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PowerMac G4 Query

T

tno

Senior member
... I was still hoping to get a little help. I have acquired a Power Mac G4 Digital Audio and am curious as to what upgrades I can do to it, in particular to the CPU. The stock chip is a 466 and I would love to see if I could drop in something of a dual core flavor. From what I can tell the logic board for the DA model is the same as Quicksilver's so anything from that era should be a drop in, perhaps with a firmware update. Anyone know if this is so or can point me to some resources that might help me out?

Thanks.

tno
 
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/accelerators/

A dual will set you back $500, unless you find a used one.

A 1.0 GHz for $175 or a 1.2 GHz for $200 seems smarter.

You could probably buy an entire dual processor G4 tower, with RAM, for $500. I've seen dual 1.0 GHz G4 machines go for $300.

For the $500 range, get a Mac mini or build a hackintosh if you want dual core Intel processors. (and at this point, you probably do)
 
Thanks for the help, this was mainly for a proof of concept and to get used to osx, i've built a hackintosh but when i changed mobos everything stopped working so i scrapped that. most likely i will just end up tossing this idea and the components that come with it, but i'd like to see the thing boot at least.

jason
 
Originally posted by: tno
Thanks for the help, this was mainly for a proof of concept and to get used to osx, i've built a hackintosh but when i changed mobos everything stopped working so i scrapped that. most likely i will just end up tossing this idea and the components that come with it, but i'd like to see the thing boot at least.

jason
Click to expand...

Hackintoshes are entirely dependent on two things: (1) the Motherboard, and (2) the VIdeo Card. You could always mod a Hackintosh into a G4 case. Plenty of examples here, if you scroll down:

http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/

The sad fact is that it's just not cost effective to restore an older machine. Most quality processor upgrades are in the $500-$600 range. However, sometimes it's not about money. I've been restoring and upgrading my G4 Cube for awhile now...it has a new hard drive, DVD burner with custom brackets, a Giga VRM upgrade, 1.5 gigs of RAM, modded video card, etc. etc. etc. It's been a money pit, but I absolutely love it. The last piece to the puzzle is the dual 1.6ghz PPC processor upgrade, which sells for $595. At this point I had to question myself: is it better to install an expensive legacy processor or to just buy an Intel Mac Mini and mod it inside the case? Due to the extreme cost of either option, I've let it sit at 450mhz. It's a difficult problem!

Even if you did upgrade your PowerMac G4, chances are Snow Leopard will cease support of the PPC platform in order to improve Intel-based system efficiency. So at most, you probably only have 6 months of support left and then you're stuck with an un-upgradable machine, software-wise. With a Hackintosh, even if future upgrades render the project moot, you'd still have a more powerful and capable machine, performance-wise, than you would with a PPC upgrade.

That's my 2 cents 🙂
 
If you do buy a processor upgrade, otherworldcomputing.com is a very good business with extremely fast shipping.

-Tu6
 
my home desktop Mac is still a DA G4 with a 1.0 GHz Sonnet upgrade card. RAM is maxed, 4x AGP card has 128 MB, etc.

not putting any more money into it at this time - makes no sense. next step is either a hackintosh or a 24" iMac.
 
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