How Can I Get G5 Speed out of a G4?
 

We do some photoshop work, but mostly quark, no video or gaming, so I'm a little reluctant to opt for a G5. We have 3 G4s, and I'm wondering what I need to upgrade to get the best speed. I know the processor, but is that also where the bus speed issue comes in, and is that the main difference between G4 and G5?

I spent far too much cash upgrading my G4, and ended up buying a G5 in the end. It's a lot more than just processor speed. Depending on your requirements, there are lots of good deals around for refurbished G5s, and as the Macintels get nearer, the older G5s should get very affordable. Look for a G5 Mac Mini, too...

how much ram do the G4's have? Maxing it out with Ram is the best way to get performance gains... but it will never be a G5!

I maxed out the RAM on a 733-MHz G4 QuickSilver (2001) at 1.5 GB RAM. That made a big difference. Much more nimble, but the G5 Dual 2.0 MHz with 2.5 GB RAM is well worth the investment.

Respectfully, Norm

More memory doesn't necessarily speed up a computer. You'll only see gains if you're running out of application memory. Once you have enough memory, that's it.

G5 speed is more than a CPU; for Photoshop, your memory subsystem speed will make a big difference.

What is the speed of your G4s? Are we talking 400MHz or 1.25 GHz? That will have a big impact on your upgrade plans or the decision to move up to a G5. Do any of the machines have dual processors? Do tell us more!

In general, all upgrades can help with speed. Newer, faster hard drives can have a positive effect, especially if your machines are currently hurting for space or running ancient HDs. RAM will help to a point, as others have mentioned. And for some Photoshop work I've seen a new graphics card on an old G4 help out a surprising amount.

Really to increase overall speed and performance on a higher level of noticeability, you must increase your system bus. So, the mother board is the backbone of your system. Data is transfered from every peripheral via motherboard (main logic board). Now, it is only potential speed, if you do not utilize the hardware increase it is kind of pointless. It will be like dropping a stage 4 turbo kit in your car if you only plan on driving the speed limit. I mean why do it? The more bandwidth you have in your system buses the faster data can be transfered throughout your whole system.

IMHO, upgrading a mac is pretty pointless given the price breaks versus the performance. The macintosh market is just not an upgrade market. They do not make upgraded system boards and processors you can just buy and pop in your system. You can buy a faster system board on ebay, but it has to be from that same series of mac, otherwise it won't mount in the case properly. Plus why even bother running a higher end processor on a slow system bus with SDRAM? That seems pointless to me. You are better off money, time, and piece of mind wise to just sell your current mac on ebay and take all of that money and apply it towards a new macintosh computer. This is why I recomend people buy apple care. If you are the type of person who likes to upgrade every 2 to 3 years, buy apple care. So then when you sell your mac on ebay, you can sell it with a warranty. Which makes it's resell value that much more. I went through three apple laptops in three years, because I kept upgrading and selling my old one, and everytime I had apple care. I for the most part broke even as well when upgrading.

Sure they do. There are many many places where you can get upgraded systems boards and processors to buy and pop into your system, but here's one example: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/accelerators/

Trevor

My G4s are . . .
 

I have a 1.25hz dual with 1.75GB ram. Would it help to put a SATA drive in this?

Also, a 933hz with 1 gig ram, and I assume this will benefit from a faster upgrade, but that won't change the bus speed will it? I put a 1Ghz in an older g4 (AGP) and it really moves now (compared) but I note it still shows 100 mhz for bus speed.

Thanks for your input.

more ram and dedicated fast hard disks
 

I have upgraded quite afew G4's lately.

The long and short of it is loads of RAM and a fast hard disk 8MB/16MB cache 7200 and big (not system disk) for photoshop swap files and you can claw a good 20% more out of Adobe CS programs.

Quark should be ok on all of your machines.

That's a lot of memory. The SATA drive will only help when loading/saving files and programs. Photoshop does use the scratch space a little even with enough memory, but not enough to make much of a difference. That drive would improve your save/load performance a bit, but not by a huge amount.

Off the top of my head I'd say no. If you want a faster HD system (in a Power Mac G4) I think the money would be better spend on a fast ATA drive, or better yet two fast ATA drives and an ATA RAID card.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_raid133.html

A client has a two drive RAID system using a card similar to this on a Power Mac G4 and is very happy with it.

Yes, but its not made by apple, and from what I have heard there have been many problems running OS X on those third party upgrade kits. Of course, i will admit I have never really ever worked with any of that stuff. All of my clients/company equipment has always been apple only.

I would almost recomend ebaying upgrade apple parts (ie a new G4 system board and faster processor) over buying those kits. I have seen a 1gig g4 and logic board for as low as 250 dollars on ebay, and it is an actual apple part.

I've put many 3rd party CPU upgrades in, and had very little problems.

I have a Gigadesigns CPU card (1.4 Ghz) that's been running for 3 years or so continuously in a G4. I am even overclocking it at Giga's suggestion. OS X runs fine on it.

I suspect you've either heard very old information (FUD), or else information regarding very old machines. If you upgrade a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth or anything newer than that, you should have almost no problem. Even a B&W PowerMac G3 shouldn't pose many issues for CPU upgrades (although it still has a substandard IDE bus on the Rev 1 models.)

On the other hand, if you're trying to run OS X on a 9600 or an 8100, then yes, get ready for some big challenges.

The amount of extra cost and hassle to ship and replace the entire logic board and processor is not even near to being worth it, in my opinion. If you're replacing the entire motherboard, then just replace the computer. On the other hand, you can swap out the processor daughterboard in seconds, it's very easy, and it costs less. And I've never seen reliability issues of ANY kind with doing this in computers at least as new as the B&W PowerMac G3.

The "actual Apple part" is of no value to me personally. But if that's important to you, then by all means spend the extra money and effort.

Trevor

This is from my experience. I have not worked with a lot of the third party hardware out there for macs, but the stuff I have encountered caused isssues. My whole point earlier is that putting in a faster processor that will actually support that series does not give you the huge performance increase you think it does. The backbone of every system is a good motherboard (main logic board in apple's case). The more bandwidth your motherboard has the more effecient and faster data can be transfered throughout your system. The more cache the board has the more instruction sets it can hold for the processors. I found a Dual 800MHz G4 w/ 768 mb of ram for approx 450.00 on ebay. If you were to take a system with the exact same hardware specs except one system has an 800Mhz and the other one has a 1Ghz, the real world performance increase is not going to be majorly noticeable. Also, if your system board is old enough that it runs SDRAM you are not fully taking all the benefits of a faster system. That is why I recomend buying a logic board + processor upgrade. There are many places that sell used parts, ebay, service electronics, micro medics, macservice.com, etc etc. This is just what I would do personally. A lot of places out there have flat rate upgrades for apple laptops as well. You just have to look in the right place.

In some cases people would want amost 900 dollars for that dual processor system, and in that case I agree with you. Purchase another system, it is more cost effective.

The reason why I don't like non apple parts is because I have ran into so many small quirks over the years with non apple parts. Certain functions do not work properly, certain applications will not do everything they are supposed to do, random kernel panics when doing certain operations, etc etc. Most of the times I think it was due to some bottle necking issue, but never looked into it further than that.

If you can get away with using a third party upgrade kit then cool, it just has never quite worked for me.

A CPU upgrade will work just fine in your box, and you will notice a huge difference going from your 450MHz to 1GHz, any more is not worth the $, IMO. Add to that more RAM (Max it out for best results, Tiger is RAM hungry) and you'll be quite happy.
That is your biggest hurdle.
Once that is accomplished, wait a little while and then tackle the GPU upgrade.

I run Photoshop on G3 B&W... I have the rev. 2 motherboard and 1Gig of ram.

I went into the preferences and made Photoshop use more RAM and gave it plenty of SCRATCH DISK Space... now it's running smoothly

See www.tigerdirect.com and also, www.otherworldcomputing.com

I'm running a G4 Sawtooth, Tiger, CS2 and other artistis apps. I have maxed out my ram and swapped my hd for a faster, larger (120GB) one. Together I have only spent about $350. The processor upgrade would be around $300.

I suppose for the $$$ I could just grab a Mac Mini... but I would need to get the highend, $900 version and max it out with ram too (eventhough the buss speeds or only 667). By then, you're getting into lowend McBook or Lowend IMac territory... and for that matter, might as well, hold on to your cash and wait to get a G5 tower. I use a pimped 5 at my studio... and I'm not sure I need another one ot home. Realistically, if I were to do mag. print design, I'm fine the way I am going. Also, if I do large bilboard stuff (out of the office) I just quarter size it and distill it to hit resolution needs. So far, I have had no issues with this... but that's just me.

Not quite correct. Photoshop behaves more like an AV program than most other apps. It has its own virtual memory system and relies heavily on it. If you don't quite have enough RAM for a particular image it will need to hit the disk all the time. Disk performance does make a difference with large files. Photoshop pros often start talking about how they bought a bigger hard drive, then a faster hard drive, then a RAID.

If you are speccing out new Photoshop hardware it should be with these factors in mind.

Note that the quoted article is about systems with more than 3,5 GB of RAM.
Before that, unless a processor update provides dramatically better performance, more RAM is still the way to go.

Disk performance becomes an issue once you hit either OS X or PS swapping.

Given the shoddy performance of 2,5" disks, a mini is a really poor choice for PS. Maxing out the RAM and booting off a FW disk are possible solutions.

On the surface the article is about systems with more than 3.5GB of RAM, but the lower half of the article is about allocations and disks and applies to anyone. Knowing how all parts of the system are critical, not just RAM, supports the idea that it's often better to get a whole new machine with up to date subsystems.