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rambo47 · Sep 7, 2002, 03:53 PM

Where are they? This is the first PowerMac with a 100 MHz system bus and to my mind the best cantidate for upgrades. Modern enough to get great performance from a dual processor, unlike the beige boxes hobbled with system buses between 40MHz and 50MHz (I know, a few like the 9600 had 100 MHz buses). And widely distrubuted - one of the best-selling models ever for Apple. They're new enough that many are still the main machines of their owners, but old enough that folks would jump at the chance to upgrade and breathe new life into them. With OS X requiring more and more processor horsepower with every update the B&W's are still capable but falling off the pace. I upgraded mine from the G3 450 to Sonnet's G4 500 and noticed a nice bump. AltiVec rocks in Photoshop! I just feel the architecture of the B&W is the sweet spot for upgrading to reap maximum benefit, especially with dual processors. Am I nuts, just sounding off because I have one? Dunno. I think dual processor upgrades would sell very well for the B&W.

powerlogix · Sep 7, 2002, 07:38 PM

The bridge chip on the B&W is the issue, it's an MPC106 and there is a fatal flaw when using a G4 745x processor with the 106. We should know...we discovered the bug last year, otherwise we'd have been selling a 733-800 chip in B&W last July 2001. Workaround: possible but lengthy engineering exercise.

FYI: 9600 was 50mhz bus.

Originally posted by rambo47:
Where are they? This is the first PowerMac with a 100 MHz system bus and to my mind the best cantidate for upgrades. Modern enough to get great performance from a dual processor, unlike the beige boxes hobbled with system buses between 40MHz and 50MHz (I know, a few like the 9600 had 100 MHz buses). And widely distrubuted - one of the best-selling models ever for Apple. They're new enough that many are still the main machines of their owners, but old enough that folks would jump at the chance to upgrade and breathe new life into them. With OS X requiring more and more processor horsepower with every update the B&W's are still capable but falling off the pace. I upgraded mine from the G3 450 to Sonnet's G4 500 and noticed a nice bump. AltiVec rocks in Photoshop! I just feel the architecture of the B&W is the sweet spot for upgrading to reap maximum benefit, especially with dual processors. Am I nuts, just sounding off because I have one? Dunno. I think dual processor upgrades would sell very well for the B&W.

pathogen · Sep 7, 2002, 11:38 PM

lousy bridge chip. grrr.

catzilla1228 · Sep 8, 2002, 12:42 AM

The lack of an AGP slot is kind of a drag as well.

Superchicken · Sep 8, 2002, 01:08 AM

but the case is soo nice

The B&W were great comps, unfortunately there's only so much you can upgrade them and with the arising importance of AGP graphics cards, I think unfortunately your up a creek without a graphite paddle.
I would preffer a B&W but... unfortunately I can't justify paying for one used other than for fun

I acctually coulda bought one today but the monitor and comp would have been over a thousand dollars Canadian which was rediculous.

rambo47 · Sep 8, 2002, 11:06 AM

Unfortunately the lack of AGP in the B&W kinda dooms it, with AGP being the minimum requirement to maximize Jaguar's performance. There are hacks that supposedly allow Quartz Extreme to function in unsupported computers, but that's never as good as native functionallity.

As far as the system bus goes on the 9600's I was confusing the cache speed with system bus speed. Had I read more carefully I would have seen the bus speed is indeed 50 MHz. The 100 MHz bus did debut with the B&W PowerMac, my immortal beloved. Even though I'm now using a Dual-Gig PowerMac now I plan to keep my B&W to run SETI@home and Folding@home for MacNN. A G4 500 MHz processor and 1 GB RAM should to just fine for distributed computing.

powerlogix · Sep 8, 2002, 02:23 PM

We'll *will* have something faster for B&W shortly, however.

tooki · Sep 8, 2002, 02:37 PM

The problem with processor upgrades, IMHO, is that the money is usually better saved for the purchase of a new machine. For example: a 1GHz G4 upgrade card for an AGP G4 (Sonnet Encore / ST G4 1GHz 256K1:1 2M 2:1 Power Mac Graphite G4) is about $700. Well, $700 is already almost half the cost of a brand-new dual-867MHz G4 with a decent size HD and RAM, as well as more expansion slots, and a much faster graphics card. I'd just as soon save my $700 for that!

The only time I see CPU upgrades as worthwhile is when a machine upgrade would leave you will all sorts of orphaned peripherals (the most memorable such transition being the upgrade from a beige G3 or earlier to a blue G3 or later).

tooki

Superchicken · Sep 8, 2002, 03:58 PM

But at the same time. Sometimes the computer you'd be buying would be almost the exact same, and you wouldn't be using your old one any more, so you might get more for your money, BUT you wouldn't want all that stuff. Some people put a lot into their machines, and if it wasn't for the whole AGP thing, I'd have upgraded mine to an iForce already.

bartman00 · Sep 8, 2002, 09:16 PM

Huge props to Powerlogix for monitoring and posting in Mac forums! I think this is the #1 best way to get your product purchaced!

Bart

pathogen · Sep 11, 2002, 12:30 AM

I for one will get an upgrade for my B&W G3 when something faster than 550 comes out. Right now I have a 500mhz G3 Zif, and it was one of the best investments I made 2 years ago. If I can come close to doubling my processor speed, or even just a 50% boost, this mac does not need to be replaced for OS X. It's quite fine with Jaguar right now, actually.