. | Mac Daniel #4Is Upgrading My Centris 650 Worth
It?- 26 October 1998
DB sent this letter: I had a few questions I was
hoping you could help me with. I have a Centris 650 with 52MB of RAM and a 2X CD-ROM, a
230 MB hard drive, and I am running OS 7.6.1 . I use the
computer for surfing the web mostly (I have a 33.6 external
modem) and word processing. I also like to play games a bit.
I am happy with the computer but would like to have it
perform better but don't know if it is worth it to upgrade.
The main problem is speed when I am net surfing and playing
graphic intensive games such as Doom or Dark Forces. I was thinking a video card might help but I don't know
what kind would be good to buy or how much it would cost.
The other option was to upgrade my VRAM which should be
pretty inexpensive. I definitely need a faster CD-ROM. I
know I can probably replace the stock one for something
faster for about $100. I was also considering a Sonnet
QuadDoubler for $200. They claim it will give me double
performance, but you still can't run PowerPC programs. The
alternative to that would be to try and find a used Apple
PowerPC PDS upgrade card. When you can find them, I have
seen them go for around $300. The advantage being able to
use PowerPC programs. Last but not least is hard drive space. I need more space
and am considering adding a external drive. I have a friend
that has a Micropolis model 1936 drive he pulled out of his
PC. It is 3GB and he will give me the drive for nothing. The
thing is this drive is full height, and I don't know if it
will make a difference or not. Could I put it in a external
enclosure and use it with my Mac. If it is usable then I
know it probably will not work with Apple dive setup, so I
will have to buy a copy of FWB Hard Disk Toolkit for about
$50. If the drive is not usable than I could by a 1GB
refurbished drive for about $100. So I am looking at
spending anywhere from $400 to $500. I am not a power user but would like a little more
performance from my Centris. Do you think I should go ahead
with these upgrades or save for a new Mac. Mac Daniel writes: You've obviously given this a
lot of thought -- exactly the kind of thinking I did when
looking at my Centris 610
some months back. My choice was to replace and sell the
Centris, but let's see how things add up for you. The Centris 650 runs a
25 MHz 68040. The QuadDoubler replaces that with a 50 MHz
chip. Because of overhead, the overall gain is on the order
of 70%. That could be worth $200, but we should look at the
bigger picture. That PowerPC card is very, very hard to find. VRAM is cheap, and NuBus accelerated video cards are
probably quite inexpensive these days. But the downside is
that they don't have the kind of 2D and 3D video
acceleration today's games are designed for. Based on that,
I'd suggest you maximize VRAM instead of buying a video
card. I would avoid Micropolis drives at any price, especially
on the Macintosh. I believe Micropolis has gone out of
business. While there are a lot of brands out there, I don't
think you can go wrong with a Quantum mechanism. Given the
choice, it's what I specify. You can get a nice 1-1.2GB internal hard drive for about
$100 these days, which I think is very reasonable. If you
search, you can sometimes even find surplus Apple-branded
drives, which means they will work with Apple's drivers. The best buys I've seen on third-party CD-ROM players are
the 24x and 32x CyberDrives, available from several sources
starting at about $100 internal. The best reason to buy
CyberDrive: you can boot your Mac from these CD players,
something you can't say of most CD-ROM mechanisms. So we add it all up: $200 for the QuadDoubler, $100 for a
hard drive, $100 for a CD-ROM, a bit for VRAM, and postage
to get it to you. Let's call that $500. A used Centris 650 16/500 is usually worth $250-300. With
the extra memory, you should be able to do at least that
well. If you sell it, you can add that money to your upgrade
budget. For $750, you should be able to pick up a nice used
Power Mac 7500 with a 100-120 MHz PowerPC chip, at least 16
MB RAM, 500 MB to 1GB hard drive, and 8x CD-ROM. And the
next time you want to upgrade, you can drop in a G3 card or
an accelerated video card. This is one case where it may be wiser to sell your
Centris and buy a newer computer. Recent Mac Daniel & Friends columns- Backing up your Mac, Charlie
Ruggiero, 2/4/2000
- Connecting Macs, Chris Lawson,
2/1/2000
- Raising the dead, Manuel Mejia Jr.,
Mac Daniel, 1/18/2000
- Storage Devices for Older Macs,
Manuel Mejia Jr., 12/31/1999
- SCSI or IDE hard drive?, Charlie
Ruggiero, 12/28/1999
- Why System 6 for Mac IIs?, Manuel
Mejia, 12/13/1999
- Should I Wait for OS X?, Dan
Knight, 11/29/1999
- Why System 6 for Compact Macs?,
Manuel Mejia, 11/26/1999
- Should I buy a USB card?, Charlie
Ruggiero, 11/23/1999
- Online with a PowerBook Duo, Julie
Fugett, Mac Daniel, 11/17/1999
- more on the Mac Daniel index
Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check
the index to see if we've already addressed
your problem recently -- and look in the
archive if it's not in the recent columns. If not, visit our
staff page for the names of several people
who may be able to help you. Dan Knight, webmaster, Low
End Mac
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