Would updating my 466 MHz Macintosh processor and video card to newer components be worthwhile. ?

Question

I'm looking at a AGP 2x-4x 256mb ATI Radeon 8600 Vd card and the Sonnet 1.8GHz Processor upgrade

Answer 1

That's nice, have fun trying to upgrade you Mac.

Answer 2

I would say yes, bluekatt's mini suggestion would be ok except that the mini uses x3100 graphics rather than a dedicated card, so upgrading the G4 tower would actually get you a better machine, especially if you plan on playing games.

Answer 3

... 466mhz... and outdated AGP come on who still uses AGP its all about PCI- EXPRESS  and a mac if it can get anyworse i would nerd throw up thats junk comeon just get a pc thats 100x stronger and cheaper then any mac upgrades

Answer 4

not really

the video card is actually  quite good but the money you wil be sinking in to that old mac especially  the  cpu upgrade  wil almost cost  as much as a brand new mini  which is superior in almost every way apart from  expendability  

and possibly video card im not sure what kind of video card   is in the mini's these days  

if  you are really atatched to that old mac then go for it other wise  look at the core 2 duo mini's  

Answer 5

Yes. I wrote this some time back, but the message holds.

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Before the turn of the century, our club bought a top of the line Mac G4 to replace our aging 9600. The jump in speed from 180 to 400 MHz was remarkable, and the increase in hard drive space from 4 to 25 GB gave us plenty of room for the newest Macintosh OS 8.5. Hooowee! We’re screamin! fast now, ain’t we? Well, yes. We were. And everyone was impressed with the new  G4 technology and it certainly was a looker... all gray, sleek and smooth. And that Zip drive let us backup almost 100 MB at a time was a wonder. Fast forward to the current millennium and it became obvious that more RAM wasn't!t going to cut it. We did install Mac OS X (and stepped through all new releases), but the guts of the box struggled to open new applications. iWork churned with a spinning beach ball cursor, and iLife was iDeath. No iChatAV, no iWeb, no GarageBand, no, it just wouldn't do. So the challenge was, “How do we get a new computer for the club with our limited treasury?”

Enter Other World Computing (http://www.macsales.com/) to the rescue. For about $250 we have a “new” computer. We"bought a Mercury Extreme for G4. The OWC Mercury Extreme G4 was our simple, fast, affordable solution to have our Mac running at amazing speed.

Installation

I have always been pretty good with software, but installing hardware always intimidated me some. I saw an Apple video on electrostatic discharge (ESD) and didn't want to fry the motherboard. Installing RAM was one thing, but messing with the motherboard is a whole different animal. Assisted by club Vice President Russel Bahe, we reviewed the four step, full color, instruction page that came with the Extreme and began. I was suspicious. This looked too easy.

Step #1. Update the computer firmware. Firmware is the heart of “Plug-and-Play.”In a Mac it is the instruction in the computer that allow the Mac to recognize new devices connected to it without needing to add drivers - software that allows you to use the device. The firmware update is a free download from Apple. OWC provided the link to Apple’s Support page. Apple instructions were simple, and two minutes later the G4 was ready for the new processor.

Step #2 and 3. I attached my “grounding strap.” Snap, unscrew (3 times), pull, push, unclip, s***w (3 times), s***w (the fan on), clip on the power. I closed the access door to the G4 and reconnected the proper cables. Last, fingers crossed, power ON, and the Mac orchestra played that beautiful music. Up came the Apple on the monitor. Next the Desktop and icons. Was that it? YES! I checked “About This Mac” under the Apple menu and there was the new processor information. (I must admit that I peeked inside the G4"to make sure that the cooling fans on top of the heat sink were running. I didn’t want the do-hicky to burn out from overheating. Not a problem. Everything was working fine.)

Testing

The first thing I did to test the Mercury was install GarageBand. I did this because the Apple installer requires a fast processor. Without it the installer lists the app, but it’s greyed out... it cannot be installed. The app installed and works fine! Next, I tried running some Keynote 2 presentations. In the past we needed  somebody else's computer to show these"Apple promos. They ran! This is wonderful. Our old Mac has new  life. Yea!

Technical stuff from OWC

XBench 1.1.3 - Overall Score Comparison shows a 391% improvement 21 step routine script using Adobe Photoshop 8 CS shows a 261% improvement. Time to an Rip Audio CD shows a 315% improvement. Time to export 500MB DV File to MPEG-4 Using Quicktime 6 shows a 299% improvement. Unreal Tournament 2004 – Asbestos Level Botmatch shows a 205% improvement. All this means is that it’s fast... as much as 4 times faster than the G4 used to be. I love this thing!

Conclusion

My impression of this upgrade daughtercard is simple... it saved our bacon. It provided us a reasonable alternative to replacing the entire computer at a fraction of the cost. If anyone has an older G4, and you don’t want to plunk down a thousand dollars for a new Macintosh, this is definitely the way to go. It is reasonable priced, is powerful and easy to install. A triple threat. I highly recommend it. Other World Computing info on the Mercury G4

• User Adjustable speed adjustment

• Motorola/Freescale G4 7455B Processor Certified at 1.5GHz (1500MHz)

• 256K of 1:1 L2 Cache On-Chip

• 2MB of SPB SDR L3 Cache at up to 233MHz (6:1)

• Up to 1.5GHz Operation in 100MHz Bus G4 PowerMac Models

• Up to 1.467GHz Operation in 133MHZ Bus G4 PowerMac Models

• Compatible with Mac OS 9.2.1 and higher, including all versions of Mac OS X

• 3 Year Limited Warranty

• 30 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee Trial Period