Mac CPU Upgrades?

Recording Techniques, People Skills, Gear, Recording Spaces, Computers, and DIY

Moderators: drumsound, tomb

Post Reply
Spark
suffering 'studio suck'
Posts: 415
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:19 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Mac CPU Upgrades?

Post by Spark » Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:21 am

I recently bought a G4 400Mhz computer on the cheap. It runs fine, but gets bogged down when running multiple programs (not a real suprise).

Since I bought the G4 for not a lot of cash I was thinking of upgrading the CPU with one of the Sonnet CPU upgrades. $200 for a 1ghz cpu upgrade doesnt seem that bad...

Does anyone have any experience with these? Are they worthwhile? How is the speed compared to a real 1ghz G4?

How much memory would you all recomend?


Any insight would be dandy!

sdelsolray
pluggin' in mics
Posts: 39
Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:35 pm

Post by sdelsolray » Sun Mar 26, 2006 11:11 am

I upgraded a 450MHz Sawtooth G4 (your 400 should be a Sawtooth too) with the Sonnett 1.0 GHz upgrade. It's been working fine for nearly two years. Running PTLE 6.4, plugins (including Altiverb 5).

I've got 1 gig ram.

User avatar
r0ck1r0ck2
re-cappin' neve
Posts: 704
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 1:55 pm
Location: Milwaukee!!
Contact:

Post by r0ck1r0ck2 » Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:31 pm

upgraded a G4 533 to a OWC 1.25

like a champ it is...

AstroDan
george martin
Posts: 1366
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 12:07 pm
Location: Avoca, Arkansas

Post by AstroDan » Sun Mar 26, 2006 5:05 pm

I have two questions:

Could I do this to a 300 Mhz iBook? And who does this upgrade?
"I have always tried to present myself as the type of person who enjoys watching dudes fight other dudes with iron claws."

Spark
suffering 'studio suck'
Posts: 415
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:19 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Post by Spark » Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:11 pm

Thanks for the replys guys. I think ill go ahead with the 1ghz update when I got the money. Ah money... where does it all go..

AstroDan, I dont know if they offer upgrades for iBooks, but the G4 upgrades look pretty easy, just replacing the cpu card.

Check out thier site, it might be on there:

http://www.sonnettech.com/default.html

User avatar
pandatone
pushin' record
Posts: 254
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: nyc
Contact:

Post by pandatone » Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:42 pm

put a 1 gig card in my old G4 400.. gave it the boost it needed.
though i still got a G5 afterwards.

you can't upgrade ibooks processors. a few G3 ibooks are overclockable. thats all i know of.

pandatone

User avatar
Roman Sokal
buyin' gear
Posts: 531
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 10:29 pm
Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

re

Post by Roman Sokal » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:19 am

i....er....a few years ago upgraded by old mac 8100 a/v 80 mhz with a sonnet g3 '400 mhz' nubus (!) card. it certainly improved my machine. it was labelled as a 333-400 mhz upgrade depending on the bus speed (multiplies it by 10). since my old box had a 40 mhz bus speed, it now says its a g3 400 mhz machine. however, it more feels/etc imho like a 250 mhz machine. sometimes it doesn't load up (anything at all) about 1st bootup so 4/10 times i have to restart it yet again. well, in the end, at least i still got to use my original pro tools 'project' setup (not without playing arund with 2 diff. versions of PT due to upgrade card- card OS requirment combaibility..
you're better off finding a used machine which will liiely cost the same as the upgrade card maybe + a little more yet insignificant money. those sonnet cards, especially older ones, are more for nostalgia than anything when it comes to monetary costs etc

User avatar
r0ck1r0ck2
re-cappin' neve
Posts: 704
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 1:55 pm
Location: Milwaukee!!
Contact:

Post by r0ck1r0ck2 » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:35 am

please look into the Other World Computing upgrades....

cheaper than sonnet and have worked quite well for me thankyouverymuch

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 48 guests