[nextadvantage]

I had a old G4 350 sitting as a foot rest at the office cause it was unbearably slow with X and I didnt even bother with 9 and I really needed a desktop at home.

I didnt want to spend a lot of money because I plan on going with the 970's when they come out so I got a gigadesign 800 from OWC.

I read a lot about how you can overclock them by reseting the jumpers to 900 so I tried it and it ran perfect. two days later I bumped it again and now it runs great @ 1ghz and everything seems zippy and no problems in the days I've been using it. I even tried calculating pi for about an hour and it handled without any heat or lock up issues...

So far this upgrade was cheap and totally revived this old snail... (Should I bump it again?) Heh

[CheesePuff]

So the unit was originally a 800 MHz upgrade card and you overclocked it to 1 GHz, right? I might want to pick up an old 350 and do the same.

[nextadvantage]

Yea, We have 733's and 933's at the office and it seems just as fast as the 933... Should I try 1.1?

[nextadvantage]

Free OLD 350
$230 1GHZ OC'd giga
$420 SGI 17.3 Wide 1600x1024 (Off eBay)
$80 32MB Number Nine Video Card (Needed for Monitor)
$105 WD 100GB
$50 512MB
$50 New Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse (eBay)
$40 Sony 48x CDRW

Under $1000 Bucks for a good system...

[ReggieX]

That's the same upgrade I got back in January, Gigadesigns 800. Though I'm annoyed it's now US$70 cheaper! Ah well.

Still, a rock solid updgrade for me, haven't tried to OC it because I can't afford to replace it if something went wrong.

[nextadvantage]

It will most likely crash or not run if set to high, in which you can set back to defaults... I have heard lots of people upping it to 900 without issues, I upped to 1000 for three days now and tested it hard with no issues. Ran Altivec Fractal Carbon @ 3557

[a2daj]

Is that the upgrade without the L3 cache? IMO, you need to OC that particular upgrade to get your money's worth out of it. Due to architectural designs an 800 MHz PPC 7455 without the L3 cache has about the same performance as a 500 MHz PPC 7400 or 7410.
Look at IMG's CPU shootout results:

http://www.insidemacgames.com/featur...208&Page=2

I think Accelerate Your Mac might have a review and OWC has some info as well.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com

http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Fr...803/main2.html

[Eug]

I wouldn't trust my system until I've proven to myself that the computer can withstand some very heavy duty number crunching. But it sounds like you might have already done that... What exactly does fractal carbon do by the way, as I'm not familiar with it. How long did you test it?

If you can, try running the Quake III demo looped at 640x480x16 with all the textures turned down overnight for 8 hours and see how it does. The reason I say this is because the added heat from the video card sometimes is enough to push a borderline CPU over the edge.

A 25% overclock is fairly significant, esp. in this case since you're getting into the 4 digit MHz category.

[aquilles10]

Very impressive! Try running xbench and see what results you get. If you get good numbers with xbench, I'll have to get the upgrade!

The other upgrades for the price just don't make me want to whip out my credit card like a $230 1.0ghz G4!

[nextadvantage]

Results 56.96
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0
System Version 10.2.4
Physical RAM 256 MB
Model PowerMac3,1
Processor PowerPC G4 @ 1.00 GHz
Version 7450 (V'ger) v2.1
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 256K @ 500 MHz
Bus Frequency 100 MHz
Video Card ATY,Rage128Pro
Drive Type WDC WD200BB-00AUA1
CPU Test 109.88
GCD Recursion 112.05 4.38 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 97.48 328.62 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 122.19 6.63 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 110.65 4.97 Mops/sec
Thread Test 59.91
Computation 59.56 479.86 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 60.27 756.54 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 70.37
System 65.39
Allocate 114.53 38.61 Kalloc/sec
Fill 68.72 394.05 MB/sec
Copy 44.26 221.29 MB/sec
Stream 76.16
Copy 75.85 331.68 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 76.24 332.64 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 76.06 346.06 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 76.51 336.18 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 52.00
Line 47.09 1.20 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 45.21 3.18 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 48.76 1.12 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 68.43 743.58 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 56.58 922.28 chars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 33.42
Spinning Squares 33.42 23.39 frames/sec
User Interface Test 51.76
Elements 51.76 17.61 refresh/sec
Disk Test 69.38
Sequential 60.62
Uncached Write 75.29 32.85 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 78.46 31.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 83.08 13.09 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 35.82 15.45 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 81.08
Uncached Write 82.76 1.25 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 73.55 16.87 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 83.35 0.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 85.80 16.82 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[Anand]

That sucks. That is really no better than a iMac G4 800. In fact, it seems lower as that machine gets anywhere from 62-72. You know, the G4 without cache is really crappy. It makes the celeron look good!

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Anand:
That sucks. That is really no better than a iMac G4 800. In fact, it seems lower as that machine gets anywhere from 62-72. You know, the G4 without cache is really crappy. It makes the celeron look good!

Why should it be better than the iMac G4 800? Neither of these two microprocessors have an L3 cache, both have a 100 MHz frontside bus yet the iMac has a way better video card (GeForce2 MX) and slower CPU whereas his G4 has a faster CPU yet slower video card (ATI Rage128 Pro).

I really don't see why the iMac G4 should be faster or slower than a Gigadesigns powered PowerMac given that the CPU is basically the same.

[aquilles10]

The xbench numbers seem a little disappointing at first. My G4 400mhz with a fast WD 80gb Special Edition HD, as well as a Radeon 8500, and 1.2gb of RAM had an xbench score of 49.26.

I think that if your computer had a faster hard drive and maybe a more powerful video card, that your score might have been higher. By how much? In there comparison, OWC managed to get an xbench score of 61 from a "Gigabit" Powermac with the Gigadesign card at 800mhz with Radeon 9000 and a fast firewire hard drive.

I think to extract the most bang out of the card, you need to have made other upgrades to your computer besides the oc'ed card.

[D'Espice]

Come to think of it, 56 is kinda disappointing. My G4/450 has an xbench score of 53.68 which is almost as much as you have. You definitely need a faster video card.
However that CPU is doin' pretty well, my CPU Test score is 42.07 whereas yours is 109.88, more than twice as much.

[nextadvantage]

Yea, I Know I have an older video card.. Cause its required for the pins of the SGI LCD Cable. The overall scores are not that great I will try the card in a quicksilver @ work and see better results. As you can see the cpu tests are good. We have Quicksilver 933s and 867s at work & I use those all day and this seems just as fast in Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Flash It seems faster than our 733 w/cache...

[::maroma::]

Results 58.62
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0
System Version 10.2.4
Physical RAM 1024 MB
Model PowerMac3,1
Processor PowerPC G4 @ 500 MHz
Version 7400 (Max) v2.8
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 1024K @ 250 MHz
Bus Frequency 100 MHz
Video Card GeForce3
Drive Type WDC WD800JB-00CRA1
CPU Test 41.24
GCD Recursion 49.04 1.92 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 60.88 205.17 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 21.08 1.14 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 78.55 3.53 Mops/sec
Thread Test 37.05
Computation 32.37 260.82 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 43.30 543.45 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 75.21
System 71.87
Allocate 119.13 40.17 Kalloc/sec
Fill 88.67 508.48 MB/sec
Copy 45.30 226.52 MB/sec
Stream 78.87
Copy 77.72 339.87 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 77.95 340.10 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 79.19 360.32 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 80.70 354.59 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 70.63
Line 68.53 1.74 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 72.15 5.08 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 75.44 1.74 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 69.53 755.55 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 68.01 1.11 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 73.42
Spinning Squares 73.42 51.38 frames/sec
User Interface Test 60.86
Elements 60.86 20.71 refresh/sec
Disk Test 93.76
Sequential 89.88
Uncached Write 92.23 40.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 97.80 39.79 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 78.67 12.39 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.23 40.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 97.99
Uncached Write 88.61 1.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 101.74 23.34 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 101.02 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 101.96 19.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[Person Man]

Originally posted by nextadvantage:
I even tried calculating pie for about an hour and it handled without and heat or lock up issues...

Sorry... couldn't resist

Calculating "pie"? I hope it tasted good.

[CheesePuff]

I have a Power Mac G4 with a 733 MHz processor and a 133 MHz system bus speed.

No L3 cache, slow 5400 RPM HD, but a ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card with 32 MB DDR video RAM.

Would it be wise to get a GigaDesigns 800 MHz with 2 MB L3 cache and overclock it to 900 MHz?

Also, does overclocking this chip require just flipping switchs or soldering something?

[villalobos]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:
I have a Power Mac G4 with a 733 MHz processor and a 133 MHz system bus speed.

No L3 cache, slow 5400 RPM HD, but a ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card with 32 MB DDR video RAM.

Would it be wise to get a GigaDesigns 800 MHz with 2 MB L3 cache and overclock it to 900 MHz?

Also, does overclocking this chip require just flipping switchs or soldering something?

The Gigadesign upgrades (and I think the PL too) have jumpers which allow you to OC them. It is very easy. You can check xlr8yourmac.com to see how to proceed. This said, I doubt you will see much difference between your 733 and a 800, even OC'ed.

I got a 1GHz in my 533 DA (which does not have L3 cache either), and while there was more 'fluidity' in OSX, the difference was not that striking.

villa

[CheesePuff]

Well I have a used a Power Mac G4 867 MHz which is only 133 MHz faster but had 2 MB L3 cache and it seemed much faster.

Thanks for the info.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by villalobos:
The Gigadesign upgrades (and I think the PL too) have jumpers which allow you to OC them. It is very easy. You can check xlr8yourmac.com to see how to proceed. This said, I doubt you will see much difference between your 733 and a 800, even OC'ed.

I got a 1GHz in my 533 DA (which does not have L3 cache either), and while there was more 'fluidity' in OSX, the difference was not that striking.

villa

G4 533s didn't need the L3 cache in order to perform well because they were PPC 7400 and 7410s and had a 1 MB L2 cache.. I believe any G4 that's 667 and up is a 7450 or 7455 which only have a 256KB L2 internal L2 cache and need the L3 cache to perform at the same level as the 7400s and 7410s at the same clock speed. But it also depends on what you're doing.

[aquilles10]

I just noticed that Gigadesign recently introduced a new 800mhz version with 2mb of L3 cache. I wonder what the overclock potential is of this card. The old 800mhz card with no L3 cache reamains though...

$300 1ghz card with 2mb L3 cache anybody???

[nextadvantage]

Processor PowerPC G4 @ 1.00 GHz

CPU Test 109.88
GCD Recursion 112.05 4.38 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 97.48 328.62 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 122.19 6.63 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 110.65 4.97 Mops/sec

vs.

Processor PowerPC G4 @ 500 MHz

CPU Test 41.24
GCD Recursion 49.04 1.92 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 60.88 205.17 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 21.08 1.14 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 78.55 3.53 Mops/sec

CPU Wise it performed well...

[Zoom]

My had another thread that basically turned into a similar discussion. Please check it and come back.

So, I've got this same card in a Sawtooth G4/400 running at 800MHz currently, and didn't really get much of an overall boost. I'm going to try overclocking it this weekend, but I think losing the L3 cache made a huge difference. There's a new Gigadesigns card with L3 cache, eh? Damn, they do. $300. Hmmm. Maybe I should upgrade my upgrade.

[MacMatt]

Not exactly on target, but maybe will interest someone.

My G4/466 Xbenched overall at 48.30 with CPU test of 39.71.

After replacing CPU with 1.2GHz PowerLogic(2mb L3 cache), the overall score went to 109.38 and the CPU test to 135.30.

Then, I replaced the ATY,Rage128Pro card with the Radeon 9000Pro and the scores were 105.55 and 135.85. These numbers made me wonder about the Radeon 9000.


But the PL card makes OSX very quick...I dare say as quick as OS9.


Matt

[CheesePuff]

Isn't overclocking a processor with L3 cache much more difficult?

[gizzard]

Originally posted by MacMatt:
These numbers made me wonder about the Radeon 9000.

Trust me, it will make a huge difference in games compared to the Rage 128. Synthetic benchmarks like Xbench don't do it justice.

[robot prom]

I thinking about getting the Giga 800/2mb L3 cache. DOes the 2mb of cache really make that much of a difference over the no cache version?

[gizzard]

In my testing, an upgrade with an L3 cache yielded 20%+ better framerates than one with no L3 cache.

[Zoom]

I'm thinking about exchanging my Gigadesigns G4/800 for the new one with L3 cache. Damn, they must have JUST come out with it, too - if I had seen this one, I probably would have ordered it.

[Zoom]

For the record, on the neighboring thread, my Sawtooth G4/400 couldn't handle the Gigadesigns G4/800 overclocked to 1Ghz. It had a kernel panic during the Xbench graphics tests. I'm running it at 900MHz now (see other thread for Xbench scores), but I'm thinking I'd like to have that L3 cache.

As for framerate increasing, shouldn't that be a function of your graphics card? Or is that card somehow fed from the L3 cache?

[CheesePuff]

In my opinion, all G4's should have L3 cache. L3 cache makes a huge difference in anything - general responsiveness and in games. An 800 MHz G4 compared to an 800 MHz G4 w/ 2 MB L3 cache, the system will feel a great deal faster.

[ReggieX]

Originally posted by aquilles10:
I just noticed that Gigadesign recently introduced a new 800mhz version with 2mb of L3 cache.

I knew it!
When I bought the L3-less 800, their brochure had the 800 w/L3 listed. Damn.

$300 1ghz card with 2mb L3 cache anybody???

It's totally worth it to add some zing to the 400-466 speed machines if you plan to keep it for a while.

I'm looking to replace my current upgraded machine in the summer, anyone want to buy my L3 cache-less 800 so I can buy the one with it?

[a2daj]

The only G4s that really need an L3 cache for a nice performance boost are the current 7450 and 7455 PPCs. The 7400 and 7410s don't need them.

[BurpetheadX]

Just to let everyone know, my single 533 DA put out a CPU score of 51.61. This guys OC 800 puts out 112 or so, thats over twice as high as mine. The CPU test is what we're looking at, not the overall. His Rage 128 and 256 RAM brings his overall down a lot.

[Cobalt2003]

Anyone have a spare cpu sitting around for agp macs? Preferably an 800 with or without cache, or a 466-666 mhz card? msg me!