alfonsojon
Level 1 (5 points)

Q: Working on a supercharged G4. Looking forward to any advice!

Hi, as some of you may or may not have known, I'm currently on a quest of sorts to supercharge my G4. I love my Power Mac G4, and I'm a *huge* hardware geek. As a result, I'm looking forward to tinker with this Mac and squeeze every ounce of performance out of it! Given my love for hardware (preferably budget friendly!), I've decided to upgrade it in the most cost efficient way, while trying to get the best hardware possible.

 

So, this thread is mainly for the following -

- Provide a resource for other G4 owners looking to upgrade while not killing their wallet

- Get advice from the community

- "Log my quest" and keep constant updates when something changes.

 

So, as of the time of writing, here are my specs:

 

PowerMac3,6 (FW800, dual 1.42GHz G4)

- Mac OS X 10.5.8

- ATI Radeon 9000 (overclocked, still mediocre)

- Two Seagate IDE HDDs (500GB, 200GB, 7200 RPM each)

- USB 2.0 PCI card

Apple Cinema Display 23"

- 1920x1200 (from 2002, wow!)

- IPS (correct me if I'm wrong)

 

Upgrade Wishlist:

- Apple ADC to DVI/USB/AC Adapter (~$25 - $75 on eBay)

- SATA II PCI-X card, must be bootable and 3Gbps! (~$25 - $?? on eBay)

- SATA II 500 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM (already have one!)

- ATI Radeon X800XT Mac Edition (~$79.99 on eBay)

- A quiet 120x120x38mm fan (Where can I find a good and cheap one???)

- Original Apple Pro Speakers for the Power Mac (I have the iMac G4 ones, they don't reach my desk )

 

Hopefully this is a useful resource to anyone looking to modify their G4 MDD/FW800 without going too far into the hardware modifications (the circular saw and soldering kind). I'll see how cheap I can get, while getting killer performance.

 

By the way, if anyone has a suggestion as to where I can obtain something from the wishlist for a low price, or knows of a better alternative, please do let me know!

 

Cheers!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), FW800 1.42GHz

Posted on Jan 9, 2015 3:41 PM

by alfonsojon,Solvedanswer
alfonsojon alfonsojon
Level 1 (5 points)
A:

I was reading here, and it gets very technical, so can someone explain the difference between PCI-X and full-length 64 bit PCI? They look to be the same, and I have not found anything that says otherwise... yet, I'm convinced they're different somehow. Thanks!

Posted on Feb 19, 2015 8:37 PM

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Q: Working on a supercharged G4. Looking forward to any advice!

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  • by alfonsojon,

    alfonsojon alfonsojon Feb 21, 2015 11:28 PM in response to Glen Doggett
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 21, 2015 11:28 PM in response to Glen Doggett

    Alright, email is sent.

  • by BDAqua,

    BDAqua BDAqua Feb 22, 2015 11:10 AM in response to Glen Doggett
    Level 10 (123,516 points)
    Feb 22, 2015 11:10 AM in response to Glen Doggett

    Right you are Glen!

  • by alfonsojon,

    alfonsojon alfonsojon Feb 25, 2015 7:02 AM in response to alfonsojon
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 25, 2015 7:02 AM in response to alfonsojon

    Also, will these upgrades improve the performance of Adobe Photoshop CS4, Final Cut Express, and iMovie '09?

  • by Glen Doggett,

    Glen Doggett Glen Doggett Feb 25, 2015 10:58 PM in response to alfonsojon
    Level 4 (1,875 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 25, 2015 10:58 PM in response to alfonsojon

    alfonsojon wrote:

     

    Also, will these upgrades improve the performance of Adobe Photoshop CS4, Final Cut Express, and iMovie '09?

    Firstly, is your RAM maxed out?  I think 2GB is the limit for MDDs.  So, when you don't have sufficient physical RAM for the software you are running, your hard drive serves the purpose for swap space, as well as temp file space for software programs, ie - scratch disk.  So, the faster you can make your hard drive, you will also benefit from slightly faster swap space and scratch file I/O when using programs like that.  Another reason why using a RAID0 is a benefit to older systems where physical RAM is limited by the motherboard.   Mac OS X handles virtual memory automatically on the boot drive, but some applications also allow you to select a folder where to store temp working files.  If you can select a different drive from the boot drive for the photoshop scratch files, then the virtual memory and temp/scratch file space won't be competing with each other.

  • by Glen Doggett,

    Glen Doggett Glen Doggett Feb 26, 2015 7:32 PM in response to WayneStewart
    Level 4 (1,875 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 26, 2015 7:32 PM in response to WayneStewart

    WayneStewart wrote:

     

    I didn’t have much time last night but I tested a 300gb Seagate on the G4s ata133 interface and a 120gb Crucial SSD on a Sonnet Tempo SATA card

     

    I think the G4's have built-in ATA/66 near the front bays and ATA/100 near the rear bays, the ATA/133 spec came out later as a PCI-card add-on option, if you had a ATA/133 PCI card it might be about the same or a little bit faster than the built-in ATA/100 channel.  I think the SSD is not doing much better than a regular conventional SATA hard drive on that Sonnet Tempo card, I get about the same read/write with a 7200RPM 1TB drive on the same card.  You would need to set up a RAID0 to get faster, that takes advantage of simultaneous read/write operations on different channels.

     

    Picture 1.png

  • by WayneStewart,

    WayneStewart WayneStewart Feb 28, 2015 9:16 AM in response to Glen Doggett
    Level 1 (88 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 28, 2015 9:16 AM in response to Glen Doggett

    I guess I misremembered the ATA interface speeds on the MDD.

    One reason I like the SSD option is not having to wait if the drive has spun down but that’s another story.

    I’ll try some more testing. I have some ATA133 cards and 750gb ATA drives. Also have some 1 & 2tb SATA drives gathering dust. Could also try those with an ATA adapter

     

    Next 2 days are super busy but after that I’ll give it a try

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