CPU UPGRADE

[tclash]

I had a Powerlogix single 1.2 in my Quicksilver (867) that worked flawlessly for a year and a half. Then I put in a Gigadesigns dual 1.33 and after three weeks it blew up, taking my motherboard with it.

So personally I'd have to recommend Powerlogix over Giga

[vicwind]

tclash, sorry to hear that. you are one of a very few (under 20) people having reported such a failure on your gigabump. i've been happy with my dual 1.33, no probs yet and lotsa usage. that company has great support, BTW, and should have replaced it right away. did you try, or accidently move the dip switches on the card itself? while it is possible to overclock these cards, giga doesn't recommend it. if not, i feel for you. you got unlucky. i have no affiliation with ANY company.

[humpback]

I too have a AGP G4... originally a 500Mhz 'Sawtooth' (1999-2000). I'll add another vote for Sonnet. I swapped in the Sonnet 1.3 Dual processor and have had great results... No problems with crashes in PT and the only thing Sonnet requires for install is a driver (and firmware update) for OS9. Its also surprisingly quiet for having an added fan! I know of a friend who also got one and had a little problem with the startup grey screen of death while he had an older USB CD burner attached, but once he disconnected it from his system its worked for him like a charm too. And at $610 plus shipping (try newegg.com or Old World Computing), its a great deal! Also, for those running AGPs with OS9, don't forget that when you upgrade to OSX (or if you already have), the system will recognize a full 2Gb of memory (OS9 only recognized 1.5). I also have seen a single proceesor 1.8Ghz upgrade as well - if you don't think your system will really exploit two processors, that is another option perhaps.

[tclash]

Actually OWC are the ones that came through and let me return the Giga for credit even though I was just over the 30-day mark. (I was in mid-hard-deadline-project and coundn't wait for repair - just had to buy a G5).

In fact, in spite of the fact that my tech noted clear blown-component damage on the processor, after receiving it Giga insisted it was fine - no damage at all and worked perfectly. I don't want to call anyone a liar, but in this case my tech had no interest in misrepresenting things and Giga clearly did.

So I don't have a lot good to say about them. But to be fair I was very happy with the upgrade until it blew up

[sean shannon]

I have used a Powerlogix 1Ghz upgrade for 3 years now with no problems. However, I just tried to upgrade my other G4 with a Powerlogix, Sonnett, and OWC processors (1Ghz), and none of them would let OS9 boot up, and if it did, Pro Tools would crash. So these apparently only work well with OSX.

[sdelsolray]

How far have you been able to push the # of tracks and plug-ins. No one ever does bench marks using Pro Tools or Logic (that I've seen) on these processors, and it doesn't look like I'll be going anywhere beyond OSX 10.3.8 and LE 6.4 for a while. I just don't want to get more than I need when I can divert the money saved to other valuable resources.

I just record solo fingerstyle acoutic and classical guitar - 4 tracks max at any time. I've bypassed the 002 pres and converters. Dunno how far I could take this setup as far as trackcount, plugins, etc. I have PTLE 5, OS 9, Waves 4 and Altiverb 3 on a partition if I ever needed to go back and get a zillion tracks.

[lamp]

Ive had an older style Giga 1K running at 1.2k in my G4 AGP400 for several years now. The 100mhz buss may be the bottle neck in these older macs. I got 21 or 22 tracks in OSX 10.3.4 PTLE 6.4cs9 with the Dave C test. These older macs will preform much better in OS9 than OSX if you don't need the new features.

I tried an OWC 1.4 and it would not lock up with adat clock.The new OWC units may be okay though? Also I would not go any higher than 10.3.4.The giga 1k at 1.2k has been rock solid and dual boot to OS9 also works fine.