Fasten your seatbelts...wowee!

[Paddy]

Well, after much dithering...mostly resolved when I finished filing our 2002 tax returns and discovered we'd be getting a nice refund - I took the plunge and bought a Sonnet Crescendo 1GHz upgrade for the old Sawtooth 400. Considered the GigaDesigns 1.2GHz card, but there have been wake from sleep issues with it, so went with the tried and true and slightly more pricey-per-MHz Sonnet. (Besides...I could drive up to Data Memory and get it - no waiting for UPS once the decision was made!)

Installed it and the WD 120GB drive I've had for months and noticed a fairly substantial increase in responsiveness under 10.1.5 in the 5 minutes I spent poking around before sticking the Jag CD in the drive and getting on with installing Jag.  

WHOA! I have a whole new machine! (and I haven't even upgraded the stock video card either).

I think it's safe to say that it's now faster than my Ti, which I'd begun to use for all my web browsing because the Sawtooth was painfully slow. Not any more!!!    Even Omniweb, which had never been exactly lickety-split in my experience, is pretty darn fast.

So, if anyone out there is thinking of upgrading a Sawtooth or something of similar vintage, I can't recommend it enough. For just over $500, I have my nice, quiet G4 with almost as much vrooom under the hood as the newer machines. I realize that some of the speed increase is no doubt due to Jaguar - but it was pretty clear even in 10.1.5 that this was a worthwhile investment. This should tide me over very nicely until such time as the PPC970 Macs hit the streets!

[kps]

So you're saying there's hope left for my 350Mhz Sawtooth????        

What's the model number of the card, Paddy, I wouldn't mind having a look. Are you still waiting for the ATI 9700 Mac or are you thinking of getting something else for the video.

[Paddy]

Karl - I'd say "go for it"! I got the Sonnet Encore/ST 1GHz G4/2MB DDR L3, part #SG4-1000-2M.

Data Memory sell it for $539, OWC for $549 (with "free" 32MB Piccolo pen drive...which I didn't see much use for) Both will ship to Canada. OWC have the GigaSystems 1.2GHz card for $599, which was somewhat tempting, until I came across Mike Breeden's mention of the wake-from-sleep problem. PowerLogix seem to generate far more than their share of problems (including the wake-from-sleep issues) so I avoided them, despite the nice prices. We have a 500MHz Sonnet card in our beige G3 and it's been working flawlessly for 2 years (?) now, so there was some prior happy experience to help the decision along. Spent much time wading through all the user reports at www.xlr8yourmac.com too!

For a video upgrade, I was thinking of the ATI Radeon 8500 which gets glowing reviews everywhere I've looked. The 9700 will doubtless be nice, but I'm not spending $300+ on a new video card, thank you very much!    However, no rush on that one right now - I'm enjoying this existing burst of speed!

(I was referring to the new IBM chips - PPC 970's when I said I thought that the Sonnet would tide me over until the next really significant development from Apple)

[kelly]

Congratulations Paddy.  

Why the 8500 over the 9000 Pro?

[kps]

Thanks Paddy, it's something to consider. I'll see what the pricing is up here before I order from the 'states'. I wouldn't mind giving the old 350 an new lease on life.

I noticed the ATI store is "out of stock" on all Mac products and they no longer have the Trade-up Programme... times must be hard.

[Paddy]

Kelly, I think the thread following the article at MacCentral pretty much sums up why I'd choose the 8500 over the 9000 (aside from the problem of the lack of 28V output!).

Of course, the last poster in this thread pooh-poohs even putting an 8500 in a Sawtooth, from the sounds of it. For now, I'm very happy with the changes brought about by the processor upgrade and the installation of Jag on the new drive. I'm not a gamer, so not even sure that a video card upgrade will make all that much difference to me.

And from the sounds of it, the soon-to-appear 9700 in my machine might be akin to putting a Ferrari engine in a Volkswagon Bug.      

KPS - ATI issued a press release the other day (last week?) indicating that they're updating their entire line of video cards. There was no mention in the release of what will happen with the Mac cards - so who knows what they're up to!
 
 [ 03-18-2003, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Paddy ]

[kelly]

Hmmm. If you're not in need of an ADC connection,

IMO, you should just go with the less expensive 9000 Pro.  

The 8500 would be better for some games is about all.

I wondered if you or someone were playing them.

Or maybe the TV out option?

Doen't matter really.

To say that you won't utilize the Full 4x AGP features

doesn't mean you shouldn't get a nice boost in everything.  

Does your present Card support Quartz Extreme?

[Paddy]

Kelly, I don't have any need of the ADC connection (which the 9000 has and the 8500 hasn't) as I have a 22" Electron Blue CRT which I'm not in any hurry to exchange for a flat panel and there is an issue with the 9000 needing a 28V power connection which my Sawtooth apparently doesn't have.

Here is the note from OWC's site re: the 9000:

 

quote:ADC connector port (OWC NOTE - AGP capable Macintosh required to use this card. To use the ADC connector, you must have a Power Macintosh Gigabit Ethernet or later system. AGP based "Sawtooth" machines do not have the physical logic board connection for the 28v output required. The VGA port will still function normally.)

And no, as far as I know the ATI Rage Pro 128 in there right now doesn't do Quartz Extreme. So, therein lies the attraction.  

The only game I ever play is JewelToy - and I haven't had the time for that for months now!