Newcomer Giga Designs Wants to Accelerate Your Old G4

3:00 PM EST, Jan. 9th, 2003 · by John F. Braun · Macworld/iWorld Expo

The good news is that Macs keep getting faster and faster. The bad news is that if you have an older Mac, it seems to get slower and slower. Giga Designs, a newcomer to the Mac accelerator market, demonstrated their products at this weekis show. We spent a few moments with Tim Ericksen, Product Manager, to learn more about their products.

Tim took one of their units out of the anti-static bag, so we could check it out in detail. We immediately noticed that the unit was very heavy. This is due to the fact that they use copper, rather than aluminum, for their heat sink. Although copper is more expensive, it provides better heat dissipation. Tim also noted that, unlike some other products, they donit require any additional software; you just install the unit and start computing.

The products are compatible with most PowerMac G4 models, ranging from the 350 MHz PowerMac G4 AGP Graphics (Sawtooth) all the way to the PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002 models. Currently, there are 800 MHz G4 and 1 GHz G4 models, ranging in price from $299 to $559. All units sport a 3 year warranty.