New Giga Upgrade Pushes G4 to 2.0 GHz

Giga Designs has announced that it's now shipping a 2.0 GHz processor upgrade compatible with Power Mac G4 "Sawtooth" (AGP Graphics), Gigabit Ethernet, Digital Audio, Quicksilver and Quicksilver 2002 models.

The upgrade features a 1.6 GHz processor designed by Freescale, the processor development division of Motorola (NYSE: MOT), and over-clocked to 2.0 GHz by Giga Designs.

G4s To Continue

"I see the G4 upgrade market remaining strong," Giga President Tim Ericksen told MacNewsWorld. "There are a lot of G4 machines out there with the potential for upgrades."

While Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has moved on to the G5 processor in its Power Mac and iMac computers, the G4 is still used in the iBook, PowerBook, Mac mini and eMac lines. Giga concentrates on G4 upgrades for Power Macs as well as the discontinued Power Mac Cube.

Other World Computing (OWC) also offers faster processors for older computers, including original G3 iMacs, G3 PowerBooks and Power Macs and more.

Because the G5 processor gives off intense heat, most industry analysts don't expect to see a G5 PowerBook or iBook very soon. Both laptops sport a slim form factor that leaves little room for dissipating heat.

The Mac mini and eMac are budget-priced computers aimed at consumers who want a machine that will address their basic needs, even if it doesn't use the fastest chip available, so Apple will continue to put cheaper processors in them.

Despite the benefits of upgrading, there are other considerations. Installing a third-party upgrade creates the potential for compatibility problems, Jupiter Media analyst Joe Wilcox told MacNewsWorld. "It's not like Apple has a lot of incentive to help [those companies]," he said.

New Software

While Apple loses the potential sale of a new Mac when a user decides to upgrade instead, Wilcox noted that the company still has the potential to "win at the same time." Because many computer owners upgrade their machines' processors in order to run new software, Wilcox said that they "will probably buy iLife or the new version of OS X, and Apple gets good margins on their software."

The new Giga Designs upgrade features a 512 KB L2 cache, but no L3 cache, and includes Giga's firmware updater software as well as the GigaMeter Mac OS X speed and processor ID extension. The latter ensures that Apple System Profiler correctly reports the computer's processor type and speed.

Pricing is US$499. Mac OS X v10.3.5 or higher is required. While OS 9.2.2 is supported, Giga Designs does not test, warrant or support third party software run in that operating system.

In response to Giga Designs' announcement, OWC reduced the prices of its OWC Mercury Extreme G4 upgrades by up to $40. The line-up is available in 933 Mhz-1 GHz, 1.0-1.2 GHz, 1.3-1.4 GHz and 1.4-1.5 GHz speeds, with 256 KB of L2 cache and 2 MB of L3 cache as well as compatibility with the same Power Mac models.

Giga's 2.0 GHz upgrade uses Freescale's 7447A chip, which Ericksen said "is maxed out, for all practical purposes. However, I don't think the G4 family as a whole will die at 2 GHz."