Finally! A G4 iMac upgrade that screams like a Sawtooth. I call it, "iTooth."

First, four real world tests...

 

 

And two games...

 

Conclusions
Vrroom!!!! What a kick in the pants! Finally, a G4 upgrade for the iMac! And surprise, surprise: it can keep up with a Sawtooth... most of the time! The first three speed tests shown were with software that is "G4 aware," so you can see it almost doubles the speed compared to even Apple's iMac DV Special Edition. If you compare the results to the older iMac 233 rev B, it triples the speed. Newer Technology has a winner with the "iMAXpowr G4."

I'm just as impressed by the price: $549 after trade-in of your old CPU!! By the way, the price on the iMAXpowr G3 just dropped to $349. If you don't use Photoshop, iMovie, SoundJam, or any other "Altivec enabled" software, you can get just as much (or more) boost from a G3/466. Go back and look at the numbers again. If you have the iMac 233 A or B, you can get the iMAXpowr G3 and a Voodoo2 board for under $450.

Speaking of the Voodoo2, I couldn't resist trying the iMAXpowr with an iWizard board when testing it in the iMac rev B. It definitely 'pumps up' the frame rates, even without the CPU upgrade added. However, it has a few drawbacks. For one thing, it only runs games in 640 x 480 mode. And tech support is nonexistent. Thankfully, I found plenty of information in the 3Dfx section on Mike Breeden's Accelerate Your Mac.

The biggest disappointment for the buyer may be the realization that even with a screaming CPU, the graphics are not accelerated proportionately. Without the Voodoo card, the accelerated iMac is blown away by the iMac DV or DV SE on frame rates. Of course, the iMac is NOT the ultimate game machine. If you are a hard core Mac gamer, you NEED the G4 Sawtooth with a Voodoo5 board, but that's another story. (Check back on July 26th.)

These upgrades are NOT for the faint of heart. For starters, both upgrades void your warranty. Secondly, I've cracked open many a Mac. I've opened the iMac at least 10 times but it each time still makes me a nervous wreck. I was swapping memory back and forth in an iMac rev A and B in late '99 when on the last assembly, I snagged and broke a small wire in an unwrapped wire harness. It was the one going to the front power button. That made a brand new iMac into a large paperweight.

So before this round of testing, I was already traumatized. After two days of assembling and disassembling the iMac rev B and D, I had to go sit in the jacuzzi and eat pistachio nuts! READ CAREFULLY THE DIRECTIONS provided by both Newer Tech and the iWizard folk. They are illustrated and detailed. Take your time and be very gentle... like you are defusing a bomb.

If you don't mind sweating bullets, this CPU breathes new life in any Rev A, B, C or D iMac. It's too bad Apple made it impossible to upgrade the latest DV models. (Sigh.)

 

Related Reviews
Accelerate Your Mac has posted their test results today on the new iMAXpowr G4.

MacAddict tests the iMAXpowr G3/466

Check out the test at Insaanely Great Mac, MacWorld, MacUpgrade and MacNN.

Where to Buy

OWC has great prices on the Newer Tech products and iWizard Voodoo2

or go direct to the Newer Online Store

 

Test Configurations & Procedures

Test Units	CPU and Graphics
Sawtooth 400	Graphite "Sawtooth" G4/400 (1MB cache) with 256MB of RAM and RAGE 128 Pro AGP graphics card
iMac 400 DV SE	iMac G3/400 DV (512K cache) with 256MB of PC-100 RAM and VR RAGE 128 graphics chip
iMAXpowr G3 (466MHz)	CPU upgrade tested in the iMac 333 rev D
iMAXpowr G4 (433MHz)	CPU upgrade tested in both the iMac 233 rev B and the iMac 333 rev D; For some tests, an iWizard Voodoo2 board was added to the "B" model.
iMac 333 rev D	iMac G3/333 rev D (512K cache) with 192MB of SDRAM and RAGE Pro graphics chip
iMac 233 rev B	iMac G3/233 rev B (512K cache) with 256MB of RAM and RAGE Pro graphics chip

• NEW "REAL WORLD" TEST: iMovie 1.02 is a FREE download from Apple Computer's web site. I used the "render titles" function as a test since it's so CPU intensive. I created a two line title ("Bare Feats Speed Tests by rob ART mog") in Helvetica. Then dropped it in the "story line." I used a stopwatch to time how long it took to render. As you can see from the results, iMovie must be G4 "aware." Another crunch function I tested was "create a QuickTime move" but the results were skewed by the speed of the hard drive.
• NEW "REAL WORLD" TEST: Casady & Greene's SoundJam MP Plus 2.1.1 also uses the G4 Velocity Engine. My test was to convert a 2 minute & 30 second music selection using default settings. Using a stop watch, I timed it to the nearest tenth of a second.
• Adobe Photoshop 5.5 was given 124MB of application size. The test file was a 18 MB Photoshop photo. The FOUR Photoshop effects were timed using Photoshop's built-in timer. The effects included:
  1. ROTATE Clock Wise at 30 degrees.
  2. GAUSSIAN BLUR at 30 pixels
  3. RENDER LIGHTINGEFFECTS - flashlight, default settings
  4. MOTION BLUR (30 pixels at 30 degrees)
  
• Corel Bryce 4.0 3D rendering was used to test a combination of CPU and FPU speed. However, as you can see, it's NOT AltiVec aware. I use a document I call "Rock Island," a crude creation of mine.
• Id Software's Quake III Arena (Demo) settings were "demo defaults" at 640 x 400. HOW TO RUN THE TEST: When the main screen appears, I press "~" and enter "timedemo 1" (return) and "~" once more. Then I click on DEMOS and run Demo1. Once it finishes and returns to the main screen, I press "~" once more to get the frames per second readout.
• Id Software's Quake II TimeDemo 1 was also run. Press "~" and enter "timedemo 1" and "~" again. Then press "~" the first time you "die." Frames per second are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

   

  BIG MAHALO TO...

  ...Newer Technology for the chance to be one of the first to test their iMAXpowr G4/433MHz upgrade. You can buy it at their Newer Online Store for $549 net cost after trading in your old CPU daughtercard. And for $349 net, you can get the G3 version.

  ...My daughter, Stephanie, for the use of her iMac 333 rev D

  ...My friend, Dr. Riter, for the use of his iMac 233 rev B

  ...and Other World Computing for getting me an iWizard Voodoo2 on short notice. Many readers have asked me where to get an iWizard Voodoo2 board for their iMac (rev A or B). OWC has it for $95.