How much life can you squeeze out of Sawtooth?
Given that PowerMacs will soon be retrofitted with second generation G5 processors, I'm wondering how much life my old Sawtooth 400 has left?
I certainly don't want to invest a whole lot of money into it...but I'm thinking this workhorse can be upgraded to good use for maybe another year or two?
A 1.25 ghz G4 processor upgrade is about $400, a new video card for perhaps, $100. It already has a 52x burner...
Might be worth it...unless Apple comes out with say a G5 1.6 tower for $999.
I certainly don't want to invest a whole lot of money into it...but I'm thinking this workhorse can be upgraded to good use for maybe another year or two?
A 1.25 ghz G4 processor upgrade is about $400, a new video card for perhaps, $100. It already has a 52x burner...
Might be worth it...unless Apple comes out with say a G5 1.6 tower for $999.
Comments
Originally posted by satchmo
A 1.25 ghz G4 processor upgrade is about $400, a new video card for perhaps, $100.
I've never thought the cost of upgrades like this was worth it. You'd still have the 100Mhz bus and all the other components that work together as a bottleneck. That said, a 400Mhz Sawtooth is still a very viable machine, it just depends on what you need to do with it. I think you'd be better off saving that money toward a new computer.
Maybe by the time OS X 11 (or whatever they call it by then) is out we will need a new machine but for now I see no reason to upgrade the processor.
Dual 450 MHz G4s
Radeon Mac Edition
Dual 80 GB hard drives
896 MB of RAM
Pioneer 8x DVD±RW burner
Logitech wireless keyboard+mouse set
Brand new NEC 17" monitor - 1372x1032@87 Hz (thanks to DisplayConfigX)
Yamaha 2.1 speakers
It was cheap, and it's nearly four years old. And yet it's still very nice in OS X. I recently made a bet with a friend (who has a G4/933) to see if we can each keep our machines as our primary computer until 2007. We can replace any component except the motherboard. However, I don't really even see the need to replace the processor or video card, yet. Maybe two years down the road, but I'm really amazed at how well old machines are supported under OS X. Apple seems to cut off really old machines very hard, but as long as you have a G4 (especially a dual), you meet the requirements for Quartz Extreme, and you have lots of RAM, OS X will run really well. And every update makes it faster, unlike OS 7/8/9 where every update ran slower.
It's already been upgraded with a radeon 8500 and a WD 8mb cache HD. With a gig of ram it runs great... that was until I got Unreal Tournament 2004.
Since I'm not really a gamer, I'm still holding out for a powerbook G5 or rev B desktop G5. Even then, I'll be hanging onto this Sawtooth as it works great for my home machine.
How fast can I email and online-bank anyway?
Originally posted by dfiler
How fast can I email and online-bank anyway?
Exactly. Gamers and high-end graphics pros are among the few who really need anything faster than a 400Mhz G4.
Originally posted by iDave
Exactly. Gamers and high-end graphics pros are among the few who really need anything faster than a 400Mhz G4.
Very true. People are so hung up on Mhz. I do a lot of high end graphics, video, and audio (FCP, soundtrack, photoshop, illustrator...ect) but my sawtooth and Cube have served me well. I know I'll need to upgrade hardware soon because the render times in FCP are getting a little too slow for me, but I'm going to wait for those PB G5s since I don't really want another desktop machine.
Just load up the ram and throw another HD in that sawtooth and it'll run like the dream that it is.
Originally posted by iDave
Exactly. Gamers and high-end graphics pros are among the few who really need anything faster than a 400Mhz G4.
My Sawtooth 400 is being used as my main computer for work. Mostly 2-D print graphics using XPress, Illustrator and Photoshop.
It really has served me well these past 5 years or so (how many PC owners can claim this kind of use?)
But like others here, realize it will eventually be put to pasture. I'm going to heed the advice of some here. With more RAM, OSX may still run okay on this, but as a main computer, I'll probably just go G5. Just crossing my fingers there will be an affordable low end model soon.
Snag a 1.25GHz processor upgrade for $395, overclock it to 1.45GHz. Throw in an 8x Pioneer DVD burner for $120 more, and grab two 160GB Serial ATA Seagates and a Serial ATA PCI card for less than $300 and you've got a pretty rad beast.
Originally posted by Pumpkintosh
Oh yes, the Sawtooth and GigE machines have a lot of life left in them.
Snag a 1.25GHz processor upgrade for $395, overclock it to 1.45GHz. Throw in an 8x Pioneer DVD burner for $120 more, and grab two 160GB Serial ATA Seagates and a Serial ATA PCI card for less than $300 and you've got a pretty rad beast.
Way more money than anyone should spend on a Sawtooth Mac, in my opinion but to each her own.
My question is that the new drive has a Ultra ATA/100 interface, but my built-in hard drive controller only has an ATA-66 (I think) interface. Will it make a big difference if I went out to buy a PCI ATA controller like the Sonnet Tempo ATA133 (and used at 100MHz)? Will hard drive accesses be any faster?
I have a AGP Graphics Sawtooth 400MHz upgraded to Powerlogix 1.2GHz. Thanks.
Originally posted by drumsticks
My question is that the new drive has a Ultra ATA/100 interface, but my built-in hard drive controller only has an ATA-66 (I think) interface. Will it make a big difference if I went out to buy a PCI ATA controller like the Sonnet Tempo ATA133 (and used at 100MHz)? Will hard drive accesses be any faster?
I don't think it'll really help that much. The main reason you'd want to get a PCI ATA controller would be to address larger hard drives. The Sawtooth's ATA controller can only recognize up to 128 GB. You can't use any space beyond that, and partitioning doesn't help. Since you have a 120 GB drive, I'd say don't bother. If you want to add larger hard drives later, buy a PCI Serial-ATA card instead, because S-ATA has more of a future than ATA/133 (aka P-ATA).
I was just wondering if I'll see any significant performance improvements with a faster interface. I deal with a fair bit of RAW photo files and might benefit from the faster interface, but I probably wouldn't bother if the difference is marginal.
This thing runs like a dream and Panther is awesome. The Radeon handles the games I play pretty well. Sure I'd like to play with a G5 but this machine is no slouch and I bought another year or so.
I'd say go for it, you don't have to put a ton of money into it to help it out.
P.S. I also have a MS blue optical mouse and it's a POS.
http://www.diskdrive.com.au/hard_disk_drives.htm
There is new Serial ATA_ specification being pushed around the hard disks. But still IDE hard disks are to full fill ATA 66 spcifications. I mean even the top notch hard disk drives does not transfer data at 66MB/s speeds. Then there is Ultra ATA 133, Ultra ATA 100. It_ is only a spec and any drive which is Ultra ATA 100 will not by default pump data at 100MB/sec.
The actual performance will depend on
1. The rotating speed of the drive (ie. 5400 or 7200rpm or 10000 rpm)
2._ Cache built on the drive (Can be 128k or 512k on some older brands, but_ 2 Mb on all current_ Seagate and Western digital drives_ Some high end Seagate and Western digital drives has 8MB cache)
3. Other unique drive parameters.
There is a selection of motherboards and controllers available with ATA 100/ 133 interfaces. But still we have to see any difference in performance due to just the ATA 100 or 133 spec.
PS: I have the same MS Blue optical mouse and I think it is alright
and working on spreadsheets. I don't see a need for a G5 unless VPC is made to run on a G5 (and it runs well). If this happens, I'm buying one.
These are from Sonnet:
800 MHz G4 - $239.95 (30 cents a Mhz)
1000 MHz G4 - $299.95 (30 cents a MHz)
1200 MHz G4 - $369.95 (30.8 cents a MHz)
Originally posted by MajorMatt
...but Im waiting for a GHz G4 $199 price point.
Look around on the net, you can get a 1GHz for $199. eBay for starters.
For free.
I think I'm going to mod it to DP 550Mhz and flash a GF3 card for it. That will cost me about $50.