G4 sonnet duet dual 1.8Ghz on ebay

LightBulbFun said:

hey while I was browsing ebay I came across this : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sonnet-Enco...96?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item43dae96908

the much talked about sonnet dual 1.8Ghz G4 cpu upgrade. I know a few peeps here *Looks at eyoungren * have been looking for one so I decided to share the link here. enjoy (I wish i could get it but A: i don't have the cash and B: i don't have a compatible mac LOL).

Click to expand...

And C: it isn't working, for parts only.

This definitely got my attention. I'll give eyoungren a shot at it, but if he passes I'm going all in on it.

I know they claim it's untested, but I wonder if it's ever even been used with the protective cap still over the socket.

And, what is it with these aftermarket CPU makers putting tamper proof screws to hold the CPU card and heatsink together? I think I have the right driver for that particular screw(I at least have a Torx with a hole in the center), but they still make it a pain. I put regular Phillips head screws in my Gigadesigns to replace the pin-head screws-fortunately they were a standard 6-32 machine screw thread.

Those Sonnet ones with a purple heatsink and one fan on the end as single-core, right?

Passed up on one of those recently that went for about £40. It was listed as 1.4GHz stock but I am not sure what the value in that is since you can get dual 1.4 MDDs for that price.

Don't think that this one is really "rare" or even "much talked about".

Got one with the 1st QuickSilver I bought a few years ago (150€) and when I killed that mobo I bought another QS with a single 1.8GHz as I didn't know wether the dual was still o.k..

Turned out to be o.k. and is lying in storage as I have 0 use for the 2nd CPU (that G4 is MorphOS only).

What is rare is the version for the MDD/FW800, sofar only seen one on ebay (priced way out of line).

eyougren said he was out on it, so I'm going for it. Wish me luck!

I think this will end up in a Digital Audio if I win it-perhaps the rackmount.

BTW, I found a nice and not overly large(about 5') 4 post 19" Telco rack today that I think I'm going to grab. I have enough rackmount stuff now that I need to start getting some racks to put it in. Most of the short 19" racks I find are 2 post. Something like my DA G4 will fit fine in a two post rack, but I really feel better with longer stuff like my Xserve and IBM SystemX stuff in a 4-post rack. 4U stuff like the DA tends to not be very deep, while 1U and 3U rackmounts are very deep.

Note that the listing states that the seller may not ship to the US.

If the seller is being tricky with international shipping, I'd be happy to forward it to somebody if they have it sent to me in the UK. I'm sure Erik would be able to verify my trustworthiness.

harrymatic said:

I'm sure Erik would be able to verify my trustworthiness.

Click to expand...

Absolutely!

I double checked on the shipping information, and apparently the seller does ship internationally. I'll probably drop them a message, though, anyway just to make sure and talk to one of you folks across the pond about drop shipping if they say no.

bunnspecial said:

I double checked on the shipping information, and apparently the seller does ship internationally..

Click to expand...

.... as in "europe" 6€ in Germany, 16€ to the UK, no idea what it would cost harrymatic to ship to the US on top of that.


At current bidding it would be 67€ to the UK so probraly about 100$ when it reaches the US, and there are still 4 days of bidding left.
Are the prices for these really in the US really that high to warrant this ?

Bug-Creator said:

Are the prices for these really in the US really that high to warrant this ?

Click to expand...

Check the sold listings; these go for crazy money plus don't crop up that often. I don't get the appeal, myself but I suppose if you need to run MacOS 8.x at warp speed then this is one way to do it.

Bug-Creator said:

.... as in "europe" 6€ in Germany, 16€ to the UK, no idea what it would cost harrymatic to ship to the US on top of that.


At current bidding it would be 67€ to the UK so probraly about 100$ when it reaches the US, and there are still 4 days of bidding left.

Click to expand...

It cost me about $60 to ship a video card to the UK.

Bug-Creator said:

Are the prices for these really in the US really that high to warrant this ?

Click to expand...

Depending on manufacturer these CPUs average around $300-600 on eBay in the US, not including shipping.

I've seen stone cold dead ones clear for over $100.

eyoungren said:

It cost me about $60 to ship a video card to the UK.


Depending on manufacturer these CPUs average around $300-600 on eBay in the US, not including shipping.

I've seen stone cold dead ones clear for over $100.

Click to expand...

Yikes !!!

Bought a Dual with a QS hanging on to it for 150€, same for the single.

Heh back than I even saw one inside a Cube going for similar money....


And there I was thinking my Cyberstorm MK1-060 was the most valuable piece of computer-trash around here (which it might still be, Amiga stuff catches serious penny).

Will keep an eye on this auction and might consider throwing mine in some time later.

Those are 7447s I believe? So a dual 1.4 with L3 cache should be about the same speed?

desantii said:

Those are 7447s I believe? So a dual 1.4 with L3 cache should be about the same speed?

Click to expand...

My GigaDesigns Dual 1.8 uses 7447As, and the basic design appearance(especially the heatsink shape and fan arrangement) is similar to the Sonnet.

If they are 7447As, hopefully Sonnet at least used faster processors than the 1.25ghz ones that Gigadesigns used.

The 7447As at 1.6ghz benchmark higher than the reported values for the dual 1.42 MDD. Of course, benchmarks don't tell the whole story.

I hope I'm able to win these-I'd really like to see if Sonnet actually managed to pull off dual 1.8s!

bunnspecial said:

I hope I'm able to win these-I'd really like to see if Sonnet actually managed to pull off dual 1.8s!

Click to expand...

When I still had mine installed in the QS I benchmarked (Linux + Blender) against someone else's PaSemi P6T@1.8GHz, and despite being severly crippled in the memory department I mangaged a slight victory.

1.67GHz PowerBooks reached about 60% (only 1 CPU pulling on better RAM), noone tested a Dual MDD.

Bug-Creator said:

When I still had mine installed in the QS I benchmarked (Linux + Blender) against someone else's PaSemi P6T@1.8GHz, and despite being severly crippled in the memory department I mangaged a slight victory.

1.67GHz PowerBooks reached about 60% (only 1 CPU pulling on better RAM), noone tested a Dual MDD.

Click to expand...

I know Geekbench has its issues, but at least on this site

http://www.everymac.com/mac-benchmarks/mac-powerpc-g3-g4-g5-benchmarks.html

The Dual 1.42 is listed as 1224. I managed 1246 with my Gigadesigns in a Quicksilver running at 1.6.

I do have to give the caveat that Geekbench does take into account memory amount. I generally get higher scores than reported at Everymac, and I expect it's because their scores are reported with the standard "base" amount of RAM(which was probably 256mb or 512mb on the MDD). My Quicksilver score above was with 1.5gb of RAM, although that PC-133 SDRAM and not DDR PC-2700 as in the MDD(167mhz rather than 133mhz). The MDD can take more RAM(2gb vs. 1.5gb) so it might edge out my dual 1.6 if that were the case.

Well, I won it, and for about half what I was willing to pay...

Full report forthcoming when it arrives.

bunnspecial said:

Well, I won it, and for about half what I was willing to pay...

Full report forthcoming when it arrives.

Click to expand...

Nice! I'm very excited to hear the results. That's such an awesome piece of hardware.

LightBulbFun said:

Oh very nice I hope it works out heh (I believe this CPU upgrade uses Dual 1.42Ghz 7447As OCed to 1.8Ghz and locked at that speed) Memory amount doesn't really affect geekbench results (my dual 1.42Ghz MDD with 2GB of ram gets 1220 something)

Click to expand...

Oh boy-if it uses dual 7447As I think that means flashing the ROM. Fortunately, the CD is included.

Of course, if it uses 1.42ghz processors it should be more stable at 1.8ghz than the GigaDesigns with its 1.25ghz.

The finish on the heatsink also appears to be much better than on the Giga. I suspect that the poorly finished heatsink has been the problem all along with the Gigadesigns. I'm at least the third owner of that particular processor, and it seems to run a lot better after lapping the heatsink(which none of the previous owners did). I may actually lap it again, since my last job wasn't perfect, and see if I can push it even more with the stock cooling.

Since the one in this thread is a Sonnet, I have full faith and confidence that it will actually work at the stated speed right out of the box.