[davesim]

First I would like to say thank you to anyone in advance for replying.

I have a PPC 7500/200 with 256 L2, 512mb, and 2gb SCSI drive.

1. Has anyone used a Sonnet ide card that has booted the system from it and how well does it work? What were your experiences?

2. What upgrade card in your opinion is the best value vs. performance?

3. What kind of performance can I expect from OS 10.2 and or 9.2 if any?

I did some research on http://www.lowendmac.com but the articles were more stories than info.

[DrBoar]

1. The IDE drive upgrade. It will be much faster but not as fast as in a new computer http://www.barefeats.com/hard5.html shows that it lags to about half the speed of G4 tower. So expect a speed increase but not parity with current offerings.


The CPU and graphical card upgrade
You have a 7500/200 with 256 L2, 512mb, and 2gb SCSI drive
I have a 7500/200 with 512 L2, 224mb, and 2gb SCSI drive with a Voodoo 3 200 card. My setup is as fast as a 7300 with G3/400 in graphics but the CPu intesive stuff is lagging. In a 7200/90 the Voodoo card make no difference in graphics speed (CPU limited)

So even in your current setup a ATI 7000 card would be a boost 50 % or so in scrolling etc. The G3/500/512 for 149 dollars look really nice and would be big boost for your computer. Unless you intend to do a lot that is altivec enabled I would stay away from the G4s.

To get the room for a full 10.2 and some applications you have to upgrade the HD. I installed 10.1.5 on my 7500/200 it was slow but usable and on the 2 GB HD I did not have room for priner drivers or much of applications so 4 GB or so is the minimum.

But if you do not have IDE drive for free you might be better of with a SCSI. OWC sell a IBM 9 GB drive for 50 dollars, 4 MB cache and 7200 rpm. The current one you have is probably with a 256K cache and 5400 rpm, substantially slower than the IBM.
A IDE card is 55 dollars and then you need a disk as well.

With a 50 dollar disk and a 150 dollar card you can run 10.2 at a decent speed. However I strongly suggest that you get a ATI 7000 card for 130 dollar or so it will give a tremendous boost. Even with a 200 MHz 604E processor the graphics is lagging and even more so with any G3 upgrade. I would rather run a 7500 with a 350 MHz G3 and the ATI card than a having a G4/800 upgrade and no ATI card.

I have tried a B&W G3/300 and the 7300/G3-400 side by side and the B&W felt more responsive due to the slow screen redraws on the 7300.

So my recepie for a hot 7500
1. get a ATI 7000
2. Get a HD ( IBM SCSI disk or the cheapest IDE card if you have a free IDE disk aviable
3. Get a G3 upgrade. G4 is not worth the extra expense
4. To add some icing get a USB card and a optical mouse and a USB pen drive (will be useful in you next computer as well)


If possible try out OS X on a B&W G3 with at least 192 MB RAM this will give you an estimate of the speed you can get of a 7500.

Good luck

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by davesim:
3. What kind of performance can I expect from OS 10.2 and or 9.2 if any?

You should get lots of fun comments from this one. My 400 MHz iMac DV feels very slow in 10.2, whether it be startup, opening apps, etc., etc. Not too slow that it's unusable, I run X almost full time now. Just can't run too many apps at once, since I've only got 384 MB of RAM.

[thefamousmred]

Originally posted by DrBoar:
So my recepie for a hot 7500
1. get a ATI 7000
2. Get a HD ( IBM SCSI disk or the cheapest IDE card if you have a free IDE disk aviable
3. Get a G3 upgrade. G4 is not worth the extra expense
4. To add some icing get a USB card and a optical mouse and a USB pen drive (will be useful in you next computer as well)

I agree for the most part, but disagree about the G3. If you're going to use OS X, you definitely want a G4. Parts of OS X itself are altivec-accelerated; as luck would have it, these parts include some of the most CPU-intensive things, like drawing windows + shadows + transparency. Go for the G4, all other things being equal there's a noticeable difference between a G3 + G4. I'm currently using an XLR8 G4/450 in my 7600. It's been a dream, although XLR8 went out of business. Check the CPU database at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com for a comprehensive set of CPU reviews.

FWIW, I've been running OS X on my trusty 7600 for quite some time. I have the original Radeon; either that or a Radeon 7000 is a must-have. My 7600 even plays DVDs! Unfortunately, the 7000 has been known to get into arguments with the most recent (7/800mhz) Sonnet cards. I assume this has been resolved by now; check the Sonnet site.

An IDE or UltraSCSI controller is a must-have too, IMHO. The onboard SCSI on the 7x00-class machines pokes along at 10MB/sec, whereas even an (IDE) ATA/33 card will allow peak transfer rates 3x higher. Today's hard drives are capable of cranking out 30-40MB/sec sustained, so you're really limiting yourself by using the onboard SCSI. I've been using an old TurboMax ATA/66 card, and it's been rock solid. There's a *huge* difference between the IDE disks and even a fast SCSI disk on the internal bus.

USB + Firewire are fun to have around, too. I have a Macally USB/Firewire combo card that gets the job done. It's old + slow; newer cards are faster, and the Sonnet Trio (USB + Firewire + IDE) looks awesome. If you buy a Trio and a Radeon, you'll still have one slot left over for a Fast Ethernet card or something else.


So....this doesn't answer any of your questions, but it was fun to type. I can't stress enough the importance of a faster disk for older machines....they really do make a difference. And get an IDE or UltraSCSI card; a faster disk isn't worth it unless you have a faster controller.