Want to upgrade my Mac

I have a Dual G4/450. Should I stay a dual, or get one real fast processor?

Photoshop? MIDI and recording?

OS X takes advantage of multiple processors, and lots of apps do too. . .you can check w the manufacturer of the software to see if they are multiprocessor aware.

For ones that are, it really makes a difference. . .

Here's an article to read from LowendMac on the whole Dual vs Single processor issue -- from 2003, but interesting none the less:

Are Two Brains Better Than One?

http://www.lowendmac.com/macdan/03/0324dk.html

Yes I do use Photoshop, and I do compile some of my software. I also do some distributed computing. folding@home and Boinc.

Al

Here is a 10fps quicktime movie of a G4 AGP launching apps running a PowerLogix dual 1.5 (posted over at cubeowner.com). . .movie is 2.7mb.

http://cubeowner.com/plx/openfast5.mov

orig cubeowner thread here:

http://www.cubeowner.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=8771&st=150

http://www.gigadesigns.com/news.html

<snip>

Giga Designs, a manufacturer of high performance processor upgrades for Apple® Macintosh® computers, is now shipping the fastest (1.8GHz) G4 single and dual processor upgrades available for Apple® AGP equipped G4 Power Macs® including the Power Mac® Cube. The new G-celerator™ AGP 7A series upgrades use the latest G4 (7447A) processors available from Freescale™ (formerly Motorola®). The new 7447A processors feature a 512KB on chip L2 cache running at full processor speed.

<snip>

I have seen the single 1.8 for 440.00 and the dual for 680.00 --- I guess the dual backordered until later this month. . .

Personally I would feel weird about putting another 700.00 into my mac. So I am hoping there will be price drops on the older 7455 based dual upgrades -- right now a 1.2 dual goes for around 499.00

Like you I am really wanting to upgrade my G4, I have a Quicksilver that I upgraded to 1ghz single. . . and I a really wanting a dual - I've got stuff that won't work with the dual 1.8 g5 and I am too cheap to spring for the dual 2ghz.

what do you have that won't work with the dual 1.8 G5, but would with a dual 2.0?

the current dual 1.8GHz machine is messed up somehow. The emails I got from tech support say that none of their cards work properly in the dual 1.8ghz machines "due to changes in the card bus." They say other manufacturers are having similar problems. . .

As you recall, the 1.8 dual is supposed to be standard PCI, not PCI-X --

They say all is fine with their current cards in the dual 2.0 or better.

(My older card would have to be modified to work in the dual 2.0 or better, which they will do for me . . .but they say NO GO on the dual 1.8)

For what it is worth. . . . . . . .

video card. I am not a big gamer, but it would be good to have more VRAM.

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/cpureview.lasso

The link I posted is to the cpu upgrade data base, where users report on thier upgrades, how install went, etc. The whole site is good too. . .

A good place to price these things is here:

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

I have bought stuff from them and they are good -- good customer service, real mac people.

Another vendor I have never used but others swear by is:

http://www.macgurus.com

1.8Ghz for Sawtooth!

$450 bux.

Beats hell out of $1500!

:-)

YeeeeeHaW