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dmlpbg4 · Mar 6, 2006, 12:44 PM

Wondering if anyone has an opinion as to upgrading a pb g4 1.67 to the new daystar 7448 running at 1.83 ghz. I believe that the 7448 has 1mg of L2 cache vs. 512k on the 7447A; and that the 7448 has a 200mhz bus vs. a 167 mhz bus.

I would presume the performance gain would be significant, especially since the 2 largest bottlenecks of the G4 are the bus speed and relatively small L2 cache.

Worth the upgrade?

inkhead · Mar 6, 2006, 01:09 PM

not worth it. no noticable difference in day to day operations like email, web and such.

dmlpbg4 · Mar 6, 2006, 02:26 PM

Really? Can you explain why not? (apart from the nominal processor speed improvement)

skyman · Mar 6, 2006, 03:02 PM

You are talking about a minor 10% increase in speed. Not worth the effort.

SpaceMonkey · Mar 6, 2006, 03:07 PM

Have they mentioned the pricing yet? I can imagine this costing enough that most people would be better off just selling their PowerBook and buying a MacBook Pro.

dmlpbg4 · Mar 6, 2006, 03:24 PM

No pricing yet. I'd consider the upgrade if under $300

I understand that it is only a 10% speed increase, but I still recall the difference between a Pismo 400mhz G3 (with 1meg L2 cache and a 100mhz bus) vs. an ibook G3 500 (with 512 L2 cache and a 67 mhz bus) -- the speed difference is/was signficant

mrmister · Mar 6, 2006, 06:44 PM

It'll be significant--the real question is battery hit and cost. It has to be under $300, I think, to make it even worth considering, and i don't know if they can hit that price point.

mduell · Mar 6, 2006, 07:04 PM

Originally Posted by dmlpbg4

No pricing yet. I'd consider the upgrade if under $300

I don't think so, even the desktop 1.8Ghz upgrades are more than $300.

Eug Wanker · Mar 7, 2006, 08:41 AM

Originally Posted by skyman

You are talking about a minor 10% increase in speed. Not worth the effort.

Probably noticeably more than 10% in many apps, considering it also doubles the L2 cache.

That said, I agree it's pointless. Still, I'd love to see benches, just for fun.

freakboy2 · Mar 7, 2006, 07:05 PM

if they were dual-core then it would be worthwhile.

Velocity211 · Mar 7, 2006, 09:59 PM

There's an upgrade for the 1.67 PB? I thought they only upgrade PBs from 1GHz to 1.5 GHz?

Sijmen · Mar 8, 2006, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Velocity211

There's an upgrade for the 1.67 PB? I thought they only upgrade PBs from 1GHz to 1.5 GHz?

They announced a 2.0 GHz upgrade maybe a month ago. I think the 1.9GHz upgrade costs $500.

Velocity211 · Mar 8, 2006, 04:06 PM

I meant that I didn't know they upgraded 1.67GHz Powerbooks

Recontech · Mar 8, 2006, 05:51 PM

I didn't know either. I'm kinda upset I bought this G4 1.67ghz powerbook then three months later the 1.83 come out. :-(

Velocity211 · Mar 8, 2006, 06:27 PM

According to the Daystar site, they don't upgrade the 1.67 PB, only the 1GHz, 1.25GHz, 1.33GHz, and the 1.5GHz PBs. Unless you're talking about some other company Daystar doesn't upgrade the 1.67GHz Powerbook.

photoeditor · Mar 8, 2006, 11:24 PM

No -- I am pretty sure they announced the 7448 upgrade for the Powerbook DL only; the DL SuperDrive Powerbook (which was only made in 1.67GHz) supports the divide-by-four powersaving scheme that, while optional for the 7447, is required by the 7448. DayStar is claiming a MUCH bigger performance increase than 10 percent, I can't remember how much though. The 7448 should also have a slightly lower power draw than the 7447, being fabbed on 90 nanometers instead of 130.

brother337 · Mar 9, 2006, 03:30 AM

I'd want to see reviews especially regarding heat and and power consumption.

What tasks would the 1meg cache help with? I'm sure Virtual PC (since the openly cite the L2 cache as a major performance factor.) Video editing? Basic system speediness?

Also, if the bus is bumped up to 200mhz, does that mean that you need to buy all new RAM?

Lateralus · 04:11 AM

Originally Posted by dmlpbg4

...I believe that the 7448 has 1mg of L2 cache vs. 512k on the 7447A; and that the 7448 has a 200mhz bus vs. a 167 mhz bus...

The 7448 supports a 200MHz bus. The motherboard in the PowerBooks G4s, however, does not.

In addition the doubling of the cache and the increase in bus speed support, the 7448 also features an improved AltiVec unit which apparently increases peak AltiVec performance in the neighborhood of 10-15%.

The 7448 is one of the biggest updates to the G4 in its history and it's nothing to sneeze at. Performance increases across the board will be significantly higher than 10%.

Originally Posted by Velocity211

According to the Daystar site, they don't upgrade the 1.67 PB, only the 1GHz, 1.25GHz, 1.33GHz, and the 1.5GHz PBs. Unless you're talking about some other company Daystar doesn't upgrade the 1.67GHz Powerbook.

Their 7447A upgrade is for the above models. The 7448 upgrade at current is only available to 1.67 owners.

Feel free to read the Press Release.

Originally Posted by brother337

What tasks would the 1meg cache help with?

Uh, everything... The cache is a crucial part of the processor.

inkhead · Mar 9, 2006, 04:08 AM

for the money it costs you would BE extremely dissapointed with the performance. Sell your powerbook, and buy a new computer if you want to do an "upgrade"

Lateralus · Mar 9, 2006, 04:15 AM

Originally Posted by inkhead

for the money it costs you would BE extremely dissapointed with the performance.

Funny, you must know something about the 'underwhelming' performance of this processor that the rest of the industry doesn't since; 1) The 7448 has been heralded as a very-necessary update to the G4 line to acheive a real performance increase, and 2) They've not even been benchmarked yet so any performance numbers you think you have exist only in your head.

brother337 · Mar 9, 2006, 12:34 PM

Maybe inkhead is talking in relation to the current state chip development. I'm sure that the 7448 is good compared to previous G4s, but aren't there limitations to the G4 design spec that pretty much prevent it from ever catching up to current Intels, AMDs, and G5s?

john h · Mar 9, 2006, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by inkhead

not worth it. no noticable difference in day to day operations like email, web and such.

Is there any upgrade for a G4 Tit PB 867?

Lateralus · Mar 9, 2006, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by brother337

Maybe inkhead is talking in relation to the current state chip development. I'm sure that the 7448 is good compared to previous G4s, but aren't there limitations to the G4 design spec that pretty much prevent it from ever catching up to current Intels, AMDs, and G5s?

Considering that the G4 has always been faster than the G5 at a number of things anyways; No.

brother337 · Mar 9, 2006, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Considering that the G4 has always been faster than the G5 at a number of things anyways; No.

Really? Like what? (I'm a tech guy, but not an engineer or anything.) I thought the G5 blew away, or at least equalled the G4 in most tasks.

Velocity211 · Mar 9, 2006, 05:50 PM

Could someone please provide a link to the 1.67GHz Powerbook upgrade, I could use the extra power.

Lateralus · Mar 9, 2006, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by brother337

Really? Like what? (I'm a tech guy, but not an engineer or anything.) I thought the G5 blew away, or at least equalled the G4 in most tasks.

Why would you think the G5 blows the G4 away? The G4's pipeline length is 1/3 as long, it's a low-latency CPU and has a significantly more powerful AltiVec engine. The bus speed is important, but its importance varies between CPUs and the G4 doesn't rely on it anywhere near as heavily as one would think.

I would take a 2.5GHz G4 over a 2.5GHz G5 any day of the week were one available.

inkhead · Mar 9, 2006, 06:53 PM

no actually i'm talking about the upgrade chip i bought for a powerbook. I have the older one, and the upgrade in it.. It's dissapointing.. The machine is limited by bus speed and plenty of other factors. I would sell your machine before it loses any more value and upgrade to something newer.

I have about 2 1/2 (yes a half) older powerbook g4s, 1 current revision powerbook g4, and 2 macbook pros in the office.

Don't get the upgrade if your tired of your computer feeling slow, or lagging, or browsing the finder, or navigating, or launching apps, or speed of general stuff it just Won't feel any faster. Yes, if you run a filter in photoshop it might finish 8 seconds faster, but as far as snappinest (usually the reason people complain, the machine won't let you work as fast as you think to do things) you will be sorely disappointed.

mduell · Mar 9, 2006, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Why would you think the G5 blows the G4 away? The G4's pipeline length is 1/3 as long, it's a low-latency CPU and has a significantly more powerful AltiVec engine. The bus speed is important, but its importance varies between CPUs and the G4 doesn't rely on it anywhere near as heavily as one would think.

I would take a 2.5GHz G4 over a 2.5GHz G5 any day of the week were one available.

I always love comparisons of vaporware vs year old products!

I, too, would like to know where a G4 beats a G5 today. Even for the apps where the G5 has lower IPC, it still pulls ahead with clockrate. Nevermind any app where FSB or memory comes into play.

Velocity211 · Mar 9, 2006, 09:43 PM

I'm tring to look at the daystar site but I keep getting redirected to another site. Is it because of my computer or is the site really down?

Morn · Mar 10, 2006, 03:52 AM

So what, core duo might be 3 times faster than the 7448 at best rather than say 5 times faster. Pah, powerpc....
Anyway, freescale doesn't have the ablity to approach the core duo's power efficiency with a dual core unless they use 65nm, intel has the best fabs in the business.

brother337 · Mar 10, 2006, 05:08 AM

Hmm...well my take on the G4 is this:

I loved the G3. Compared to anything else at the time, it was a truly remarkable processor.

When the G4 came out, I liked the idea of Altivec, but the fact that it was stuck at 500mhz for a year, and the fact that it's been so difficult to scale up since then, and the fact that it just couldn't hang with any of intel and AMD's concurrent offerings, soured me. I'm not talking clock for clock here. I'm talking about having to use an 800mhz G4 while PCs were already nearing 2Ghz. Sure the G4 was faster clock for clock, but that became moot after awhile.

I liked the G5, if for no other reason than for the fact that Apple was finally freeing itself of the G4.