Gigadesigns CPU upgrades for Apple G4

[Montano]

I want to upgrade the CPU in my G4 AGP.....but am not familiar with the different companies that make these upgrades. Any recommendations?

 

[D1gger]

I don't know anything about MACS, but a quick search turned up this SITE.

 

[n0cmonkey]

There was a thread on the ars forum (in the Mac section) about this not too long ago. A quick search might turn it up.

 

[Eug]

I'm using a Sonnet G4 1.7 GHz 7447A in my Cube. and it works great. I even tried it fanless for a few hours, and it was rock stable even thru benchmarking, but the Cube was too warm for my tastes. So, I have a low flow Panaflo fan running with a resistor to slow it down, and the Cube is still silent but stays cool.

PowerLogix has some good products too, but they have a terrible reputation in terms of RMAs. I've heard of people waiting over a year for an RMA, and still have nothing to replace their defective cards. GigaDesigns also has some good products, but they are being sued by PowerLogix. PowerLogix alleges that GigaDesigns stole their code for the drivers, etc. I went for the Sonnet simply because they have the best reputation. The cards work fine at the stated speed, and thus RMAs are infrequent. Furthermore, there are no ongoing lawsuits with Sonnet, and they are the biggest company of the three. Sonnet upgrades can't be easily overclocked (or underclocked) though. Both PowerLogix and GigaDesigns CPU upgrades are usually easily changed. Mind you, at least for the Cube, a lot of times I hear of people fiddling with speeds with the GigaDesigns or PowerLogix cards, they are underclocking them, because of stability issues. Not a good sign. GigaDesigns actually sells fanless G4 upgrades for the Cube, but both PowerLogix and Sonnet say that's a stupid idea, and indeed, many people who buy these fanless G4 upgrades eventually install fans.