A Quick Question About Upgrades
I posted the following thread in the "Genius Bar" forum but later discovered that this is probably a more proper place for the thread:
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I did a search for a similiar topic and couldn't find one, if I didn't search well enough I apologize in advance for creating a useless thread.
I'm a huge proponent of Macs. When my mother wanted to buy a laptop I lobbied (successfully) for her to get an iBook. When someone asks if they should get a Dell or a Gateway or have me build a box for them my usual answer is, "Get a Mac." You may have noticed that I didn't say that I own one. I don't. I probably will someday. But right now I only get on a machine every now and again to re test-drive it so to speak.
This is the main, if not only, reason I am very hesitant to but an Apple computer: Upgrades. I fully understand why Apple, being a hardware company, does not sell components and I agree entirely with their reasoning. It would be a business world Hari Kari. But, that being said, I cannot find a suitable explanation as to why a processor upgrade can only be achieved by buying an entirely new system. I've read somewhere that there are some third-party vendors that will upgrade chips (but was also told that doing so was risking the entire system) but again, I can't seem to bring myself to justify why a third-party vendor would be needed for, what is to me and probably the vast majority of Mac users, a simple chip swap.
Of the PC users (please don't read that as only Windows users, although there were many of them to) I've spoke with about migrating to Macs this is a fairly large sticking point. Maybe not as large as I see it but yet and still a non-option that makes contemplating a trasition a little less enticing.
If there is someone, or preferably as many people as possible, that could explain to me either a) the logic (no pun intended) behind this or b) the thing that I am missing that would open my eyes to the notion that a clock / bus / cache boost should mean everything gets gets scraped in the process I would be greatly appreciative.
Someday, when the time is right I may exchange my trusty Linux boxen for a sweet Mac tower or laptop as an everyday / all day machine. I just need to know what options I'm risking if any.
Thanks.
Chuck
__________________________________________________
I did a search for a similiar topic and couldn't find one, if I didn't search well enough I apologize in advance for creating a useless thread.
I'm a huge proponent of Macs. When my mother wanted to buy a laptop I lobbied (successfully) for her to get an iBook. When someone asks if they should get a Dell or a Gateway or have me build a box for them my usual answer is, "Get a Mac." You may have noticed that I didn't say that I own one. I don't. I probably will someday. But right now I only get on a machine every now and again to re test-drive it so to speak.
This is the main, if not only, reason I am very hesitant to but an Apple computer: Upgrades. I fully understand why Apple, being a hardware company, does not sell components and I agree entirely with their reasoning. It would be a business world Hari Kari. But, that being said, I cannot find a suitable explanation as to why a processor upgrade can only be achieved by buying an entirely new system. I've read somewhere that there are some third-party vendors that will upgrade chips (but was also told that doing so was risking the entire system) but again, I can't seem to bring myself to justify why a third-party vendor would be needed for, what is to me and probably the vast majority of Mac users, a simple chip swap.
Of the PC users (please don't read that as only Windows users, although there were many of them to) I've spoke with about migrating to Macs this is a fairly large sticking point. Maybe not as large as I see it but yet and still a non-option that makes contemplating a trasition a little less enticing.
If there is someone, or preferably as many people as possible, that could explain to me either a) the logic (no pun intended) behind this or b) the thing that I am missing that would open my eyes to the notion that a clock / bus / cache boost should mean everything gets gets scraped in the process I would be greatly appreciative.
Someday, when the time is right I may exchange my trusty Linux boxen for a sweet Mac tower or laptop as an everyday / all day machine. I just need to know what options I'm risking if any.
Thanks.
Chuck
Comments
? If you have a fairly new (<3 years old) computer and you want to make it faster, it will cost quite a bit of money because the only upgrades that will make it significantly faster are very expensive right now. You could upgrade a three-year-old PowerMac G4 from a 400 MHz chip to a dual 1.2 GHz chip, and you'd see significant improvement, but it would cost $800 for the upgrade. Take that $800 spent on the upgrade, add $500 for what you could get for the computer, and that's $1300 - nearly the price of a brand new 1.25 GHz G4 ($1300 for the single and $1600 for the dual). In addition to a faster processor, you get the faster bus speed, faster/better optical drive, faster/larger hard drive, more I/O, faster AGP bus, and it's a brand new machine so the whole thing will take a while to break down (old computers tend to break down and get flaky after a while). All for only a few hundred more.
? If you have a fairly new (<3 years old) computer and you want to make it just a little faster, you might be able to get, say, a single G4/800 for a G4/400 machine. $500 from selling the machine + $300 for the upgrade is only $800 that you'd have to buy a new machine if you chose to sell your old one instead of upgrading. So that actually makes sense. The only question you have to ask is if it's worth spending $300 to make your computer only a little faster rather than a lot faster (although going from a G4/400 to a G4/800 should make a big difference).
? If you have an old (3-5 years old) or very old (>5 years old) computer, upgrading makes no sense at all. A friend of mine tried souping up a 9600. But it was flaky. It had 384 MB of RAM, 20 GB and 10 GB hard drives, a CD-RW drive, a Rage 128 graphics card, and a G4/700 upgrade. He put lots of money into the machine, but all it did was crash and refuse to work with OS X and it was really slow anyway because of the low bus speed.
Upgrading is useful in a few situations. But I think generally you can just sell your old machine and buy a new one, getting all new components in the process. If you want to upgrade your processor, you still can - get a PowerMac. Lightly used G4s are cheap, I've seen dual 800 MHz ones for under a grand. One of those should be fast for years to come, and it'll cost about the same as an iMac after adding a cheap 17" flat panel. It should be faster from the get-go anyway.
Originally posted by wmf
Do Dell/HP/IBM offer CPU upgrades? I don't think they do; you have to buy CPU upgrades from a third party.
Ther difference is that the chips in the Dell / HP / Gateway / Compaq boxes are third party from jumpstreet. I could buy the chip from whatever AMD / Intel retailer I wanted and swap it as long as the MB supports. I don't know, maybe I'm ill-informed but is it possible to by either the Motorola or Intel chips?
Another difference is that I could build any of those boxes spec for spec (and better) if I wanted. That's not (unless I'm sorely mistaken) possible to do with Apple hardware.
As for what you said, Luca, after careful consideration I agree entirely with what you said.
Thanks, now on back to /.
Chuck
Originally posted by LinuxLover
Another difference is that I could build any of those boxes spec for spec (and better) if I wanted. That's not (unless I'm sorely mistaken) possible to do with Apple hardware.
Chuck
You can build a Mac, but you have to buy parts on eBay and such.
Originally posted by LinuxLover
I posted the following thread in the "Genius Bar" forum but later discovered that this is probably a more proper place for the thread:
Chuck
Apple's are upgradeable. In fact it's pretty easy to stuff a 100GB HD in a PowerMacG3, make a PowerMac G4/450 a dual G4/1Ghz, stuff 1.5GB RAM into a G4, etc. There are even upgrades for the iMac (eg. 266Mhz to 600Mhz), and you can put a new video card in a PowerMac [pretty easily, I believe]. That is, it's not too hard to turn this:
Power Mac G4 "Sawtooth"
*450Mhz
*128MB RAM
*20GB HD
*DVD-ROM
*Rage 128Pro
into this:
*1.25Ghz
*768MB RAM
*80GB HD
*SuperDrive
*Radeon 7500