PowerLogix Dual G4 Upgrades

[arn]

PowerLogix is releasing (http://www.powerlogix.com/press/releases/2002/020904.html) two new processor upgrade cards:

PowerForce Dual G4 Series 100 (http://www.powerlogix.com/products2/pfdualg4100/) - Dual G4-7450 or G4-7455, Speeds up to 1GHz
PowerForce Dual G4 Series 133 (http://www.powerlogix.com/products2/pfdualg4133/) - Dual G4-7450 or G4-7455, Speeds up to 1GHz

Speeds range from 800MHz to 1GHz... with faster models available later.

All PowerForce Dual models include 2MB of L3 cache, which is twice what Apple includes on their newest Dual 867 MHz and Dual 1 GHz models. This means an older PowerMac will outperform the latest Apple models, when comparing equivalent clock speeds.

Pricing for the low end model (Dual 800 or Dual 867 depending on the model) is $799.
Pricing for the high end model (Dual 1GHz) is $1199.

[vniow]

YES! DUAL 800 IN MY (future) CUBE! WOHOOO! :D

[daRAT]

Originally posted by edvniow
YES! DUAL 800 IN MY (future) CUBE! WOHOOO! :D


You got right! Heck, thats what credit cards are for :D

[rice_web]

Oh, if only finding a Cube was easier.

Oh well, I can always upgrade my Sawtooth to a nice dual-1GHz setup.

[Mr. Anderson]

Ha, this is fantastic - a dual 1 GHz in my Sawtooth!

But for you cube guys, notice the fan that comes on the heatsink?

D

[daRAT]

Originally posted by dukestreet
Ha, this is fantastic - a dual 1 GHz in my Sawtooth!

But for you cube guys, notice the fan that comes on the heatsink?

D

Yup, so? *grin* Noise as a trade off for speed isn't a problem. I'll never hear it over my firewire drive vibrating on the table :D

[vniow]

Well Powerlogix says it's Cube-compatible, so I would assume that the giant heatsink in the middle of the cube plus a small, powerful fan at the bottom might do the trick. WOHOOO!! anywayz :D

[bond2]

What do you guys think, is it worth an extra $400 for the dual 1ghz card?? Will we really see that big of a performance gain?? I can't wait to see some benchmarks. Man Apple is not gonna be happy!! They better get their ass in gear and get some fast IBM chips in the powermacs or something.

[Mr. Anderson]

The reason for this is that there might be a whole new chip in the works anyway (IBM) so why would Apple care. A dual anything would be much faster than what I've got now and extend the working life of my machine by a couple of years - well worth the invetstment. That and a new graphics card.

D

[gizmovision]

this is good news hopfully I canceled my single 1000 mhz upgrade in time...

please oh please Mac GODS, and Larry!!
[from OWC]

[GBskate]

YES!!! IM GOING DUAL BABY!!!! OOHHHHH YA!!!!! ANYBODY KNOW WHENIT WILL BE UP FOR SALE?

[e-coli]

WORD!!!!!!!

I've been holding out to buy a new machine for 2 years. Now for $1200, I can have one that's FASTER than the apple-branded DDR hack?????

WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!! :D

[seven5]

is it me or is this kind of pricey?

you could sell your g4 500mhz and put the upgrade money towards a nice NEW tower, with much newer features (probably firewire b and bluetooth in jan).

This just seems a litte expensive, when you combine that price with what you could get for selling your old one. And i own an 800mhz, and this is no deal to me.

[treellama]

Sawtooth owners, make sure you check if your machine can support dual CPU's before you order! My G4/400 doesn't, so it's a single G4/800 for me

http://www.powerlogix.com/support2/notices/pfdualg4100/

[gelbin]

i ran it in 10.2 and this is what i see:

Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) (version = 2.8)



am i out of luck??!?!?

[Choppaface]

where exacly does it go in the cube? O_o

and what is with their benchmarks???? they show a wallstreet beating a lombard WTF?

[daveg5]

Lets see dual 867 $1600-1699, 10.2 Hard drive cd/rw warranty, video card, ddr 2GB max., dual optical and new box. or
$799 for the dual 867. {what no trade in discount}
About $800 less than a new computer
Dual 1ghz $1999 Apple store or left over, Super drive, 80GB hard drive, 512 Ram, warranty, video card, 10.2 for $19.99 and a new box or
$1199 for dual 1GHZ. {what no trade up for old processor}
About $800 less than a new computer
About $1300 less than the new ddr 1GHZ
Is it worth it? yes and no.

Heres hoping Sonnet will join the fray and make these prices fall.
and what about the biege and blue and white G3's and Yikes G4.
Even the 7300-9600 series pci models have an 800MHZ processor available.

I was told by a benchmarking site about 4 weeks ago about these dual processor upgrades except for the price and manufactor and release dates.
The first round of benchmarks are done and will most likely be posted by nextweek.

[GetSome681]

Originally posted by treellama
Sawtooth owners, make sure you check if your machine can support dual CPU's before you order! My G4/400 doesn't, so it's a single G4/800 for me

http://www.powerlogix.com/support2/notices/pfdualg4100/

Yup, I had this same problem when I tried buying the Sonnet dual 500 upgrade! !@##%^%^&%^*#@$!@#$!@#$%$& DARN!@! Would have loved dualies!!!! :( :mad: :eek:

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by e-coli
WORD!!!!!!!

I've been holding out to buy a new machine for 2 years. Now for $1200, I can have one that's FASTER than the apple-branded DDR hack?????

WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!! :D

I think you are mistaken about it being faster. There is no way any older system with a Dual Gig upgrade will ever show consistent across the board speed advantages over the new DDR machines. It is incorrect to call the current implementation of DDR a hack seeing how the PCI bus, 3 ATA Busses, and firewire/usb can all read and write to the ram at the full DDR capability. This gives Graphics cards a tremendous advantage in that they can access the DDR ram on the board at nearly the same speed as they're on board ram. Besides all the tests I've seen with DDR fully implemented on any computer with a capable bus shows very little increase in speed. This is because the access latency of DDR is on average no faster than SDR and sometimes even slower. This allows little to no speed increase on small bunches of files and only are large blocks. So you get no were calling it a hack because the biggest advantage Apple or any computer company can get with DDR has already been provided to us in the use of Direct Memory Access.

[MacBandit]

The Dual/Ghz upgrade card is a joke. For $1,699 you can get a new Dual 867Mhz machine with 4 open pci slots and AGP 4x slot that will take or has a much faster graphics card then you can put in any older machine. It also has 4 DDR 266 Ram Slots and an ATA 100, 66, and 33 busses all built in.

If anyone out there is willing to pay a $1,000 for a dual/Ghz upgrade over the Dual 867 let me be the first one to say they are completely Nucking Futz.

[theaz]

Originally posted by MacBandit
The Dual/Ghz upgrade card is a joke. For $1,699 you can get a new Dual 867Mhz machine with 4 open pci slots and AGP 4x slot that will take or has a much faster graphics card then you can put in any older machine. It also has 4 DDR 266 Ram Slots and an ATA 100, 66, and 33 busses all built in.

If anyone out there is willing to pay a $1,000 for a dual/Ghz upgrade over the Dual 867 let me be the first one to say they are completely Nucking Futz.

It all depends what you want. For me, with a cube, this would rock: i would rather upgrade my cube rather than replace it. sighhh. i think i am in love... ;)

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by theaz


It all depends what you want. For me, with a cube, this would rock: i would rather upgrade my cube rather than replace it. sighhh. i think i am in love... ;)

Don't forget it adds a fan. A big part of the cube is it's silence. It will no longer be silent. Though you can add a single processor 1Ghz upgrade with no fan.

[groovebuster]

It's worse than that... It will cost 1,200$

Well, that is a ****-load of money for just a processor card! Are there really people who gonna buy that? 800$ would have been the max I would have been willing to pay... Just all the other components in a new PM (DP867MHz) are worth way more than the 400$ price difference!

You still can get good money for a used G4 PowerMac (between 500-1,000$). Plus the money for the upgrade card you'll have the funds to get a brand new DP PowerMac.

Oh, well...

groovebuster

[gotohamish]

I have a G4-500 and 10.2's APS says it's (... AGP 2.9)
Anyone know if I'm eligible?

Also...

My thought: I'm not in the market for a new Mac yet, and by the time I feel I can afford a new one/need a new one, this ol' G4's not gonna look too exciting on the second hand market. As one of those people that would rather keep it that get $500 when that day comes, the dual-upgrades will start getting replaced and the price will have dropped. So I can keep the old horse going THEN, not neccessarily straight away when the finance doesn't seem to great.

My 2p.

H

[gizmovision]

mine says Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) (version = 2.7) :confused:

I havn't been able to boot an OS 9 disc in a long whlile to even check, the drive spits them out, must taste bad!
I'll have to ask PowerLogix or OWC's Larry...

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Originally posted by MacBandit


Don't forget it adds a fan. A big part of the cube is it's silence. It will no longer be silent. Though you can add a single processor 1Ghz upgrade with no fan.

Sorry dude -

You've still got to add the fan to the Cube with a 1Ghz upgrade chip - the Powerlogix AND Sonnet cards come with the fan anyway (and Apple left a space for a future fan at the bottom of the Cube's chassis).

With ANY upgrade to the Cube it is advisable to install the fan as standard - and depending what fan you get, it can be effectively as silent as you want it to be. Even so, it would still be hard to hear over the platten sound of my hard drive inside my Cube. Also, I'm planning to put a GeForce 3 card in there - and that has a fan as well. So for faster processor speed and better graphics, I'm more than happy to have a bit of sound as a trade-off if it means that I can keep the beautiful shape of my Cube, and not have to opt for the monolithic tower system (or some lamp-like thing - which, incidentally, is scheduled to be discontinued in October, not even a YEAR after production started, due to poor sales figures - Source: UK MacUser magazine, Sept. 2002 Page 11).


All I can say is:

"Gawd-damn!"

[srobert]

Originally posted by MacBandit


Don't forget it adds a fan. A big part of the cube is it's silence. It will no longer be silent. Though you can add a single processor 1Ghz upgrade with no fan.

I'm pretty sure that the single processors upgrades for cube still need a fan.

Yup, checked the installation video... definitly a fan.

^_^ too bad, but still worth it for many cube owners.


oops, someone already posted an answer... can'T delete the post... of well

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik


Sorry dude -

You've still got to add the fan to the Cube with a 1Ghz upgrade chip - the Powerlogix AND Sonnet cards come with the fan anyway (and Apple left a space for a future fan at the bottom of the Cube's chassis).

With ANY upgrade to the Cube it is advisable to install the fan as standard - and depending what fan you get, it can be effectively as silent as you want it to be. Even so, it would still be hard to hear over the platten sound of my hard drive inside my Cube. Also, I'm planning to put a GeForce 3 card in there - and that has a fan as well. So for faster processor speed and better graphics, I'm more than happy to have a bit of sound as a trade-off if it means that I can keep the beautiful shape of my Cube, and not have to opt for the monolithic tower system (or some lamp-like thing - which, incidentally, is scheduled to be discontinued in October, not even a YEAR after production started, due to poor sales figures - Source: UK MacUser magazine, Sept. 2002 Page 11).


All I can say is:

"Gawd-damn!"

Well if you have to put a fan in that's something you better tell powerlogix before they start shipping.

Check this out.

http://www.powerlogix.com/press/releases/2002/020904.html

This is there press release on the new dual processor cards and here's the paragraph from it explaining why I said that you wouldn't need a fan with the single processor.

**The PowerMac G4 Cube has a lower capacity power supply and therefore we conservatively recommend installing at most a Dual 800MHz. As Motorola introduces faster processors with lower core voltages, this recommended clock speed limit may increase. The kit for the Cube includes a high-output fan which does mean the Cube is no longer silent but the trade-off is significantly more speed. Cube owners who prefer silent operation should opt for a single processor upgrade up to 1GHz.



On the whole discontinuing the current iMac. I'll believe it when I see it. Maybe you should think back to how awesome the cube sales were. Oh wait they weren't and in fact it was discontinued less then year after it was released because a) it cost way too much (probably why you don't want to get rid of it) b) you can't upgrade it like you can a tower.

[ddtlm]

Don't know what people are complaining about, $1200 for a dual 1gig sounds great. Go ahead, spend more and get get the dual 866 with 1mb L3 and think me "Nuking Futs" all you like.

Course I think I'll wait for a dual 1.2 in 6-12 months or whenever they come out, cause I am running a dual 800 now.

[rugby]

ddtim,

it's crazy to upgrade a 100mhz bus speed G4 tower to a dual 1ghz tower for $1200. Unless you've got gigs of ram to replace I don't see the point. You get a faster bus speed, better video card, more busses, better overall computer, for the same price as the upgrade plus selling your computer. I could sell my G4/400 for around 500-600 bucks minimum. Combine that with the $1200 from the upgrade and I can get a brand new dual 867 tower that will more than likely be faster than a dual 1ghz in my tower now.

[ddtlm]

rugby:

Have you forgotten the lesson learned from the DDR Macs? Goes something like this: DDR is irrelevant, but when you increase the FSB to 166 and chop the L3 to 1mb we arrive at the same or slightly worse performance.

Yet you think that going from 100mhz bus to 133mhz bus, ending up with half the L3, and having a lower clock will be worth it? Hmmmm. I definately do not agree.

The main benefits of the new G4's over an older one that supports a dual CPU card are the availability of the full warranty and the ability to have 33% more RAM. Oh, and the 1.25 will be pretty quick whenever they ship it.

[rugby]

ddtlm,

I haven't forgotten anything. A bus speed difference of 33mhz is pretty fast. 100mhz bus vs. 133 bus is a big difference, DDR or not. I've used an iMac/800 and a G4/733 desktop, both configured similarly (same vid card, same ram) and the desktop is faster due to the bus speed.

There are more benefits than the ones you listed, like support for more hard drives internally, support for 2 5.25" drives internally.

PLUS, the biggest bonus is this G4 will even help you look better! You can use the polished metal as a mirror to style your hair, and the powersupply pushes so much air it's like having a hair dryer right next to your desk!:p

[unclepain]

I gotta back rugby on this one. It makes no sense to put that much money into a legacy machine like that. I'm in a similar boat with my G4/400 PCI graphics machine. These things are still getting 700-800 bucks on eBay. I already have a buyer for mine lined up and next week I'm doing the deed for the new dual 867. I can get it upgraded with a superdrive at the apple store and with the education discount, I'm looking at 1800. This is a serious no brainer, unless you are just hopelessly in love with your cube- (which I can understand, cause they are great machines) It made sense to me to go with the new machine... Dual processors, DDR ram (yeah, I know about the processor bottleneck) OS X.2 installed, Superdrive, ATA100, audio In ports,...... the list goes on and on. The math just doesn't add up to me.

[ddtlm]

unclepain:

Well as far as I understand the PCI G4 users can't get these upgrades anyway, so you are not my intended audience.

Also, when discussing Mac machines one must be careful not to utter the word "legacy" lest we realize that the differences from generation to generation have been essentially zero since the first AGP G4. If any are legacy, they are arguably all legacy.

rugby:

Like I said, the benchmarks of the new DDR machines indicated quite clearly that the extra 33mhz on the FSB (on the DDR 1.0) was offset by the extra 1mb of L3 (on the SDR 1.0). Add to this the extra 133mhz of clock speed (15% higher), and it seems clear to me that a dual 1.0 upgrade on 100mhz FSB would be faster than a new dual 866 even on it's 133mhz FSB. If I were to put a number on it I'd say the upgrade would lead by about 5% to 10% on average.

Adding a dual 1.0 upgrade and a Radeon 9000 Pro to an older G4 would cost about $1350 to $1400. The speed would probably be just north of a $1700 new Mac which only sports a 1 year warrany and also sports an inferior video card.

Perhaps if you can sucker someone into paying $500 to $600 for an old G4 then you could pull it off, but the advantages are small, even nonexistant if you have invested in RAM or any other upgrade already.

[ddtlm]

unclepain:

I am amazed at the high resale value these darn Macs have. That EBay price you mention is insane... what could they be thinking?

[neonart]

Originally posted by gelbin
i ran it in 10.2 and this is what i see:

Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) (version = 2.8)



am i out of luck??!?!?
Maybe not. OS X's Apple System Profiler, while improved in 10.2, is still not as imformative as OS9's ASP. As far as I know, the info needed to check if your G4 DP upgradeable is available only in OS9. If you are considering this seriously, go to Sonnet's site and follow their instrucions in OS9. It's here: http://www.sonnettech.com/support/errata/duet_errata.html
As far as the worth-it, not-worth-it debate on the price of DP upgrades (and even what older G4's sell for)- it's about TCDO. It stands for Total Cash Dished Out. For some people, it makes all the sense in the world to Pay $500-1000 to upgrade a machine they know and love without the hassle of trying to sell anything. Given that over 1K for a CPU upgrade does start to get in the "might as well buy another computer" zone, yet some don't want to tansfer files, reinstall programs, etc.
I personally agree that if I'm going to spend $1200 on a CPU upgrade, I might as well sell my old tower and get a new machine. *BUT*, this whole PowerLogix thing does something else- it'll soon lower the cost of Sonnet's DP500. In my case, my G4 500 runs pretty good with 1.5GB RAM, a 10K U160 drive and 10.2, so $500 is not too bad for a Dual 500 which will certainly help my machine(for my use).

[daveg5]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ddtlm
[B]rugby:

Have you forgotten the lesson learned from the DDR Macs? Goes something like this: DDR is irrelevant, but when you increase the FSB to 166 and chop the L3 to 1mb we arrive at the same or slightly worse performance.

Yet you think that going from 100mhz bus to 133mhz bus, ending up with half the L3, and having a lower clock will be worth it? Hmmmm. I definately do not agree.

The main benefits of the new G4's over an older one that supports a dual CPU card are the availability of the full warranty and the ability to have 33% more RAM. Oh, and the 1.25 will be pretty quick whenever they ship it.

www.barefeats.com has run some more test and the ddr models are indeed faster at certain things never mind the 4x agp 2GBlimit{photoshop anyone and other enhancements

[daveg5]

if it was my money I would take the leftover dual 1GHZ at $1999 with full warranty and $19.99 JAGWIRE upgrade over $1199 no computer warranty+$129 for Jagwire.
Heck I would even take the dual 867 over the 1GHZ upgrade even though its about 13% slower.

But I guess it has to do with how much you have in your old G4

[rugby]

ddtlm,

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. For me it's just not worth upgrading a G4/400 with a $1200 processor and $200 video card to achieve the same performance as a new computer. That's just for me. Here's why:

1) I have an edu discount of $100 on a new computer so the difference between upgrading and new computer is $200 and that's without selling my G4/400. To me that's a no-brainer.

2) I want a superdrive

3) I can buy a new computer and pay it off over 2 years without tax or interest through work.

4) I'm getting tired of my wife hogging my computer at home.

5) My G4/400 can't run DP upgrades.

To me upgrading this computer can't even happen.

[gizmovision]

PowerForce Dual G4 Series 100
Product Notices

Determining dual processor compatibility with PowerMac G4 'AGP Graphics'

From OS X:

1. Open the Terminal (inside the Applications/Utilities directory.)

2. Copy and paste the text below into the Terminal window.

ioreg -l | grep -A 12 'uni-n@'

3. Press return.

4. Look for the text similar to "device-rev" = <00000008>

5. If the result is 7 or greater your machine is dual-capable.

Last login: Thu Sep 5 10:54:05 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
[Joseph-C-Piantas-Computer:~] josephcp% ioreg -l | grep -A 12 'uni-n@'
| +-o uni-n@f8000000 <class IOPlatformDevice>
| | {
| | "AAPL,phandle" = <ff907398>
| | "device-rev" = <00000003>
| | "name" = <"uni-n">
| | "model" = <"AAPL,UniNorth">
| | "#address-cells" = <00000001>
| | "reg" = <f800000001000000>
| | "compatible" = <"uni-north">
| | "device_type" = <"memory-controller">
| | "IODeviceMemory" = (({"length"=16777216,"address"=18446744073575333$
| | "#size-cells" = <00000001>
| | }

damn I lose again... looks like its back to single 1000mhz.

[RbR]

Thanx for tip
| | "device-rev" = <00000008>

I'm happy

And yes, I love my Cube. So I'm gonna spend lots of money om Cube.

[skunk]

For those of us with a Radeon-equipped Cube, it's not silent anyway, just sweet!

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I'd love to get the Dual-Gig upgrade for the Cube. And yes, the trade-off of noise for speed seems acceptable for me. And at least it won't sound NEARLY as loud as my friend's G4 Power Mac Dual 867MHz - which sounds like you're standing next to a taxiing 747 at Heathrow...

Next up for my Cube is to get a Geforce 3 card, install a 120Gb hard drive, to max out the memory to 1.5Gb, install the new slot-loading SuperDrive, and to buy a 23" LCD.

It'll be pretty...

:D

[idevin]

Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
I'd love to get the Dual-Gig upgrade for the Cube. And yes, the trade-off of noise for speed seems acceptable for me. And at least it won't sound NEARLY as loud as my friend's G4 Power Mac Dual 867MHz - which sounds like you're standing next to a taxiing 747 at Heathrow...

Next up for my Cube is to get a Geforce 3 card, install a 120Gb hard drive, to max out the memory to 1.5Gb, install the new slot-loading SuperDrive, and to buy a 23" LCD.

It'll be pretty...

:D

You lucky, lucky bast***.

Considering the price of the 23" flat panel is over 2x what I paid for my MDD 867...

Also, if you are in the market for a large flat panel display, check out the Formac Gallery 2010. It is a 20.1-inch digital flat panel display with a new LCD technology that will revolutionize the display market. Fujitsu’s Multi Domain Vertical Alignment (MVA) Premium TFT sets new industry records for viewing angle, brightness, contrast ratio and pixel response time. Enhanced with Formac’s 24-bit digital graphics technology, the gallery 2010 conforms to the highest PANTONE® display standards, providing a color purity that has so far been limited to CRTs. Formac gallery 2010 supports a true resolution of 1,600 by 1,200, which is comparable to the virtual workspace of a 23” CRT. It is available with the all-digital Formac Display Connector*.

*offering both ADC and DVI connection (for details please see "about")

Also, it's supposed to have faster pixel responce then apples flat panels, and it is only $1699!!!

-- devin

[skunk]

Do you by any chance work for Formac?;)
My 22" is just dandy (and such a reasonable price, too!)

[ooagentbender]

I have seen cubes on ebay, should I buy a new powerbook or spend less money and buy a cube and upgrade with this whole set up. I need performance for the most part but I really want to buy a mac right now because of the new OSx unix base. Im something of a UNIX geek (or aspiring to be). What do you all think if I can get a cube and screen for fairly cheap would it be a good idea to buy OSx and go with the cube?

[skunk]

Go for it! Cubes aren't that hard to come by, and the 22" is a beauty (but I'd try to get an extended warranty on the screen, just in case...) :) :) :)