Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Plug & Play Hardware RAID up to 8.0TB. High Performance, Data Redundant Solutions. FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB2, or eSATA. Hot Swappable Bays, Data Rates over 200MB/s. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Apple Archive

Processor Upgrades a Waste of Money?

- 2002.03.05

Three or four years ago, it was popular to upgrade a 601 or 604e Mac with a G3 processor upgrade card. This gave you added performance for about $300 and allowed you to run applications that needed more power than the 601 or 604e processor could deliver.

Keep in mind that at the beginning of 1999, the fastest Mac you could buy ran at 450 MHz and was based on a G3 processor. Today you can buy a dual 1 GHz G4.

Which brings me to my question: Are processor upgrades worth getting nowadays? Two or three years ago, the fastest processor upgrades run at higher speeds than the latest Macs. In 2002, that is not the case, as every processor upgrade tops out at 500 MHz - the speed of the $799 iMac.

To upgrade an older 7500 to a G3 or G4 and have it be a close match to the specs of the iMac would cost a lot. Memory costs around $100, a hard drive around $175, a USB/FireWire card is $80, a CD-RW drive about $300, and the processor upgrade itself about $250. That's a total of $914 to upgrade an older machine - a new iMac can be had for $100 less (or about $100 more for the slightly better model) with a faster bus speed, faster graphics, faster memory, and support for OS X.

Unless you have done all of the upgrades to your machine except for a processor upgrade, I see no way that a processor upgrade cam be considered worthwhile (and even if you have upgraded it extensively, how much more can you really do with it?).

If your favorite band released a new album, would you buy the album, or would you search around the Internet to find a compilation CD with three songs from the new album for $3 less?

The processor upgrade card is like the compilation CD - it is a compromise until you can afford to buy the real thing. However, if you spend $8 on the compilation CD, and the album costs $12, you have $8 less to spend on that album, so when you get the extra $4 you needed, you still won't be able to buy the album because you already spent $8 on the compilation CD.

When you spend $200 on a processor upgrade, you have $200 less to spend on a new Mac. When you would have had enough money to buy a new machine, you won't be able to because you spent $200 upgrading an old one.

A new machine has many benefits over an older one. Even a new iMac will run faster than an old 9600 with 500 MHz G3 upgrade card.

G4 upgrade cards? A "real" 400 MHz G4 will be faster than a 500 MHz G4 upgrade card on a pre-G3 Power Mac. The important factors are bus speed, memory speed, and hard drive speed (older Macs had slower hard drives). Since there is no way to upgrade the first two, no matter what else you upgrade in your older Mac, it will never be as fast as a new one.

A processor upgrade is never - and never has been - a replacement for a new machine.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
More in the Apple Archive index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Power Mac G5 Quad, Oct. 2005 - With two 2.5 GHz dual-core G5 CPUs, the G5 Quad was the most powerful PowerPC Mac ever and introduced PCI Express.
Group of the Day: Mac Network deals with all aspects of Mac networking.
November 21 in LEM history: 00: OS upgrades, downgrades - AltiVec vs. Pentium III - 01: Saved by the clones - Computer of the future - 02: Apple Education: Let's get to it - 03: Panther lets Macs and PCs work together, - Lombard SCSI bug - 05: 3 survivors from the 1970s - Real world battery life inadequate - Windows to Mac file transfer with Zip disks - $99 alternative to Microsoft Office - 06: Parallels 1.0 far more polished than beta
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
Best Mac mini Deals, 11.16. Used 1.42 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.66 GHz Core Solo, $419; 2.0 Core 2, $450; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $769; Server, $990.
Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.