G4 Digital Audio 533 Questions...

[Bunsen]

Wait ...

for $20

8-o

 

[bigD]

Wait ...

for $20

8-o

Yeah - I wasn't even looking for a G4, and when I saw this one, I jumped on it. It had 384 megs installed, and for another 15 bucks I got an additional 512 meg stick. So for less than 50 bucks invested, I had a pretty usable 10.4 machine.

But I'm about to drop the hammer on a high dollar item - a better processor card. The high clock rate duals are still pretty expensive. It looks like I'll be spending close to $400 for a dual 1.6. Or I can spend $250 on a single 1.5. I can't make up my mind whether the dual processors will really help me enough to justify the $$$. I don't number crunch much - it's mostly day to day tasks on this thing.

 

[bigD]

So I now have a single 1.5GHz 7455B processor in the machine, and what a difference! I went with the single processor mainly because the duals are more than I wanted to invest in an aging machine, and the extra cache on the 7455 made me think that it'd actually perform a little better than a dual 1.6GHz 7447A for tasks not suited to multiprocessing.

Anyway - it's a pretty sweet upgrade - I'll post some benchmarks soon.

 

[gobabushka]

im running tiger on my pismo with only 384mb ram, and it runs pretty good!

 

[madmax_2069]

So I now have a single 1.5GHz 7455B processor in the machine, and what a difference! I went with the single processor mainly because the duals are more than I wanted to invest in an aging machine, and the extra cache on the 7455 made me think that it'd actually perform a little better than a dual 1.6GHz 7447A for tasks not suited to multiprocessing.
Anyway - it's a pretty sweet upgrade - I'll post some benchmarks soon.

are you going to use xbench 1.3 ??

i did mine, here is the result in almost stock config

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=246160

its allot faster then what i thought the system was going to be ( before i got it). once i get the upgrades i can only think on how much more faster its going to be. i am going to opt for the dual 7455's at 1.4ghz

 

[bigD]

Yes - xbench 1.3!

Here are the results:

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=249289&doc2=1&setCookie=true

 

[dbraverman88]

Yes - xbench 1.3!
Here are the results:

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=249289&doc2=1&setCookie=true

bigD,

It looks like you got about a 2x performance boost over madmax_2069's numbers.

David

 

[madmax_2069]

very nice speed boost, over stock.

i will be getting a dual 7455 1.4ghz cpu upgrade and a 6800 GT video card and 1.5gb ram . but will post on each upgrade i add.

but it seems that the 6200 plus the upgrade gave a very nice result for you. definatly allot better results then you would have got with the GF2MX that was in it. you should download a few games demo's, like halo ( it has a timedemo and outputs the text file) i get a average of 20 FPS with everything on low with the res at 1024x768. i would love to see what your average FPS is with your setup.

i would almost think that you could try Doom 3 demo. or another newer game. i know that should run Leopard real nice ( that is once you mod the installer to remove the machine ID check and the virtual speed limit, which you would not need to do since you are above the 867mhz G4 requirement.

 

[bigD]

Thanks guys. The big improvement that I liked was in the user interface, which saw a 4x increase. It just makes the overall system 'feel' much more responsive.

A dual 1.4 will be very nice!!!

 

[dbraverman88]

Hi,

How much are you guys spending to upgrade your G4s? Did you compare the cost of upgrading to buying a new (or at least newer) machine? With the new Intel iMacs that have a real graphics card, the price to buy a nice machine has come way down.

David

 

[bigD]

Between the cost of my G4, the extra RAM, and the processor upgrade, I have about $300 invested all told.

What I want is a Mac Pro. But at the moment I have a wedding in January that I'm saving for, so the Mac Pro will have to wait a few months. I did this to be able to run OS X in the meantime for not a huge investment.

 

[LSD]

I've spent about AUD$380 (USD$348) on mine so far. In addition to the machine itself (AUD$118, most of that was shipping from one side of the country to the other) I bought a faster CPU, Apple Pro keyboard and mouse, a replacement HDD carrier (the machine had had its original HDD removed and carrier discarded), 9800 Pro video card and a DVD-RW to replace the CD-RW in the machine. I still need RAM which is going to sting. 1.5GB of PC133 SDRAM compatible with the machine will set me back about AUD$233 if I buy from OWC in the states (prices are just ridiculous here).

 

[bigD]

Sounds like you have a nice machine, LSD!

Also, there's just something about buying a less than stellar machine and upgrading it. I know that at some point it simply doesn't make sense, but there's value in the enjoyment I get out of the upgrade process.

 

[Bunsen]

So far I've spent only $AU66 to buy the machine, AU$70 for the dual 533, about $10 for an ATX power extender so I can use an ATX PS, $10 on a Rage 128 AGP; RAM and drives recycled out of other machines. Down the track I'll look for a faster/dual head video card, a fast ATA or SATA RAID card, and an audio DSP card (Creamware).

 

[dbraverman88]

I bought a clean 733 MHz G4 DA (256MB RAM, 9GB HDD, DVD-R superdrive, NVIDIA GeForce2 MX) three years ago for $300USD. I spent $75USD for a OWC 512MB PC133 memory stick, $75USD for a 120GB HDD (this model can only handle drive up to 120GB w/o replacing the drive controller), and $150USD for OS 10.4.6 and iLife '06. Totaled out at $600USD. I have had three good years with it. It runs OS 10.4.10 with no trouble.

A few slow points:

1. Handbrake takes 24 hrs plus to copy a DVD.

2. If I have more than ten or so browser windows open in Firefox it starts to slow down.

BTW: in normal use and even when playing Neverwinter Nights I have had good performance from the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX.

I have been questioning myself whether or not it is worth to put any more money into this machine.

What I would like to do:

1. Add firewire 800 (it now only has 400)

2. Add USB 2.0 (it now only has 1.1)

3. Add a SATA controller

4. Add about 500 GB of drive space

5. A faster superdrive (mine burns DVD-Rs at 1x)

6. A better graphics card (a 9800 pro would be my preference)

7. Put in a dual 1.6 GHz processor module

8. Max out the memory

This will cost big bucks. I am really not sure it is worth it compared to a macbook or a low end Intel iMac.

See ya,

David

 

[dbraverman88]

If you upgrade the processor on a G4, can you still boot into OS 9?

 

[madmax_2069]

If you upgrade the processor on a G4, can you still boot into OS 9?

oh yea. a Mac that can boot O s9 will always boot OS 9 nomatter the hardware upgrades. the only thing is the video cards ( newer ones are not going to have support in OS 9)

 

[Bunsen]

By "support" do you mean they won't show a thing? Cause that would suck.

 

[madmax_2069]

By "support" do you mean they won't show a thing? Cause that would suck.

the newer video cards dont have OS 9 drivers so the card wont have accelerator functions , will be stuck at 640x480, so it will be mostly useless to use in OS9.

it would be sweet to some how hack a driver to make them supported under OS 9, but i think that would be like pissing in the wind

 

[Bunsen]

Just been checking out ATI's website:

Radeon 9200:

System Software Support

* Mac OS® 9.2.2*

* Mac OS® X 10.2.8

* Mac OS® X 10.3.3 or later

* This product will not operate in Mac OS 9 with the Power Mac G4 “Digital Audio" and “Gigabit Ethernet" models (Refer to Knowledgebase Topic # 737-468 for more).

Knowledge Base
737-468: Problems with Mac OS 9 and RADEON 9200 MAC EDITION on G3 and some G4 systems

The information in this article applies to the following configurations:

* RADEON 9200 MAC EDITION

* "Gigabit Ethernet" Power Mac G4 model

* "Digital Audio" Power Mac G4 model

* "Sawtooth" Power Mac G4 model

* Blue and White G3

* Beige G3

* Mac OS 9.2.2

The RADEON 9200 MAC EDITION may cause the system to hang when booting Mac OS 9. Moving the board to a different PCI slot, or rearranging the existing PCI cards in your system, will remedy the problem.

So presumably that wouldn't apply to an AGP version of the 9200 (is there one?)

9600 PRO: OS X 10.3.6 and later

9800 PRO Mac Edition: OS X 10.2.5 or later

9800 PRO Mac Special Edition: OS X 10.2.8 or 10.3.3 and later

X800 XT Mac Edition: Mac® OS X 10.3.6 and later

X1900 G5 Mac Edition: OS X 10.4.7 or higher