[Weezer]

Guys,

Which would you get, the new OWC Mercury Extreme 1.4 G4 of the GigaDesigns 1.46? The OWC is $40 cheaper. One thing Im confused about is why the OWC card runs at 1.4 for 100 and 133 mhz buses, shouldnt it be different?

OWC:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...OWCMEG41314L2S

Giga:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...tem=GIGM51214Q

Im leaning towards the OWC, but just wanted some feedback.

[Lateralus]

I bought the 1.47 Giga and I couldn't be happier. The construction quality of the upgrade is phenominal. And it's solid as a rock after running for more than two weeks of constant 100% CPU use with SETI@Home.

[Weezer]

Does the fact that the native speed on the 1.467 is 1.25 and the native on the OWC is 1.33? Also, the OWC uses 7455B, is that better than the normal 7455? What about the fact that gigadesigns has some serious litigation pending?

edit: and can you explain why the OWC card runs at the same speed on both 100 and 133 mhz buses? It seems like there could be some room for more overclockage...

[Lateralus]

They're both 1.25-rated. Motorola only sells 1.25 and 1.42 rated G4s to the OEMs.

Both use the 7455B. The 7455 didn't make it past 1.2GHz, which is overclocked.

The litigation means nothing to me. I bought from who offered the better upgrade in my opinion, with the better service. It wouldn't surprise me if slowing Giga's sales was an intention of PL when they filed the suit.

100MHz - 14x multiplier = 1400MHz
133MHz - 10.5x multiplier = 1400MHz

But .5x multipliers are not recognized properly by Apple System Profiler with the G4s, so on a 133MHz bus at 10.5x/1.4GHz, About This Mac and System Profiler will report 0MHz.

[weazbert]

what kind of seti results is the g4 putting out?

i am also planning an upgrade in the immediate future.

thank you

[Lateralus]

It does WUs in approximately 5 hours.

[kastegir]

I called OWC and asked about their 1.4gHz upgrade. They told me that it's only guaranteed to 1.4 in a Quicksilver, whereas the Giga is guaranteed to run 1.467. That didn't make a ton of sense to me, as the chips are the same. Are the ones they sell at 1.4 just the chips that failed at 1.467?

I asked about the OWC that's guaranteed to run to 1.467 and is like $90 more and was told that it's not worth the extra $90... I'm leaning towards the Giga myself. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Weezer]

One last thing:

if they both use 1.25 chips, and are both on a 133 mhz bus, why does the giga run at 1.467 and the OWC run at 1.4?

[Lateralus]

Because some 1.25s can handle 1.47. Most can't. The Giga uses ones that can. The OWC uses ones that can't.

And as I explained above, they run on different clock multipliers.

[Weezer]

ok, one more thing. Single 1.467 for $430 or dual 1.2 for $580? The single 1.467 is currently listed as "first half of december" while the duals are shipping. Also, how come the 100 mhz buses get the 7457 chip with 512 L2 cache on the duals but the 133 mhz buses only get the 7455? thanks for all your help

[weazbert]

Originally posted by Lateralus:
It does WUs in approximately 5 hours.

one work unit every 5 hours? i always forget pc's are always better seti machines

[kastegir]

Originally posted by Weezer:
ok, one more thing. Single 1.467 for $430 or dual 1.2 for $580? The single 1.467 is currently listed as "first half of december" while the duals are shipping. Also, how come the 100 mhz buses get the 7457 chip with 512 L2 cache on the duals but the 133 mhz buses only get the 7455? thanks for all your help

Don't the 7457-based upgrades require a firmware patch to run OS9?
Are they that much faster at a given clock-cycle?

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Weezer:
ok, one more thing. Single 1.467 for $430 or dual 1.2 for $580? The single 1.467 is currently listed as "first half of december" while the duals are shipping. Also, how come the 100 mhz buses get the 7457 chip with 512 L2 cache on the duals but the 133 mhz buses only get the 7455? thanks for all your help

The decision between the 1.47 and the 1.2MP is one you'll need to make. It varies from user to user which is the better choice.

As for the 7457/100 vs 7457/133, I have talked with Giga on this and they basically summed it up as a firmware issue that they are having.

Originally posted by kastegir:
Don't the 7457-based upgrades require a firmware patch to run OS9?
Are they that much faster at a given clock-cycle?

Yes, the firmware update is required.

Nope, not any faster. Main advantage is the temperature that the chips run at. Which is actually a moot point when you near 1.5GHz, as both the 7455 and 7457 run similarly hot at higher clock speeds.

[hotani]

Looks like the prices on these have come down a bit since this thread was created.

Giga's Dual 1.4GHz is $629 now, while the OWC upgrade is listed at $599.

I've seen other G4 upgrades at Giga for other machines that run 1.7GHz - why are we (with the latest G4 machines) stuck at 1.4?

[MORT A POTTY]

the MDD machines require different designs. also, they use 167Mhz busses.

MDD machines shouldn't need a processor upgrade as bad as AGP or even Quicksilver PowerMacs.

[Turnpike]

question: wouldn't memory bandwidth be too low on, say, a Sawtooth, to adequately feed a dual processor upgrade?

Also, would one of these upgrades (single processor) need any additional fans?

my parents have my old Sawtooth 400... my mom enjoys playing in photoshop (she is an art teacher) and we just got her an Intuos3 tablet for Christmas. Photoshop runs well enough on that machine that she doesn't complain, but having run it before giving it to them and then trying photoshop on my machine (2x1.8) I can tell you it would certainly be a good candidate for an upgrade. It already has a new hard drive and a gig of RAM. These are old (2+ years) upgrades though, so I'm not worried about considering them as the price of "recent" upgrades that would be wasted...

I want to get them either a Mac Mini or an upgrade for their sawtooth for their anniversary (in April). Would the Mac Mini last longer for the money (plus upgrade to 512 RAM) than an upgrade to the Sawtooth? Keep in mind, too, that the Sawtooth has the stock ATi Rage 128 Pro card, which can't power QE...

However, if a Radeon 9000 would work in that Sawtooth, that might be a viable upgrade that will be free for it, soon...

[MORT A POTTY]

they come with heatsink and fans.

yes, a sawtooth could feed it.

and you could put a Radeon 9000 in a sawtooth. you'd then have Quartz Extreme (but not Core Image (probably not anyway, the spec isn't final and that's why Apple removed the list of supported cards from their site)

[macaddict0001]

Originally posted by weazbert:
one work unit every 5 hours? i always forget pc's are always better seti machines

not only that but the osx client is horrible. It is(in my experience) about a third as fast as the os9 client.

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
not only that but the osx client is horrible. It is(in my experience) about a third as fast as the os9 client.

then do Folding@Home instead

me likes F@H. Team 40058 could use a bit of help... we got two members

[David Lee]

Quote "question: wouldn't memory bandwidth be too low on, say, a Sawtooth, to adequately feed a dual processor upgrade?" Yes, according to a Japanese Mac Fan magazine article, which showed that the OWC single got consistently better results on all tests. (only small difference in some cases). Still- if the target machine is a Quicksilver that may vary.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
not only that but the osx client is horrible. It is(in my experience) about a third as fast as the os9 client.

That's what you get for running the GUI client.

Run the command-line client under OS X. Far less overhead.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
then do Folding@Home instead

[MORT A POTTY]

aww come on, what's wrong with F@H

[Lateralus]

...protein folding.

[Peter753]

...aliens

[MORT A POTTY]

...a big prime number

[cal6n]

Originally posted by Peter753:
...aliens

Cool but speculative.

Originally posted by Lateralus:
...protein folding.

Real world application.

I rest my case.

[Alexei]

Anyone has experience with 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz upgrades for G4?
I've got an old Sawtooth that's in halflife by now in terms of speed, so naturally the thoughts of a new card in it. The goddamn Mini is faster than my PowerMac for Christsake.
Is 1.7 GHz overclocked or native speed on that new GG part?

Thanks.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by cal6n:
Cool but speculative.



Real world application.

I rest my case.

Arguing that any one distributed computing project is any more valid than another is futile.

And FYI, I wasn't arguing that. I was just making fun of F@H.

[Gorloth]

My 2003 Dual G5 does SETI WU in about 2 hr 45 min. Not many PC's beat that. thumbsup:

[Kenneth]

well.. my DP 1.25 G4 with 1.25GB of RAM completed a WU at about 6 hours. Meanwhile, I use the CLI one and set it to do two at once with the SETIdock. Anyway, at my office A64 2800+ w/1GB of RAM and Windows XP SP1, it completed a WU at around 3 hours. However, I ran the GUI version of SETI on the PC.

[Lateralus]

As far as I can tell, there is little to no performance difference between the CLI and GUI SETI clients on Windows.

[weazbert]

Originally posted by Lateralus:
As far as I can tell, there is little to no performance difference between the CLI and GUI SETI clients on Windows.

really? i noticed a huge difference, but then again that was about a year ago, when i last ran the GUI interface on a windos box.

[simty]

You have to wait ages for a reply to an email. OWC are the total opposite, they are just fantastic.

[dbergstrom]

Looking for opinions about upgrading.

My current computer:
Quicksilver G4/933
1.5GB RAM
SIIG Hardware RAID controller (ATA)
2 x 80GB drives
64MB GeForce 4MX
17-inch Studio Display (ADC)

Reading this thread got me thinking about modernizing For about $900 (the price of a tricked-out Mini), I could get:
New Processor (Sonnet 1.7GHz or Giga 2x 1.2GHz DP)
New Hard Drives (2 x 250GB)
New Video Card (128MB Radeon 9000)

My questions:
1) Which processor upgrade: 1.7 GHz SP or 2x 1.2 GHz DP?
2) Buy an SATA PCI card and 2 250GB SATA drives, or 2 250GB ATA drives to hook up to my RAID controller (about the same price, since SATA drives are now cheaper than ATA)?
3) Will the Radeon 9000 be much better than the GeForce MX?

Thanks!

[MORT A POTTY]

between a single 1.7 or a dual 1.2, I'd suggest the dual 1.2 definitely.

get the SATA drives & card

and on the video card, no. you won't see much of a bonus. a GeForce 4 Ti though... But if you're looking for Core Image support, good luck. you'd need a Radeon 9800 Pro (since the 9600 ADC port doesn't work in a G4) and you'd need a pretty expensive adapter to use an ADC monitor in a DVI port.

[yikes600]

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
But if you're looking for Core Image support, good luck. you'd need a Radeon 9800 Pro (since the 9600 ADC port doesn't work in a G4) and you'd need a pretty expensive adapter to use an ADC monitor in a DVI port.

The ideal situation would be to find an OEM Radeon 9700. He'll get performance equal to a Radeon 9800, CoreImage support, and a powered ADC port (the Radeon 9700 has DVI and ADC). Good luck finding one, though. Ebay might be the only way. I did spot one on Craiglist local for $160, but when I called, it was already sold

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally posted by yikes600:
The ideal situation would be to find an OEM Radeon 9700. He'll get performance equal to a Radeon 9800, CoreImage support, and a powered ADC port (the Radeon 9700 has DVI and ADC). Good luck finding one, though. Ebay might be the only way. I did spot one on Craiglist local for $160, but when I called, it was already sold

definitely true.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by yikes600:
The ideal situation would be to find an OEM Radeon 9700. He'll get performance equal to a Radeon 9800, CoreImage support, and a powered ADC port (the Radeon 9700 has DVI and ADC). Good luck finding one, though. Ebay might be the only way. I did spot one on Craiglist local for $160, but when I called, it was already sold

Be aware though that there are some reports that the OEM Radeon 9700's only work correctly in MDD G4s. Not sure if its 100% true, but this is what I've read.

[Zubir]

I'm running a PC 9700 Pro in my Digital Audio. I paid a guy $35 to solder a 128k ROM chip onto it and flash it with the OEM Mac 9700 Pro ROM, and it works great. Go to the link below, and check it out. I think partybymarty also modifies 9800's to work in Macs. You can get both of these cards for PC much cheaper than the Mac versions.

http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...splay&start=30

[MORT A POTTY]

Originally posted by Zubir:
I'm running a PC 9700 Pro in my Digital Audio. I paid a guy $35 to solder a 128k ROM chip onto it and flash it with the OEM Mac 9700 Pro ROM, and it works great. Go to the link below, and check it out. I think partybymarty also modifies 9800's to work in Macs. You can get both of these cards for PC much cheaper than the Mac versions.

http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...splay&start=30

yeah, but there is no ADC port on it, which kinda is important in this case.