Or...How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Upgrade

So, as mentioned in this space earlier, I've been planning on upgrading my existing home system, which up to this point has been an upgraded 450Mhz G4 "Sawtooth". I've put a slightly upgraded Video card into it (NVidia Geforce 4MX) and upgraded the CPU to dual 450Mhz.

This system has been doing...well, O.K. for quite a while. I've also been slapping an egregious amount of storage in it (though not as insane as some. I'm currently running at ~700Gb (It would actually be ~900Gb, but I'm using one 200Gb drive as a mirror. You should too.

Anyways, as stated, the system has been O.K., but it's definitely been showing it's age. Newer games just scoff at it. In fact, even some older games like Aliens Vs. Predator 2 really choke once the action gets going.

The Video card that I have in there is quite sufficient for the tasks in many of these games; it's the CPU's. Not that they're bad. But there are 2 things against me.

1) Most programmes simply don't take advantage of both CPU's. This means that, with a lot of games, I'm really coming at them with a single 450Mhz. UN-acceptable!

2) Well, c'mon, even at a combined ~900Mhz, there are programmes that scoff even at that.

So. Being the owner of one of the best cases that Apple has ever built, I figured I'd upgrade rather than replace. So..what to get?

I'll save you a lot of commentary here. There are advantages to single and dual configs. I'm partial to having multiple processors. After doing the math on Mhz/$, I settled on the GigaDesign Dual 1.3Ghz upgrade. I like how Sonnet's designs look, but they were too pricey, and honestly, how often am I really gonna get to look at that cool purple aluminum heat sink?

So I shelled out $549 for the Gigadesign, paying $4.7/Mhz.

It arrived yesterday. After wating patiently until after my daughters dance recital ("You've changed man"), I tucked her into bed ("I don't know who you are anymore"), and set to work.

After going through the laborious task that is getting my machine out of it's space, I cracked the case, yanked the CPU's and slapped in the new CPU.

After realizing that I had put the fans for the heat sink on the wrong side, and that was why the case wouldn't close. I noticed something. Well, 2 somethings.

First, this is apparently either a dual 1.0Ghz that's overclocked (it says 1.25Ghz on the box), or you can "underclock" the CPU's. Secondly...yes, that means you can overclock it as well. Up to 1.5Ghz. Woohoo! Woo Hoo! Woo...hey...why isn't it booting?

Well, that's just swell.

I boot it and...nothing. Now mind you, I still have it at 1.0Ghz, which is how it came set from GigaDesigns.

(Insert tinkering noises here, some of those "Hyperdrive failing" noises from "The Empire Strikes back" and some assorted cursing noises)

So, to keep this vaguely short, after realizing that I can boot from a Tiger DVD, I track the issue to my startup drive. At first I think that I'm drawing too much power, and start unplugging drives

Further investigation reveals that my system now suddenly hates the ancient VST Ultratek 66 ATA card that I have been using to run additional drives.

Much tinkering later....

At 4am this morning, I achieved success! Things are back to normal.

Wait...did I say "normal" I meant to say rawkin' fast!!

Apparently the VST card hates some of my drives, so I ended up shuffling them around and losing one (as in, I can't put it back in the box, not that it's dead) hard drive. I can live with this for now, until I replace that VST...which I needed to do anyways.

I'm currently running the card at 1.3Ghz, and it moves. I can run games that I couldn't even consider before, and older games cam be cranked up to glorious quality.

If this had been a "normal" setup, no doubt I'd have had no problems. My system is so hacked together, changing a battery can be an interesting experience.

After I've had a chance to get a feel for how much heat the 1.3 throws out, I'm going to crank it up to 1.5Ghz. I've already run it at that speed for a short time, just to see if it worked, and it did, but I didn't really push it.

So..end result, do I recommend the GigaDesigns Dual 1.3Ghz?

I have to say "yes" at least for now. So far the system seems solid, quicker than all get-out and a real pleasure to work on.

Check back with me in a week.
7:16:39 PM     Discuss: []