will there be a noticeable difference?
Is 1.8 that much better than 1.6?
Why are they so friggin expensive!
I don't plan on getting a new mac anytime soon, so would it be worth it in the long run?
I also upgraded the video card to a radeon 9800 pro, and from what I've heard/read its performance is somewhat dependent on processor speed. So would this make make my card even awesomer??
Last thing, Panther and Tiger (and I would assume all the 10.xs) says 'Processor upgrade cards are not supported'. Is this exactly what they are talking about?
Thanks!
Taking your questions in order:
1) Possibly. This presumes that your HDD(s) are not the bottleneck, and that you have maxed out the RAM on your existing machine. If your HDD(s) is full or filling up, or you're rinning with like 512k RAM, fix those items first.
2) Probably not so much. But if you're only going to do this once, if you can afford it, go for the faster unit.
3) Well, there are two G4s on them, and I doubt Sonnet gets the same quantity discount as Apple did...
4) This depends. You didn't mention what the rest of your system consists of, so going out on a limb here, if you've got just a basic G4/FW800, 17" CRT monitor, 512M or 1GB RAM, HDD less than 200 Gigs, well, you might find better value in either a MacPro, or even an iMac. On the other hand, if you've maxed the RAM, already have a flat screen, and/or otherwise extensively invested in stuff that could be moved to a new machine, you have to weigh the difference between spending $500 to upgrade an in creasingly obsolescent machine, or Apple currently has a few refurbished Quad Core 2.0 Ghz Mac Pros for $1899... One thing to think about is that Apple hasn't said whether MacOS 10.6 (whatever that's called) will support PowerPC architecture, or if 10.5 is the end of the line.
Ultimately, you have to weigh the costs. I did pretty well a few years ago when I upgraded a G4 with a 1.2 Ghz processor, maxed the RAM (1.5G) and installed a better graphics card and SuperDrive. It still is a good machine today, will run Leopard, and only the need for better portable computing drove me to buy a MacBook Pro recently.
5) Possibly, but it depends, like all else, on other factors. The bus speed of the computer isn't changing, so while you might see some difference, it's by no means a guarantee.
6) not really. Primarily what they are talking about here is processor upgrades that turn a pre-G3 PowerMac (and some 68040 Macs, if I recall) into a G3 or better. When I put the Sonnett upgrade in my G4, all I needed to do was press the MB reset button, and I was up and running. Presumably the same will be true on this machine.
Of note, I also have an old PowerMac 8500 with a Sonnett G3 card in it, and I have had it running Jaguar, but the biggest issue with doing that is you simply cannot cram enough RAM into a pre-G3 machine to do it as anything more than a curiosity.
Viggen61
MBP 15" 2.33 C2D
G4 Digital Audio
PB G3