upgrading to dp4 on a g4 dual 533

mbmusic · Post by **mbmusic** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:40 pm

About to install upgrade from dp3.11 to dp4 on my g4 dual 533 with 1.2 gigs ram. I am thinking about upgrading the cpu. Iam concerned that dp4 will run sluggish on ox 10.3.9 with my dual 533 g4. Any tips appreciated.
Thanks mbmusic

dimensiondk · Post by **dimensiondk** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 1:54 pm

You're right to consider an upgrade. I think you'd be a little bit dissapointed with the performance hit coming from os9/dp3.11.
There are lots of upgrade options for you. If I were you (already having a dual533), I wouldnt bother with anything less than a dual 1gig...Which means you will be shelling out a fair chunk of wedge (think upwards of $400). I would avoid Powerlogix upgrades- they will seem cheaper than giga/sonnet/owc, but a quick look at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com will show you why.
You will notice a nice performance gain by having a quartz extreme capable video card too. You'd wanna check with apple.com for those requirements. If you already have a Radeon class (or higher) video card then this may not be too relevant. I noticed a big difference in OSX's general responsiveness by dumping my Sawtooth's rage128 for an (original) Radeon ($25 on ebay).
Dave

mbmusic · Post by **mbmusic** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:08 pm

dimensiondk wrote:You're right to consider an upgrade. I think you'd be a little bit dissapointed with the performance hit coming from os9/dp3.11.
There are lots of upgrade options for you. If I were you (already having a dual533), I wouldnt bother with anything less than a dual 1gig...Which means you will be shelling out a fair chunk of wedge (think upwards of $400). I would avoid Powerlogix upgrades- they will seem cheaper than giga/sonnet/owc, but a quick look at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com will show you why.
You will notice a nice performance gain by having a quartz extreme capable video card too. You'd wanna check with apple.com for those requirements. If you already have a Radeon class (or higher) video card then this may not be too relevant. I noticed a big difference in OSX's general responsiveness by dumping my Sawtooth's rage128 for an (original) Radeon ($25 on ebay).
Dave

Thanks For the reply
I run 2 monitors I have a Ge force2 video card and an ATY,RV100, (Came with the g4 dual 533 digital) I was expecting to go with a $400 buck 1.?? gig dual upgrade cpu. I appreciate the feedback I was leaning toward the OWC Dual cpu.
mbmusic

slippedout · Post by **slippedout** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:16 pm

I have a G4 dual 533. Mine is the "Digital Audio" model. I am running OS X Tiger (10.4.X), and DP 4.6 without any issues. The speed and performance in DP are great. I think what has prolonged the life of my machine is my Ultra 160 SCSI bus (a card in 1 PCI slot). For my drives, I have 1-7200 rpm Quantum, 1-10,000 rpm Seagate, and 1-15,000 rpm Seagate. I keep two drives for OS + Apps (1 Panther, 1 Tiger), and one for DP project data. Also, I have a NVIDIA GeForce video card (not sure which one, but it handles the Quartz Extreme instructions from OS X).

Bottom line is I am very happy with the CPU performance of my machine. I can push a lot of data and processing through it and it performs like a champ.

mbmusic · Post by **mbmusic** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:56 pm

thanks for the input I think I will upgrade to dp4 and see how it goes. By the way how much ram are you running with.
mbmusic

wvandyck · Post by **wvandyck** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:59 pm

I' m running a dp 533 with maximum ram (1.5gb), a Firmtek SATA controller with two Seagate 80GB 7200 rpm 8mg caches drives, OS 10.3.9 and DP 4.6.1/Mach 5. I record Mach 5 parts as I go, and process (eq tonal shaping, compression etc) audio every so often as needed. I can use several instances of PSP plugs during mixdown without a problem. The audio performnace monitor indicates some stress but I don't actually "feel it" when working. Must the effect of the dual processors.

My next step is to install the Giga G-Celerator Dual 1.8 GHz 7447A all G4 Universal 7AD-1800U for a sweet price. See the second link below.

I would definitely spend some quality time here: http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/cpureview.lasso (Take notes!!!)

I would encourage you to consider the GigaDesign upgrade: http://macgurus.com/productpages/cpu_upgrades/Giga.php (They consistently get excellent ratings at the xlr8yourmac cpu review site!!!)

Please post your results.

mbmusic · Post by **mbmusic** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:08 pm

Wow, I am new to this forum and and totally blown away by the input here. I should have signed up long ago. Thanks for the replies, great advice and links
This forum rocks!
Mike B