Can the processor(s) in the Powermac G5's be upgraded?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I just realized that I've never heard anything about 3rd party processor upgrades for the current powermacs. Does anybody know if we can upgrade them?



Thanks in advance to all who answer.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    The only G5 multipliers I know of are 2x (PowerMacs) and 3x (iMacs), so I'd guess that upgrades would run at 3x the bus frequency, or 2.4GHz for first generation 1.6GHz PowerMac G5 (IIRC their bus frequency was 800MHz). However, I'd be fairly certain that all 2GHz+ chips are currently allocated for Mac production and upgrade demand is probably minimal, as G5 Macs as still new-ish.



    When was the last non-upgradeable PowerMac sold? Wasn't it the 7200/8200?
  • Reply 2 of 6
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    I wonder when apple will allow companies like powerlogix to sell G5 chips for upgrades? In a few years I would love to be able to pop a couple 3Ghz chips in my current machine. Also I was always curious whether it would be possible to have two CPUs of different speeds in a powermac. For example, a 2Ghz chip and a 3Ghz chip.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    tomjtomj Posts: 120member
    i believe the 7200 was upgradeable via the cache slot...i think there was a lawsuit about it or something...but i can't suggest any other options either, so i guess this is a wasted post
  • Reply 4 of 6
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    I'd start looking for upgrades to appear following the first major update to the G5. Maybe after dual cores ship, and probably after the "980" debuts, or whatever the CPU is called that is based on the Power 5 CPU.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Are the 970s soldered or detachable?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    benroethigbenroethig Posts: 2,782member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Stoo

    Are the 970s soldered or detachable?



    On the Power Macs, they're on a card similar to those used on MDD G4s. On the iMacs, they're soldered to the motherboard. In theory, yes they are upgradable. In reality not so much. The fans are chip controlled which is set to the orginal CPU speed. Unless they find a way to reprogram the fans, they won't work right. With the exception of the PMG3s and Early PMG4s which used standard ZIF sockets Apple has done everything they can to make the machines as modular as possible for Apple but as hard to upgrade as possible for the end users.
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