Upgrade of Power Mac G4 - Sawtooth (Dual 500 MHz)???

[AlexHall74]

Hey everyone,

I'm requesting a sanity check.

I have a Power Mac G4, Gigabit Ethernet, Dual 500 MHz processors, 100 MHz Bus, OsX 10.4.3, 768 MB RAM.

My current DAW is a PIV 2.4 GHz - 1 GB RAM, Win XP Pro, M-Audio 2496, ESI Maya 44.

I am using Tracktion 2 as my sequencer (will work on PC and Mac).

I'm thinking about upgrading the Mac. Sort of as a science project, sort of because I want to use it for tracking and the PC solely as a software instrument.

Upgrades I'm considering for the Mac are:

(1) Upping the memory to 1.5 or 2 GB (around $200 - $250). I have read that this model of Mac will support 1.5 GB RAM under OS9 but will go up to 2 GB under OSX. If this is true I'll go for the whole 2 GB.

REF: http://macramdirect.com/g4powermac.html

(2) Replacing the dual 500 MHz chips with a Giga Designs 1.8GHz G4 Processor Upgrade for AGP - $279

REF: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9730621990&sspagename=ADME:L:RTQ:US:1

Part of me says to sell both machines and use that money + the upgrade money to buy one new/fast powerful PC DAW.

The other part of me says to upgrade this G4 and see what it can do.

I am not worried about having the biggest baddest DAW in the world, just a reliable and capable machine.

Plus, it would be nice to have the Mac to use when my PC is down. :lol:

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[Merlot]

The other part of me says to upgrade this G4 and see what it can do.

I am not worried about having the biggest baddest DAW in the world, just a reliable and capable machine.

Plus, it would be nice to have the Mac to use when my PC is down. :lol:

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

I would go with this option. You could either get a good PC and have some $$ left over for gear or software.
You can also get a powermac G5 for decent $$ now that the intels are starting to come out.

Good luck and keep us update!

[jasedee]

If it were me, I'd ditch the PC and G4 and get me a G5 Quad...

But then again, Im a Mac whore :twisted:

[AlexHall74]

Merlot wrote:
I would go with this option. You could either get a good PC and have some $$ left over for gear or software.
You can also get a powermac G5 for decent $$ now that the intels are starting to come out.

Good luck and keep us update!

This is the direction I'm leaning. I can't afford a G5 right now, even used. But someday....

Jase wrote:
If it were me, I'd ditch the PC and G4 and get me a G5 Quad...

But then again, Im a Mac whore :twisted:

I can't pitch the PC, probably not for over a decade even if I wanted too.

I've got too many applications for it right now. Also, my wife uses the PC too. So, unless I can chane her mind (rarely possible) it has to stay...

:lol:

[3o3]

If it were me, I'd ditch the PC and G4 and get me a G5 Quad...

But then again, Im a whore :twisted:

How much jase?

[Drammy]

I would ditch them both and get a dual core 64 bit processor PC, they are tops of the benchmark tests, by far...

I can give you some specs if you are interested.

[AlexHall74]

I would ditch them both and get a dual core 64 bit processor PC, they are tops of the benchmark tests, by far...

I can give you some specs if you are interested.

Wow, that's a curve ball!

I am completely open for suggestions.

If you have any specs handy I will certainly consider them.

Are you thinking of a custom machine or of a certain manufacturer?

[Timo]

64-bit dual-core Pentium-M's are gonna rock (to be released at the back end of this year). :) Expensive initially though i bet.

[jasedee]

If it were me, I'd ditch the PC and G4 and get me a G5 Quad...

But then again, Im a whore :twisted:

How much jase?
Mate, you could'nt afford my sweet tanned (Virgin) ass!!!!

:lol:

[3o3]

Mate, you could'nt afford my sweet tanned (Virgin) ass!!!!

Pff.. You're not a virgin. I've heard stories about pigs!

[Khazul]

At this point in time, I would suggest you upgrade rather than replace *IF* the result of upgrading will satisfy your needs for say the rest of this year - maybe even do both upgrades?

You allways loose *loads* when selling computers that arnt still curernt geenration, compared to the day to day value of having the thing.

intel mac support is only just getting going - I dont know if drivers have to be platform specific or not - ie whether you need specific intel mac drivers - I would assume so.

On the PC side - theres another thread here (http://www.infekted.org/viewtopic.php?t=5586) the details my recent experience with WinX64 - the summary is I had to go back to WinXP due to lack of available X64 bit drivers for some of my audio gear.

[AlexHall74]

At this point in time, I would suggest you upgrade rather than replace *IF* the result of upgrading will satisfy your needs for say the rest of this year - maybe even do both upgrades?

You allways loose *loads* when selling computers that arnt still curernt geenration, compared to the day to day value of having the thing.

intel mac support is only just getting going - I dont know if drivers have to be platform specific or not - ie whether you need specific intel mac drivers - I would assume so.

On the PC side - theres another thread here (http://www.infekted.org/viewtopic.php?t=5586) the details my recent experience with WinX64 - the summary is I had to go back to WinXP due to lack of available X64 bit drivers for some of my audio gear.

Khazul, that's great info to consider. Thank you for furnishing it in this thread.

I really don't want to be bleeding edge at this point.

It looks like I'm going to upgrade the G4.

This whole project has made me think of something. Isn't it funny how vintage synths are cool (especially analogs) yet "vintage" or even slightly old computers are not?

-----------------------------------

Jase and Sebastian...

You are sickos!!!! :shock:

Who has the photos of Jase and the pigs???

[Khazul]

This whole project has made me think of something. Isn't it funny how vintage synths are cool (especially analogs) yet "vintage" or even slightly old computers are not?


How absolutely true.

But thats creaping into the synths and mixers as well - basically anything with a usb or firewire port - how useful and of what value will they be after driver support has stopped, and you cant even run the old drivers on some future OS meaning youve lost half/all of the functionality...

Theres some gear I have that aint old, but Im having to think in terms of dumping it on ebay before its too late. If it wasnt computer intergrated, I might be intending to keep it for years yet...

At least the TI is still a great hardware synth and will remain very useful long after driver support stops in x years.

[AlexHall74]

Khazul wrote:
Theres some gear I have that aint old, but Im having to think in terms of dumping it on ebay before its too late. If it wasnt computer intergrated, I might be intending to keep it for years yet...

At least the TI is still a great hardware synth and will remain very useful long after driver support stops in x years.

Yup. Once USB, USB 2, Firewire, etc. go the way of the Dodo, devices with such connectivity will be limited to audio output only.

Maybe one of the ports mentioned above will become some kind of defacto standard for backward compatibility on non computing devices (synths, TVs, stereos, etc), kind of like serial/parallel ports are now.

Every computer seems to have a serial and parallel port, but they are not nearly as used as USB/firewire now-a-days it seems.

I guess that is also an advantage of soft synths. They will forever play exactly the same as long as there is an OS and machine (or an app on a new machine/non-supported OS that emulates the soft synths required environment, kind of like Mac can run Virtual PC). Their knobs never break, the have no LEDs to go bad, but boy oh boy do their filters suck. :lol:

[Timo]

Mate, you could'nt afford my sweet tanned (Virgin) ass!!!!

Pff.. You're not a virgin. I've heard stories about pigs!

One-legged pigs that actually look like a penis? :lol:

[3o3]

BWHAHAHHA, AYE INdEDd,