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Dan Knight - 1999.11.15
I don't normally write the Mac Daniel column, but when I wrote my response to this user, I realized it would be an excellent Mac Daniel page. Dan Knight, publisher, Low End Mac
Q. I just read your advice about upgrading or replacing an older Mac, and my 636CDworks pretty well for my purposes (except no RealAudio). I had a logic board swap done about 1-1/2 years ago so I could add a 486 card for Windows 95 (it's easier for me to adapt to Windows 95 than for my minister to adapt to the Mac OS).
I'm curious as to how the 636CD stacks up, speedwise, against the new 400 MHz iMacs. In general, I'd prefer to wait until whatever Mac I choose as a replacement will provide a CPU benchmark of two orders of magnitude (i.e., will be 100 times faster than my current system . . . gee, don't want much, do I?) But then I tired of the "upgrade shuffle" 5 or 6 years ago. Thanks for any advice you can provide!
A. Two orders of magnitude? That's a lot!
Let's see, I went from a Mac Plus to an accelerator (doubled speed), then a Centris 610 (about 10x original Plus, 5x accelerated Plus), then a SuperMac J700/180 (about 10x that!), then added a G3/250 card (only a 75% boost in performance). That was during my first eight years as a Mac user.
I can't imagine having stuck it out with my 16 MHz Plus until I could afford an iMac - the approximately 100:1 performance difference is too much to hold out for.
I rarely recommend upgrading for anything less than 2x the performance, but once you go past 5x, it's usually a significant enough benefit to justify the expense.
I'm guessing the iMac/400 would be "only" 20-30x faster than your
636CD. Easily enough to justify the $1,299 price tag, especially in
light of what you probably paid for the 636CD.
Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.
Recent Mac Daniel columns
- Bringing G3 iMacs and other G3 Macs into the Tiger Age, Dan Knight, 12.07. Tips on hard drives, memory, WiFi, and getting Mac OS X 10.4 installed on G3 iMacs and other older G3 Macs.
- Multiple users on the same Mac at work, Dan Knight, 11.15. How to set up a Mac so multiple users can log in and use it - and use the same pool of work files.
- 1 working eMac from 2 broken ones, Dan Knight, 11.14. A pair of matching eMacs, each with a different failure, results in one working eMac and lots of leftovers.
- Problems running Classic mode in Tiger, Dan Knight, 11.08. After upgrading to Tiger, the old Classic installation stopped working. Where to find the pieces to get everything up to date.
- More in the Mac Daniel index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: Power Mac 8200, Apr. 1996 - The minitower version of 7200 was never sold in America.
- List of the Day: G4 List is for those using Power Mac G4s or G4 upgrades.
- October 6 in LEM history: 98: USB is a good thing - Can Apple save Emailer? - 99: Kihei iMacs - 00: Advice about PDS Power Macs - 03: A replacement PowerBook battery - 04: AirPort Express - 05: The Apple Lisa story - 06: Don't ignore battery recall - Use any networked computer as an additional Mac display
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- More links in our archive.
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