G4 Mystic Processor Upgrade

Hello everyone. I currently own a G4 Mystic with 1.5 GB RAM, a 10 GB (Emergency Boot drive with OS 9 and 10.4), 40 GB (Current System Drive 10.4.9) and a 180 GB (ProTools Professional Audio Storage Drive) Hard drive, an external firewire 150 GB drive, a DVD burner, an ATI Radeon 9800 card running dual displays, a firewire/usb expansion card, MBOX 2 Pro Audio, an ADS tech video importer, and the whole point of this post- a dual 550 mhz overclocked processor. I read some interesting articles over on xlr8yourmac.com and thought I'd give overclocking a shot, and it hasn't failed me yet! I have a ton of soldering experience so not a big deal...anyways people keep warning me that it is going to fail no matter what. I don't think it's going to, but it is always something that worries me. That coupled with the fact that I would still like more than a dual 550 mhz, I am wondering if I could get some opinions of what I should do for a processor upgrade. I'm pretty aware of what's available but I would like to hear from people who have maybe already upgraded and what they thought of the upgrade. Also, money worries aside, what is the best upgrade I can possibly get for my mystic? And with all of my periphreals, is there a power threat of upgrading to a faster processor?

G4 Dual 550 Mhz Gigabit Ethernet Tower, 10, 30 180 GB HD, 1.5 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.9), 600 Mhz (100 Mhz bus) G3 ibook Dual USB, 640 GB RAM, 80 GB 7200 RPM Hitachi HD

Posted on Jun 13, 2007 6:24 AM

20 replies

Jun 15, 2007 6:27 AM in response to Rodney Culling

Hey Rodney-how do you think the dual G4 1.4 by gigadesigns compares to a newer processor...say the G5 or the Duocores?

Jun 15, 2007 7:35 AM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody

I think it's pretty much as good an upgrade as you can get for the G4 Power Macs, although at the end of the day you still have the same inherent limitations of your existing logic board, especially it's 100MHz system bus and memory speeds etc.

IMHO the biggest weakness of the G4s is the system bus speed, compounded by the fact that with dual processors, both processors share the same system bus. By comparison the G5s (for example) support bus speeds in the 1GHz+ range, and have two independant busses in the dual processor models.

The G4 processors themselves still don't fully support DDR RAM even to this day. The MDD and FW800 Power Macs may have shipped with it, but the bandwidth of the MPX bus (which connects the G4 processor to the rest of the system) was still only half the bandwidth of the memory. That's partly why the MDD and FW800 G4s weren't any quicker than the original Quicksilvers for processor related tasks, all other things being equal.

Having said that though, I still have a soft spot for them and the processor upgrades that are available still significantly improve the performance of the earlier G4 models.

Jun 15, 2007 8:05 AM in response to Rodney Culling

Hey thanks! Yeah these low bus speeds are killer but...I grew up in the old school (I started using macs on the classic...when I was 4) and I like my G4 tower. I understand that old computers are only so expandable, but I have been super impressed and very pleased with just how expandable these G4 towers are. The GE Powermac was released in 2001, and I am still able to run the latest software, the latest OS, and install some of the latest hardware and periphreals and run them at more than acceptable speeds. It is very easy to use and upgrade, basically every hardware piece I've added to my computer, whether it be HD's, PCI or a new AGP card, USB devices and (cross my fingers) a processor upgrade has all been just plug and play. I work in a PC ruled environment (Architecture/CAD) and I don't believe I have ever installed anything that was plug and play except maybe a flash drive, and that's in 4 years of working with them and installing loads of devices and software. The G4 towers are also very reliable. I have had my G4 GE for about 3 years, and my father has the same model that he bought back in 2001. They are both still running as if they were brand new, with the same original HD as well. I don't think anyone can say that about their PC back in 2001...6 years of reliability and ability to adapt to a constantly changing technological world says alot for apple computers. I don't think PC's will ever reach that point, because most PC users really don't care...that's the norm. Their computers fail within 2 years and that's just the way computers are. Then you go and buy a new one. We just had that happen at our work, a hard drive failed and I offered to fix it, and my boss said just buy a new one for $500. They are hardly fine-tuned systems that operate smoothly like my old GE. They just come with whatever hardware in them as long as it works. You can buy two of the same exact model of computer, and one will have SATA bus and the other will have an IDE. It makes me sad. Okay sorry for the ranting and raving...I just love Macs way too much.

Jun 15, 2007 8:56 AM in response to MyrkridianRhapsody

I completely agree about the G4 towers in terms of expandability and reliability, especially with the earlier Sawtooth - Quicksilver models. To me they also seem to be the perfect design with no compromises having to be made because of the pocessor. IMHO things started to slide slightly with the MDD models due to the holes punched in the front and back for ventilation, the additional fan noise and DDR RAM the processor couldn't fully utilise. Like you say though they're still all useable machines today for most things, especially with a couple of upgrades.

Jun 15, 2007 9:14 AM in response to Rodney Culling

Yeah, I suppose thats why mac finally buckled down and switched to the duo-cores. Their G4's and G5's really had reached their limit as far has personal computing was concerned. Having so many fans and needing so much circulation to the point of not being able to open the computer while it's running for fear of overheating is not a good thing...

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G4 Mystic Processor Upgrade