9600 to G3 or G4 Proc. What is the best?

[George Cumbee]

Am wanting to upgrade our 9600/300 to a faster machine. What has been the experiences of those doing it. Hoping to solve some problems like the sluggish PC meters and a few other slow proc. things.

What are you thoughts?

George Cumbee
Classic Recording, Franklin, TN www.classicrecording.com

[imi]

Hi George!

My advice would be to go for a Newertech G3 card... there are some problems with G4 upgrades. Newertech seem to be the card of choice for audio/digi apps.

Check out http://www.xlr8yourmac.com

Lots of good advice to be found there.
Beware the "bus speed" issue with cards over 400 mhz and older macs.

imi

[Will Russell]

I would not advise upgrade cards for the 9600, or upgrade cards in general. They appear to work OK but there seems to be something a bit wierd about how they work, just a bit unstable. I think at some point we will all have to embrace the G4s. The new G4s are rockin fast and stable. I don't think I would continue to nurse along an old chassis like the 9600 for too much longer, even with it's wonderful 6 PCI slots. The system buss is slow compared to the new G4s, 5.1 will support RTAS plugins within TDM which will require native processing power, and Firewire is knocking at SCSI's door. I don't know a single person who has upgraded to a G4 that hasn't been thrilled. I'm saving my pennies!

------------------
Will Russell
Electric Wilburland Studio
http://www.wilburland.com

[Kenshiro]

I have XLR8 G3/300 in my 9600 and works great...We have also a G4 in my studio and it's very unstable with constant crash (and it's not the only one I have heard!). The guy that works with me is thinkin to sell it and buy an old 9600.

Also I have a ProTools24, an Aurora Fuse, an ATTO card and surely only 3 slots are not enough. Don't talking about the ATA drives, much better the old SCSI stuff!
The USB is the most useless thing ever created! It's slooow, unstable and you cannot connect too much devices in serial (have you ever tried to burn a CD with a USB recorder?)

I'll buy a G4 only when I'll see Ultrawide drives built-in and at least 6 slots.

Just my opinion...

[Doctor Digital]

Don't get a Newertech G3 card if you have an Adaptec 3940UW. Although Newertech swears thier 9500 with the G3/500 sees the 3940UW in the last 3 slots, my logic board and one other I tried it in does not. After 2 months of trying to resolve the issue with Newer and Adaptec ( I could have just tried the ATTO), I'm ready to cut my losses, spend a little more (I would have had a G4 by now with the time and money I lost on hold with tech support) and go for that dual G4. I realize I will have to sell the 3940 and get the ATTO anyway. Ultimately, I may be trading one set of problems for another initially, (I also plan to experiment w/ firewire drives), but I'm sick of dealing with older system problems. At this point I'd rather deal with any new system problems that may arise.

[Doctor Digital]

God my last entry sounds negative! I swear I'm not a pessimist. I like to think I'm a realist. Anything could have been the cause. Maybe I have an older rev. logic board and the one other I tried it in of the same lot. I don't know. You just got to cover all the bases you can think of and go for it!! Whatever "it" is. Good luck, eh?

[George Cumbee]

Thanks guys for all the great info. I did forget to include my hardware setup. This may effect your thoughts. Did not know the 3940 could screw things up. Is this a fact??

9600/300
Protools Mix Plus
Mix Farm
3940 SCSI
2nd Monitor Card
Mac video card

So, what can I expect with this setup? I had been told the Newertech was fine for the job. Now I am not sure!

Any more ideas....Thanks again

George

[Mt.Everest]

I disagree... The upgrades work fine for everyone i know including myself. The G3 400 is the only way to go tho. I have tried 3 different G3500 cards and they dont worj in the 9600/8600 series becuase of bus speed issues. The G3 400 is rock solid. They are so cheap too, its worth it to spring for it now, and wait it out for Digi to offer better support for dual processors, MACOS X, or even the G5's. I think one definitely has at least 8-9 months to a year of life with an upgraded 9600 for now.... By then G4's should be even cheaper.

[MartinL]

Are there any G3 upgrade compatibility issues with the Adaptec single channel SCSI accelerators (I think the one in my 9600/350 is the 2940UW - I'm not sure about the model number but it is the single channel UW SCSI card)

[Pietari Koskinen]

I've been using NewerTech G3 466 card in my PowerTower Pro six months now with absolutely no bus speed or other problems.

My setup:
Miro DC-20
Mix Core
Mix Farm
Matrox Millenium
Twin Turbo
ATTO