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gdiddy · Jul 28, 2002, 09:26 AM

From Mac Os Rumors:

"In other news of interest to professional Mac users, at least one processor upgrade developer has told rumors, under embargo regarding some details and of course the company's name, that G4 upgrades at up to 1GHz should be available for ZIF-based (PowerMac G3 Beige/Blue) PowerMacs by October, possibly with limited supply available in mid-September. Dual-processor upgrades for these models at these speeds may take a little longer, but should be available by the end of the year."

You mean this Beige Bomber could still have some life left in it? Whoo Hoo! Now wheres that 9500 I put in the garbage.....

<a href="http://mosr.com/" target="_blank">http://mosr.com/</a>

OreoCookie · Jul 28, 2002, 03:05 PM

I'd rather save the money for a new PowerMac -- this is like have a Porsche motor in a little Volkswagen. The 66 MHz bus would slow the system down considerably.

You still couldn't take any advantage from Quartz Extreme (no AGP), etc.

Save your money, really.

drjoe · Jul 28, 2002, 07:52 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I'd rather save the money for a new PowerMac -- this is like have a Porsche motor in a little Volkswagen. The 66 MHz bus would slow the system down considerably.

You still couldn't take any advantage from Quartz Extreme (no AGP), etc.

Save your money, really.<hr /></blockquote>I suppose it has a lot to do with the uses you use the machine for. [Hmmmm ... ... ending sentences with a preposition with a vengeance!!]. For gaming you are of course absolutely correct. But it does seem to me that considering who the gamers are an inordinate amount of time and attention is spent on them. My major emphasis is text processing and music editing, areas in which a fast video system is needed not a whit. The ATI7000 in my Beige G3 handles DVD decoding [or is it the 467 MZ G4 a la XLR8] without a hitch and I watch movies to my hearts content. In fact with the exception of an AGP-based video subsystem there is nothing that my much modified Beige Bomber [I like that!] can not do that leaves it behind the newer macs. Of course there may be apps and situations that a faster bus/AGP video subsystem is mandatory for but for the overwhelming majority of tasks my tried and trusty Beige is the thing for me. The mellennium's answer to the SE30 A computer for the ages. ... ... Well let's not get carried away ... ...

gdiddy · Jul 28, 2002, 08:27 PM

Me to. I have a Sonnett G4 500 (OC'ed to 525.. Getting every thing I can out of it!) And I also have the Ati 7000. Seems to do graphic design and web stuff flawlessly. Will it run Unreal Tournament at 10,000 fps? I really couldn't care! It runs Harry Potter just fine which my son loves. The only "problem" I have witrh this machine and the possibility of spending on any further upgrades is the 768mb of ram limit. I sure wish I could cram 3 512's in this thing....

milhous · Jul 28, 2002, 08:30 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I'd rather save the money for a new PowerMac -- this is like have a Porsche motor in a little Volkswagen. The 66 MHz bus would slow the system down considerably.

You still couldn't take any advantage from Quartz Extreme (no AGP), etc.

Save your money, really.<hr /></blockquote>So true.

When I was at MWNewYork two weeks ago, I saw that Sonnet had G4 upgrades for the PowerSurge models. They had a G4800 processor in a PM 9600 running OS X. While it is impressive that something like this is possible, who are we really trying to kid? To upgrade any old machine to OS X is worthless, if that's your intention. Sure you'll run 9 great on it, but wouldn't it better to just save that money (probably around 1k) for the G4 upgrade and just get a new system? I think that would make a lot more sense.

j mars · Jul 28, 2002, 08:57 PM

This is good news, I hope it is true. XLR8 has pulled their dual processor Velocity card for some reason, the only reference being buried in the support section with the info that they were having trouble getting it to run in OSX.

There really is no reason for a 1GH chip however as that speed will never be attained on a beige machine. I believe the maximun multiplier is 8.0 and with the bus overclocked to 83.3 mh the max would be 666 mh. Even if there is an undiscovered 10x multiplier setting in the jumper block the max would only be 833mh.

So if this rumor proves true don't pay a premimum for a 1 GH upgrade buy a 700 and you will get the most you can get.

mftalon · Jul 28, 2002, 08:58 PM

I donated a PM 7500 about a year ago because it didn't look like the upgrades were going to well. Now I wish I still had it, I could drop a G4 in it and make it a fine web/file server!!! Oh well...

drjoe · Jul 28, 2002, 09:03 PM

[QUOTE
When I was at MWNewYork two weeks ago, I saw that Sonnet had G4 upgrades for the PowerSurge models. They had a G4800 processor in a PM 9600 running OS X. While it is impressive that something like this is possible, who are we really trying to kid? To upgrade any old machine to OS X is worthless, if that's your intention. Sure you'll run 9 great on it, but wouldn't it better to just save that money (probably around 1k) for the G4 upgrade and just get a new system? I think that would make a lot more sense.[/QB][/QUOTE]

Actually no one is trying to kid anyone. Much less trying to kid myself. All I said is that except for raw processor speed I do not need a new machine. Everything that I want to do on my DT upgraded Beige I can do. If I can spend a limited amount of money to correct the ONE drawback of my present setup, surely that is more effective than spending substantially more and achieving the same functionality. Your comment about upgrading 'any old machine' being worthless must simply be a reflection of the American philosophy that if it is more than X years old get rid of it [it's worthless], an attitude that seems to refer to devices, philosophies or people. I hav a lot of things I would rather do with my money than give it to Steve Jobs.

TheMosco · Jul 28, 2002, 10:27 PM

I too think it is a waste of money. Considering how expensive the 1ghz upgrades are already, I would bet the DP 1Ghz upgrades would be over 1 thousand. Save a little more and by the time it comes out you could buy a brand new DP 1ghz depending on when and what apple releases next.

CIA · Jul 29, 2002, 08:36 PM

66Mhz Bus! Wheeee!!!!!!

jcadam · Jul 29, 2002, 08:43 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by CIA:
66Mhz Bus! Wheeee!!!!!!<hr /></blockquote>That's right that 66mhz bus is holding you back waaaaay more than your slow-ish processor is.

I would rather have a 700mhz on a 133mhz bus than a 1Ghz on a 66mhz bus. I really would.

Superchicken · Jul 29, 2002, 09:15 PM

just to let you Beige owners know... I have a 333Mhz iMac, and while I could upgrade... i'm not about to.

a six meg video card is not good enough for today's software.

It deppends on what OS You wanna run. OS 9, get your proccessor upgrade, and tell all your friends how much money you supposidly saved.
OS X, swollow your pride and buy an eMac. Sure you won't be able to expand it in four years... but you'll be able to buy a new one for the cost it would cost to upgrade.

a 1k upgrade verses a 1k and 100 dollar upgrade?
Right now your tower has a low end video card, this isn't good if you ever wanna run OS X, many things like window drawing, minimizing, and things like that, that no mater what you say, are going to be sped up significantly by the eMac's graphics proccessor.
the eMac's 700Mhz G4 will probably in the end on the faster system bus run faster than your 1Ghz beige box.
And you'll even get a set of handy dandy speakers <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
Your monitor might get bigger, not sure if you have a 15 inch or a bigger one.
You'll get Firewire too.

No one's telling you to buy a new power mac... just... don't waste your cash and complain later that your upgrade isn't as fast as you figured.

The best value for your frugal value dispite what you may think is not an upgrade... it's a new system.

Sarc · Jul 29, 2002, 10:09 PM

Don't get so excited ... this rumor IS FALSE
Sorry I said it but ... what the hell ...

The reason we never saw any Dual G3's from Apple ever, was because the G3 processor wasn't compatible with some part of the Multiprocessing standard (?) - or something like that, don't remember well -

Anyway, the G4 didn't suffer from it, hence people enjoy the power of MP systems ...

Sarc

drjoe · Jul 30, 2002, 12:48 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Sarc:
Don't get so excited ... this rumor IS FALSE
Sorry I said it but ... what the hell ...

The reason we never saw any Dual G3's from Apple ever, was because the G3 processor wasn't compatible with some part of the Multiprocessing standard (?) - or something like that, don't remember well -

Anyway, the G4 didn't suffer from it, hence people enjoy the power of MP systems ...

Sarc<hr /></blockquote>Don't you people think before you post. The multi-processing systems being proposed are NOT G3 multi-processing systems. They are G4 multiprocessing systems and thus are completely isolated from any deficiencies of the G3 chip. And I am oh so tired about hearing about the problems of a 66 Mz bus., This is mostly a false issue. Lets say we are talking about a Fourier transform or a vector rendering or some such altivec operation. If you have a 1 MB cache it is more than likely that the code being executed as well as a large part - if not the entire - data set will fit in the cache and will go out to main memory only for more data or to write Altivec results out to the video subsystem. And if it has to go to main memory this read is very small is comparison to the total work being done.
I remember doing numerical simulations on an IBM 360/91 the vector processor [using an entirely separate ROOM] was put to work solving numerical integrations using the Runge-Kutta method. It did them over and over [Single Instruction Multiple Data] but the actual amount of data used was small, easily fit into the caching section of the main computer and this was on buses that were TINY and SLOW compared to todays machines.
Try this. Set up a photoshop filter with a small, medium and large data set. It is likely that the small data set will go likety-split and the medium and large data sets will show only s limited slow-down. If you make the increment of the the size of the data set small enough you will easily see the cache being saturated but if the data set is large enough - say 5-10 MB you will see a 'stepping effect' as the set is loaded and unloaded to/from the cache. But unless yu are doing production graphics work the added bus speed will have absolutely no effect on how fast the work gets done.

drjoe · Jul 30, 2002, 01:05 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
just to let you Beige owners know... I have a 333Mhz iMac, and while I could upgrade... i'm not about to.

a six meg video card is not good enough for today's software.
... ...

OS X, swollow your pride and buy an eMac. Sure you won't be able to expand it in four years...
... ...
1.) a 1k upgrade verses a 1k and 100 dollar upgrade?

2.)Right now your tower has a low end video card, this isn't good if you ever wanna run OS X, many things like window drawing, minimizing, and things like that, that no mater what you say, are going to be sped up significantly by the eMac's graphics proccessor.

3.)the eMac's 700Mhz G4 will probably in the end on the faster system bus run faster than your 1Ghz beige box.

4.And you'll even get a set of handy dandy speakers <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

5.Your monitor might get bigger, not sure if you have a 15 inch or a bigger one.

6.You'll get Firewire too.

No one's telling you to buy a new power mac... just... don't waste your cash and complain later that your upgrade isn't as fast as you figured.

The best value for your frugal value dispite what you may think is not an upgrade... it's a new system.<hr /></blockquote>1.) what do you mean?
2.) My Beige DT [not tower] has a new ATI 7000. Not the most advanced but plays DVDs without a hitch and runs every upgrade os OS X up to 10.1.5
3.) See my comments below about the fallacy of bus speeds for everyday home computing
4.)I run my audio output to a a pair of Acoustat 2+2 in my listening room and to a pair of old Advent speakers in the office.
5.)I have a 15" utility monitor [built-in video] ;21" Lacie monitor [main]; and TV out to a 36" Sony Console for DVD watching
6.) I got Firewire AND USB by putting in a $20 CompUSA PCI card.

And even if it seems totally unbelievable to you:

1.) OS X runs fine on an upgraded Beige
2.) CPU speed is only a part - and not the most important part - of how well a computer works
3.) Careful tuning of a systems' parameters is far more important than throwing money at a system.

I don't know why I bother.

drjoe · Jul 30, 2002, 01:08 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Sarc:
Don't get so excited ... this rumor IS FALSE
Sorry I said it but ... what the hell ...

The reason we never saw any Dual G3's from Apple ever, was because the G3 processor wasn't compatible with some part of the Multiprocessing standard (?) - or something like that, don't remember well -

Anyway, the G4 didn't suffer from it, hence people enjoy the power of MP systems ...

Sarc<hr /></blockquote>Don't you people think before you post. The multi-processing systems being proposed are NOT G3 multi-processing systems. They are G4 multiprocessing systems and thus are completely isolated from any deficiencies of the G3 chip. And I am oh so tired about hearing about the problems of a 66 Mz bus., This is mostly a false issue. Lets say we are talking about a Fourier transform or a vector rendering or some such altivec operation. If you have a 1 MB cache it is more than likely that the code being executed as well as a large part - if not the entire - data set will fit in the cache and will go out to main memory only for more data or to write Altivec results out to the video subsystem. And if it has to go to main memory this read is very small is comparison to the total work being done.
I remember doing numerical simulations on an IBM 360/91 the vector processor [using an entirely separate ROOM] was put to work solving numerical integrations using the Runge-Kutta method. It did them over and over [Single Instruction Multiple Data] but the actual amount of data used was small, easily fit into the caching section of the main computer and this was on buses that were TINY and SLOW compared to todays machines.
Try this. Set up a photoshop filter with a small, medium and large data set. It is likely that the small data set will go likety-split and the medium and large data sets will show only s limited slow-down. If you make the increment of the the size of the data set small enough you will easily see the cache being saturated but if the data set is large enough - say 5-10 MB you will see a 'stepping effect' as the set is loaded and unloaded to/from the cache. But unless yu are doing production graphics work the added bus speed will have absolutely no effect on how fast the work gets done.

funkboy · Jul 30, 2002, 01:31 AM

I just wish processor upgrades were cheaper. If they were more inline with their PC counterparts - even anywhere NEAR their prices - I'd be interested. But ~$300 for a G4 500MHz when one can purchase an AMD Athlon 2200 (like a 2.2GHz Pentium) for $120 or so really just makes me angry.

Make an upgrade that I can ZIF into my beige with little trouble for $100 (I'll take a fast - read 700 - 900MHz - G3 if need be, whatever!). But I'm not spending $300 or, for that matter, $1000 to get an upgraded processor in an old computer. I think a lot of people are in the same camp.

gdiddy · Jul 30, 2002, 02:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by drjoe:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
just to let you Beige owners know... I have a 333Mhz iMac, and while I could upgrade... i'm not about to.

a six meg video card is not good enough for today's software.
... ...

OS X, swollow your pride and buy an eMac. Sure you won't be able to expand it in four years...
... ...
1.) a 1k upgrade verses a 1k and 100 dollar upgrade?

2.)Right now your tower has a low end video card, this isn't good if you ever wanna run OS X, many things like window drawing, minimizing, and things like that, that no mater what you say, are going to be sped up significantly by the eMac's graphics proccessor.

3.)the eMac's 700Mhz G4 will probably in the end on the faster system bus run faster than your 1Ghz beige box.

4.And you'll even get a set of handy dandy speakers <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

5.Your monitor might get bigger, not sure if you have a 15 inch or a bigger one.

6.You'll get Firewire too.

No one's telling you to buy a new power mac... just... don't waste your cash and complain later that your upgrade isn't as fast as you figured.

The best value for your frugal value dispite what you may think is not an upgrade... it's a new system.<hr /></blockquote>1.) what do you mean?
2.) My Beige DT [not tower] has a new ATI 7000. Not the most advanced but plays DVDs without a hitch and runs every upgrade os OS X up to 10.1.5
3.) See my comments below about the fallacy of bus speeds for everyday home computing
4.)I run my audio output to a a pair of Acoustat 2+2 in my listening room and to a pair of old Advent speakers in the office.
5.)I have a 15" utility monitor [built-in video] ;21" Lacie monitor [main]; and TV out to a 36" Sony Console for DVD watching
6.) I got Firewire AND USB by putting in a $20 CompUSA PCI card.

And even if it seems totally unbelievable to you:

1.) OS X runs fine on an upgraded Beige
2.) CPU speed is only a part - and not the most important part - of how well a computer works
3.) Careful tuning of a systems' parameters is far more important than throwing money at a system.

I don't know why I bother.<hr /></blockquote>You school 'em Dr. J!!!

I'm running 10.5 here too with out any problems and it seems fast enough. When 10.2 comes out I've read it will be even better. I know I wont get all the benefits from Quartz Extreme, but I've read it will even help out my "worthless" "Beige Bomber�". You seem to know a bit about this stuff. Can you explain the limitations on the ram specs for the beige boxes i.e: why can't I put a damned 512mb in this sucker!

GDiddy

denim · Jul 30, 2002, 03:11 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by drjoe:
I remember doing numerical simulations on an IBM 360/91<hr /></blockquote>Wow, you're old! That's mid-1960s equipment!

<blockquote>quote:<hr />It did them over and over [Single Instruction Multiple Data] but the actual amount of data used was small, easily fit into the caching section of the main computer and this was on buses that were TINY and SLOW compared to todays machines.<hr /></blockquote>Yes, however that was with software which was much more efficient than current code. That's important. I can get a nice fast bit of hardware, throw Windows on it, and get a machine that a TRS-80m1 would laugh at. Okay, okay, maybe that's a little exagerated, but you get my drift.

Spirit_VW · Jul 30, 2002, 03:24 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by OreoCookie:
I'd rather save the money for a new PowerMac -- this is like have a Porsche motor in a little Volkswagen.<hr /></blockquote>Bad analogy, as I've seen VWs with Porsche motors.

drjoe · Jul 30, 2002, 05:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by denim:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by drjoe:
I remember doing numerical simulations on an IBM 360/91<hr /></blockquote>Wow, you're old! That's mid-1960s equipment!

... ... Okay, okay, maybe that's a little exagerated, but you get my drift.<hr /></blockquote>Thanks! I'll take that as a complement if you change 'old' to 'mature' [62 this November] Bought my first Mac in 1984 [512]. The venue was Johns Hopkin's APL and the code was CALSPAN simulations. I'm an MD and had to port the CALSPAN Fortran code from a Cyber machine [on which it was developed] to IBM. This was all done in the late 70's. But I think the general points are still valid. a mid hundreds G4 is more than adequate for the overwhelming amount of general purpose consumer computing. And of course you're right about present code being bloated and sloppy.

Peder Rice · Jul 30, 2002, 05:39 PM

First off, the B&W owners would be in the same boat as owners of G4s with 100MHz system buses, only the Beige G3 owners would be held back from the slower bus.

If the upgrade manufacturers can keep the price around $599 for a 1GHz upgrade (not going to happen), it would be very economical to upgrade these machines.

Heck, I'll probably pick up an old B&W and upgrade the thing (I love the old B&W case, don't ask why).

BobK · Jul 30, 2002, 05:44 PM

Waist of money.

Peder Rice · Jul 30, 2002, 07:06 PM

A "waist" of money? Where? Now, I could see where this product might be a waste of money, but a waist full of money? Are they singles, fives... maybe tens? That could be a lot of money.

Sorry about that, I love making fun of typos.

milhous · Jul 30, 2002, 08:10 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by drjoe:
[QUOTE]

Actually no one is trying to kid anyone. Much less trying to kid myself. All I said is that except for raw processor speed I do not need a new machine. Everything that I want to do on my DT upgraded Beige I can do. If I can spend a limited amount of money to correct the ONE drawback of my present setup, surely that is more effective than spending substantially more and achieving the same functionality. Your comment about upgrading 'any old machine' being worthless must simply be a reflection of the American philosophy that if it is more than X years old get rid of it [it's worthless], an attitude that seems to refer to devices, philosophies or people. I hav a lot of things I would rather do with my money than give it to Steve Jobs.<hr /></blockquote>With all do respect sir, why don't you try to actually read the post prior to responding.

First, my remarks were in response to the topic of this thread, not you. If it was, I would've cited you in my post.

Secondly, what you want to do with your machine and how you're content with it is your business. I'll have my opinion and you'll have yours.

Thirdly, For someone wanting to add a $1000 processor upgrade for a system such as a beige G3 is absolutely ridiculous, unless if they want to continue using OS 9. That 9600 I referenced before with the 800Mhz G4 ran terribly for the simple reason that there is no AGP bus to handle Quartz and only has a 66mhz bus. Today, you could buy a respectable second-hand G4 for a $1000 and get some modern benefits. Most people one these boards would agree with me, and should you want some proof, I'd be happy to start a poll on the topic. But again, it's my opinion.

Finally, I never said your machine or vintage machines in general was worthless. I said that upgrading it with such an expensive processor upgrade would be worthless. For crying out loud, I'm running a headless 9500 with OS X just for web and FTP services. But I'm not going to be foolish and add a G4 800-1000 Mhz processor in thinking that I'm going to get superior OS X performance. This is also my opinion.

In summation, my entire argument is that upgrading older machines to run OS X just isn't worth it. Great for 9, poor in X, period.

drjoe · Jul 30, 2002, 08:52 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by milhous:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by drjoe:
[qb][QUOTE]

That 9600 I referenced before with the 800Mhz G4 ran terribly for the simple reason that there is no AGP bus to handle Quartz and only has a 66mhz bus. In summation, my entire argument is that upgrading older machines to run OS X just isn't worth it. Great for 9, poor in X, period.<hr /></blockquote>Let's agree to disagree. I would just like to point out that the system bus on the 9500 is 50, not 66 Mz and the lack of AGP graphics re Quartz Extreme is a issue that is totally in the future [and of course has nothing to do with CPU speed] and that how well or not well OS 10.2 runs on ANY machine will be shortly found out.. The 9600 can support considerable more Ram than the beige G3s. Finally there is a notion floating around that OS X cannot be run on the beige machines that use the Yosemite mobo [the AIO, DT and MT]. It is an officially supported computer and I can attest that it runs very well indeed. As far as 9600 and OS X I know a number of people in the printing and publishing business who continue to use them, under OS X, because of substantial investments and 6 PCI slots in their businesses and the ability to run X with XPOSTFACTO. 'nough said.

LtKernelPanic · Aug 1, 2002, 04:02 AM

Hmm. While a Dual gig upgrade for beige G3s sounds cool, it's a waste of money. I put a G4/400 ZIF in my old 266 tower about 18 months ago and it served me well for about a year until I could buy a real G4. If you really want to upgrade an old G3 I would suggest going for one of the older (and albeit slower) G4 upgrades. A G4/400 runs nice on a 66MHz bus, but a DUal gig would choke horribly. Save your cash (I bet those things cost over $1,000) and get a new box.

OreoCookie · Aug 1, 2002, 03:08 PM

It's all about price performance.

You could upgrade even a 9600 so that it's specs match a kinda recent PowerMac G4. Put in a new graphics card, a G4 upgrade card, more memory, a new HD controller (ATA100 or ATA133) etc. and we are now talking of a lot of money.

If you add all this stuff together, you could buy a new PowerMac G4 which would be a much more safer investment for the future (because I don't think there will be G5 upgrades for a beige or whatever).

Does this make sense?

DJG3 · Aug 8, 2002, 03:19 AM

so whats the fastest G3 ZIF youf think could fit in a beige MT? 300, 333...it's not worth buying even a slow G4 since i'm planning on buying in couple weeks, but I wanna keep my begie for a server...got a couple 80GB seagate barracuda IV's in there now...which by the way are by far the best HD's ive ever bought (swapped out the cd drive for the second HD)

Taipan · 11:29 AM

Originally posted by j mars:
This is good news, I hope it is true. XLR8 has pulled their dual processor Velocity card for some reason, the only reference being buried in the support section with the info that they were having trouble getting it to run in OSX.

Hi!
Are you sure about this? I have seen four or five of them with one/two CPUs at 400/500 MHz on German ebay about 2 weeks ago. I don't know if the guys who won the auctions actually received some hardware, but they are also still being advertised on the XLR8 homepage.

----
Forget the above, I just realized we were talking about G3 here, but I wasn't allowed to delete the post. Sorry!