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 This is the first installment of a 5 part series of reviews on high-end processor upgrades for PowerMacs.
Apple has never been considered upgrade friendly, but PowerMac systems
are highly upgradeable and 3rd party hardware developers produce a wide
range of upgrades that can help you keep your Mac up to date. This article focuses on one of the fastest single processor upgrades on the market today, the FastMac 1.5Ghz G4.
One of the most important upgrades to consider is a processor upgrade. Processor upgrades can add years of life to your PowerMac. For instance, the test system for this article is an AGP Sawtooth PowerMac. The original processor, a 350 MHz G4, would have been unbearably slow with Panther. Over the years, the computer was upgraded with additional RAM, an Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 64 mb graphics card, and an additional hard drive. In this review I’ll be comparing the test machine upgraded with an OWC 700 MHz G4 versus the FastMac 1.5 Ghz G4. The low end G4 upgrade, as you will see, provides decent performance, but for the demanding user, you’ll want to consider a higher end upgrade like the FastMac.
HISTORY
FastMac has been in the business of producing processor upgrades for a very long time. Previously, the company existed as a producer of upgrades for other companies that handled the branding and marketing of the product. Today, FastMac produces their own line of upgrades and offers an amazing price to performance ratio. The 1.5 Ghz upgrade that they sent MacMod for review comes in at around $440, but slower upgrades can be had starting at less than $200.
INITIAL IMPRESSION
The FastMac upgrade arrived at my doorstep via DHL. Included in the box was a bonus package of software. At the time I ordered my demo unit, FastMac was offering several software packages to choose from. I received Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar). I was pleased to see the small size of the processor, it’s roughly the same size as Apple’s processor card. An L-shaped gold colored aluminum heat-sink and 50-mm fan come pre-attached to the processor card.
INSTALLATION
Installing the processor took about 3 minutes and requires absolutely no technical expertise. The FastMac upgrade does require firmware version 4.28f or higher. Make sure you touch your power-supply with both hands to remove any static electricity from your body. Using a philips-head screwdriver, remove the 3 screws holding Apple’s processor card in place and carefully pull straight up. Be gentle, there are 300 delicate pins below that you don’t want to break off. Now align the FastMac upgrade using the screw holes as a guide and gently push down until you feel the pins go in. Use the stock screws to secure the upgrade in place and you are done.
PERFORMANCE
I ran the FastMac upgrade through a barrage of tests designed to push the processor to its limits and test all performance aspects of the processor as well as the effect that it would have on general system tasks. The results were compared to a 700 MHz G4 upgrade from OWC.
XBENCH
I ran the upgrade through the entire suite of tests available in XBench. Below you’ll see how it performed in the major categories. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the FastMac upgrade handled the XBench tests.
Overall, the FastMac posted some amazing scores. I had expected the processor to be incrementally faster than the 700 MHz upgrade it was being compared to, but it was nearly twice as fast. The overall XBench score includes the disk tests and memory tests which are nearly independent of processor functions, so you can expect that in real world usage, the FastMac processor will be noticeably faster than the 700 MHz G4.
CINEBENCH
Cinebench is a benchmarking program developed by Maxon, the makers of Cinema 4D. The program was developed to test the graphics performance of your processor and graphics card using, among other things, camera fly-throughs of 3D scenes rendered in real time. This intensive test features its own benchmarking measurement, CB-GFX. I've focused on the Cinema 4D test, the software Open GL acceleration, and the hardware Open GL acceleration.
FRACTAL
I ran the processors through a Fractal test. Each processor drew 32,768 fractals. Again, the FastMac was twice as fast, completing the task in just over 14 seconds.
iTUNES
I chose to test the processors affect on iTunes importing speeds because nearly every mac user will need to do this as some point. I chose a CD with 24 tracks with a total playing time of 1 hour, 1 minute, and 16 seconds. I never thought the 700 MHz G4 was slow, until I redid the same test using the FastMac upgrade. See for yourself.
iMovie
I also chose to test the performance enhancement to iMovie compression. The clip, a 1 minute 15 second uncompressed DV movie, was originally 256 Mb in size and was compressed to a 8.9 Mb 30 FPS mpg 4 movie that was 320x240 pixels in size.
PSBench
I used a slighly modified version of the PSBench software to test the performace of the upgrades using common photoshop tasks and filters. There were a total of 21 tests and each was performed 3 times, taking the average of the 3. The number you see below is the average of the total time it took the processor to complete all the tests.
GAMING
I tested the processor upgrade with Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament 2004. With the 700 MHz card, the games were barely playable. The 1.5 FastMac upgrade changed things considerably. I averaged about 32 FPS on Unreal Tournament on its default settings and 65 FPS on RtCW on its default settings. Both were enjoyable using the faster processor. I didn’t create a comparison because it’s hard to judge the performance you’ll get every time. I noticed faster FPS in levels that were indoors versus those that were outdoors and of course the graphics engine of the game and your graphics card have a lot to do with that as well. If you have a decent graphics card, the FastMac processor will bring you into the 21st century.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you are looking at holding on to your PowerMac for a couple more years, then you should be considering a processor upgrade. Tiger will be more demanding on your system and you should be ready for it. the FastMac 1.5 Ghz upgrade is $440 but it will increase the speed of your system dramatically. If you already have invested in other components on your PowerMac, like RAM and a graphics card, then upgrading the processor can be a lot cheaper than going out and buying a new machine. Overall, I am very impressed with the FastMac upgrade. It made my old mac feel new again and I feel like the tests I performed don’t really do the real-world experience justice. You’ll have to buy it to see what I mean....it’s FAST!
http:www.fastmac.com
FastMac 1.5 ghz G4 Upgrade
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Compatible with these PowerMac G4 models: AGP (Sawtooth), Gigabit, Digital Audio, Quicksilver 2001
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Motorola G4 7455 @ up to 1.5GHz
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2MB L3 Cache
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AltiVec Velocity Engine
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Min. System: Mac OS 9.2
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Built for Mac OS X
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3 Year Warranty
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