It seems macs used to be easily upgradeable, but now I can't seem to find much info... Is it possible to upgrade the processor on a grey G4 tower (currently 450 mHz)? From taking a look inside it appears maybe no, but anyone know for sure?
Since the PCI power mac they all have been very easy to upgrade, especialy the towers. The problem is that there is no upgrades past 550 MHz. One claim is that Motorola now only say CPUs in batches of 10 000 instead of in sets of 1000 as before. Paying for 10 000 CPUs at one time may be to much for a small manufacturer. An other idea might be that Apple is stalling release of >500 MHz CPUs to force us to buy new computers. With the current G4 supporting 14x bus speed your G4/450 should be able to support a 1.4GHz G4 and that would keep you from buying a new Mac a while
<strong>Since the PCI power mac they all have been very easy to upgrade, especialy the towers. The problem is that there is no upgrades past 550 MHz. One claim is that Motorola now only say CPUs in batches of 10 000 instead of in sets of 1000 as before. Paying for 10 000 CPUs at one time may be to much for a small manufacturer. An other idea might be that Apple is stalling release of >500 MHz CPUs to force us to buy new computers. With the current G4 supporting 14x bus speed your G4/450 should be able to support a 1.4GHz G4 and that would keep you from buying a new Mac a while</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately this is not quite right. Here is some Info from MacOS Rumors:
Will Hammond wrote in with this question, on a subject that we have been following closely:
Several months ago I remember an article about Sonnet/PowerLogix etc. would soon be producing faster processor upgrades for Sawtooth G4 machines. Any word on if or when this will ever happen? The Dual 500's are over a year old and nobody has anything faster. I am currently sitting on 4 G4/450 boat anchors that aren't worth reselling nor upgrading.
Thanks for a great site.
Regards,
Will Hammond Unfortunately, the problem with making processor upgrades for modern Macs is significant; Apple's latest processor card designs include its custom Uni-North main controller chip. Unlike previous designs, which placed the main controller elsewhere, and used Motorola-built controllers which third party upgrade makers could purchase for on-card designs, this does not allow upgrade makers to produce their own replacement daughtercards.
Instead, upgrade developers must either secure a source of used Apple hardware which it can extract these new Uni-North chips from (which forces a dramatic lag behind Apple's latest models), or it must require customers to send in their existing processor cards for swapping of the Uni-N controllers. Both of these are complex, difficult, and very costly to do. Until such time as Apple implements a more upgradable processor card design (which is rather quite unlikely), this roadblock will remain.
As for Macs which do not have this problem, processors faster than the 550MHz G4 and 500MHz G3 are still difficult for upgrade makers to obtain at reasonable prices. These new processors (the PowerPCs 750CX, 750FX, 7450, 7451, 7440, 7455, etc.) use different voltages and physical connectors than their predecessors, which means the upgrade makers must develop entirely new custom daughtercards to adapt them to older motherboards. In some cases, this may not even be possible at all. In all cases, this quite unfortunately results in the kind of dramatic delays we've been seeing in this marketplace.
<strong>I for one, think Apple should simply start selling "official" upgrades.. I know of enough people that would buy them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>I for one, think Apple should simply start selling "official" upgrades.. I know of enough people that would buy them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple did make their own upgrades long ago. I bought one back in 1991. At that time they offered mainboard upgrades for the Mac II series (II -> IIfx, IIci -> Quadra 700, ...) for 1/3 of the price of a new system. Good thing was, that they upgraded the whole mainboard not just the processor. So they made some money and the users had up-to-date hardware.
I mean, since Apple can buy in larger quantity than Sonnet ever could, and probably already has special deals with Motorola, they could sell upgrades at lower prices than Sonnet does, and still make more profit. Of course, new machines probably have better margins. Still, wouldn't it be nice? Except I'd feel sorry for the quality folks at Sonnet & Co, but hey, that's how our Darwinian society works. They'll always have the Piccolo
Bryan Fury, you are right. Apple must know this. I wonder sometimes though, do they really know what it's like, out here in the trenches? We'll see come MWNY.
So I guess faster than 500mhz upgrades for Blue and White "Smurf" G3's are out of the question?
Well Sonnet, XLR8, powerLogix, and now Newertechnologies (back from the dead) can all get together and buy these huge quantities together and partition them out in an agreement. They could set up a dummy corporation that simply buys them and each company will 'buy' from their supplies.
Comments
<strong>Since the PCI power mac they all have been very easy to upgrade, especialy the towers. The problem is that there is no upgrades past 550 MHz. One claim is that Motorola now only say CPUs in batches of 10 000 instead of in sets of 1000 as before. Paying for 10 000 CPUs at one time may be to much for a small manufacturer. An other idea might be that Apple is stalling release of >500 MHz CPUs to force us to buy new computers. With the current G4 supporting 14x bus speed your G4/450 should be able to support a 1.4GHz G4 and that would keep you from buying a new Mac a while</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately this is not quite right. Here is some Info from MacOS Rumors:
Will Hammond wrote in with this question, on a subject that we have been following closely:
From: Will Hammond (will@******.net)
Date: Tue May 28, 2002 10:01:04 AM US/Eastern
To: [email protected]
Subject: Faster G4 upgrades?
Several months ago I remember an article about Sonnet/PowerLogix etc. would soon be producing faster processor upgrades for Sawtooth G4 machines. Any word on if or when this will ever happen? The Dual 500's are over a year old and nobody has anything faster. I am currently sitting on 4 G4/450 boat anchors that aren't worth reselling nor upgrading.
Thanks for a great site.
Regards,
Will Hammond Unfortunately, the problem with making processor upgrades for modern Macs is significant; Apple's latest processor card designs include its custom Uni-North main controller chip. Unlike previous designs, which placed the main controller elsewhere, and used Motorola-built controllers which third party upgrade makers could purchase for on-card designs, this does not allow upgrade makers to produce their own replacement daughtercards.
Instead, upgrade developers must either secure a source of used Apple hardware which it can extract these new Uni-North chips from (which forces a dramatic lag behind Apple's latest models), or it must require customers to send in their existing processor cards for swapping of the Uni-N controllers. Both of these are complex, difficult, and very costly to do. Until such time as Apple implements a more upgradable processor card design (which is rather quite unlikely), this roadblock will remain.
As for Macs which do not have this problem, processors faster than the 550MHz G4 and 500MHz G3 are still difficult for upgrade makers to obtain at reasonable prices. These new processors (the PowerPCs 750CX, 750FX, 7450, 7451, 7440, 7455, etc.) use different voltages and physical connectors than their predecessors, which means the upgrade makers must develop entirely new custom daughtercards to adapt them to older motherboards. In some cases, this may not even be possible at all. In all cases, this quite unfortunately results in the kind of dramatic delays we've been seeing in this marketplace.
this sux.
Apple is a hardware company. There's no benefit to them if you put a third-party upgrade card in your old Mac.
<strong>I for one, think Apple should simply start selling "official" upgrades.. I know of enough people that would buy them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree!
<strong>I for one, think Apple should simply start selling "official" upgrades.. I know of enough people that would buy them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple did make their own upgrades long ago. I bought one back in 1991. At that time they offered mainboard upgrades for the Mac II series (II -> IIfx, IIci -> Quadra 700, ...) for 1/3 of the price of a new system. Good thing was, that they upgraded the whole mainboard not just the processor. So they made some money and the users had up-to-date hardware.
[ 06-04-2002: Message edited by: Gulliver ]</p>
they seem to be concentrating on the case rather than the guts - big mistake.
I mean, since Apple can buy in larger quantity than Sonnet ever could, and probably already has special deals with Motorola, they could sell upgrades at lower prices than Sonnet does, and still make more profit. Of course, new machines probably have better margins. Still, wouldn't it be nice? Except I'd feel sorry for the quality folks at Sonnet & Co, but hey, that's how our Darwinian society works. They'll always have the Piccolo
Bryan Fury, you are right. Apple must know this. I wonder sometimes though, do they really know what it's like, out here in the trenches? We'll see come MWNY.
So I guess faster than 500mhz upgrades for Blue and White "Smurf" G3's are out of the question?