Quicksilver G4 800 Overclock/Upgrade Options

[coolbeans]

Hey folks,

I have a G4 Quicksilver from 2001 with an 800MHz processor. I'm going to be beefing up the memory to 1.5GB but I had a question about the CPU. Currently it's the single 800MHz and I've been reading about overclocking it Here I imagine that I could get the CPU up to 867 or 933 without any significant changes in my cooling system. As a matter of course, I'd probably upgrade the heatsink paste to arctic silver.

Instead of overclocking though, I was wondering if it were possible to drop in a CPU daughtercard from a MDD G4instead of OC'ing? :?:

Thanks for the help!

 

[theos911]

[rant] took me 15 minutes of searching on the LEM Facebook page to find this link...[/rant]

http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Processors.html

That is a good source for swapping different model's cpus. The main difference to consider is your FSB and how it will affect the speed. The short answer is you could swap easily to a dual 1GHZ and then overclock to 1.2GHz from there.(Sorry, can't remember where those overclocking instructions are)(or, go for an early MMD with the 133 bus) As for swapping a 167 MDD into a 133 quicksilver, you'll need to follow the above link's instructions.

 

[Unknown_K]

IS that the 800 with cache or without? I have a 2002 model 800Mhz with no cache and upgraded it to a 867 with 2MB and that was a decent upgrade in speed. My 2001 model has a 1.27Ghz 2MB cache Sonnet upgrade and it is fast for a single CPU (I use it in OS 9 mostly and some OSX 10.4.11).

I don't think you gain much from overclocking a G4. If you use OSX mostly then get a dual CPU (any speed) or just wait around for a cheap dual MDD (I have seen them for $140 complete and shipped on LEMswap) which will allow for 2GB of RAM. 3rd party G4 CPU upgradesd are still pricey compared to what a faster model G4 costs.

 

[coolbeans]

I don't believe my unit has an L3 cache. The more research I do, it looks like picking up a MDD G4 might be better, plus I'll be able to use DDR memory and the 2GB limit like you mentioned, but I'll also keep my eye out for a Quicksilver dual CPU card with heatsink and if the price is right, I may do that.

Thanks for all the pointers, I'll let you know what happens

 

[Unknown_K]

Even a single CPU with 2MB cache is a HUGE improvement.