G4 upgrading

[Juan Carlos peinado]

Just a few thoughts…. I have a G4 1.42 and the thing has been overclocked to 1.53ghz. I added drives for a total of 740gb internal and just added a new card (Radeon 9200/256mb), the machine is a winner and short of a new G5 I couldn’t be happier. Louder than hell, though.

I think your biggest downfall is the clock speed. You should do a little research and see if you can upgrade the CPU’s at a reasonable price.

J. Carlos Peinado, Hanover, NH

[Jerry Hofmann]

Pete, it’s time for a new Mac… Seems to me that this is something we all face about every 3 years or so. Surely by now that G4 has paid for itself, and is still worth selling on ebay. Buying upgraded CPU chips usually results in a minor speed bump at best, and the cost of these upgrades isn’t in line with the improvement most of the time, because there’s more to a computer’s speed than a CPU speed. Bus speeds come into play for example… It’s time dude, and if new doesn’t appeal, you can look for a used dual G5 and save some bucks… in the long run, you’ll be much better off with a G5, and will never get there with your current machine.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Pete]

Well, I think that I’ve been spoiled by my G5, I just can’t believe that I edited on this G4 for 3 years. It is so painstakinly slow and the losing frames. unsynced audio/videojust makes it little more than a websurferor iTunes player. Thanks, I will heed your advice.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I think you’re on the right track… look at it this way: a single 1.8 G5 is about the same speed as dual 1.42 G4… a dual G5 just runs circles around any G4 (Twice as fast or more), and a Quad machine is nearly twice as fast as a dual…

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Jeff Carpenter]

It is so painstakinly slow and the losing frames. unsynced audio/videojust makes it little more than a websurferor iTunes player.
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I bet all those Mac Mini buyers out there would not agree! You have to remember that while this machine may not be suitable for pro work anymore, it would be a great find for an iMovie editor/video hobbyist. Put it that way in an E-bay ad and you’ll probably get more attention.

A lot of the machines you see on E-bay are the original 256 MB/40 GB or something like it. If you’ve got a nice amount of RAM and hard drive space you should be able to pitch it as the perfect machine for that home-video enthusiast who is thinking about buying a Mini to edit on but would like to have faster/larger hard drives.