I am upgrading my Beige 266 G3 Desktop, I dont know which CPU to get. The Sonnet Encore/ZIF G4/500MHz w/1024k 2:1 Backside Cache, or the PowerLogix PowerForce G3/900MHz ZIF with 512K L2 On-Chip Cache. The G4 is only $199 and the G3 is $247. What would be the best buy, pros and cons?
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G3 900 or G4 500! HELP!
- Thread starter vdubskey
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I dont have personal experience with any upgrade cards, but from many things i've heard, any upgrade cards can cause unexpected problems in one area or another. I would not recommend upgrading from g3 to g4 with a card, so i'd go for a g3 900. Especally since it will be faster in pretty much most applications anyways than g4 500....
Cheers.
Cheers.
One thing to worry about...
Hate to rain on your parade... but the G3 900 is way hotter than the G4 500 - so if you are thermally constrained then I'd recommend the G4.
-Wyrm
Hate to rain on your parade... but the G3 900 is way hotter than the G4 500 - so if you are thermally constrained then I'd recommend the G4.
-Wyrm
I'd go the G3 Upgrade, but would reccomend waiting at least a month before doing so. IBM are just about to release the 750GX, G3 processor which essentially replaces the 750FX G3 chip. It will run at speeds of 1.1ghz and include 1mb of L2 cache...... the performance difference between the 750GX and 750FX is substantial enough that i would hold off getting a 750FX upgrade until Powerlogix, or whoever, incorporates the new G3 into their existing G3 upgrade line, which should be within a month, givin' IBM's roadmap.
I'd go g3 as well. Maybe someone else knows more about this, but if yu could pick up a > 32MB video card on eBay ro someplace, woul your system utilize Quartz Extreme? (are you running OS 10.xx?)
No QE...
I don't believe he could run Quartz Extreme, as it requires a 32MB card in an AGP slot, which the Beige G3, B&W G3, and Yikes G4 don't have. Incidentally, I don't believe there's a way to get a PCI video card with > 32mb of memory, at least for the Mac (alas...I have a Yikes G4/400).
This brings up an interesting question. Typically G3 upgrades (for the B&Ws) also apply to the Yikes G4, since their motherboards are the same. Would it make sense to "upgrade" a 400mhz G4 to a 900Mhz/1Ghz G3?
I don't believe he could run Quartz Extreme, as it requires a 32MB card in an AGP slot, which the Beige G3, B&W G3, and Yikes G4 don't have. Incidentally, I don't believe there's a way to get a PCI video card with > 32mb of memory, at least for the Mac (alas...I have a Yikes G4/400).
This brings up an interesting question. Typically G3 upgrades (for the B&Ws) also apply to the Yikes G4, since their motherboards are the same. Would it make sense to "upgrade" a 400mhz G4 to a 900Mhz/1Ghz G3?
Well you can buy a 32meg PCI video card for the mac, the Radeon 7000, and you can get it for around 100 bucks, im not trying to make this thing superfast, just want better then the slow 266, I decided to go with the 900 G3 upgrade, and i will be buying the Radeon 7000 soon. My only obstacle left is trying to fit the guts on this into a G4 graphite case? Any suggestions?
This is true...and you can (I remembered reading this and checked) change some settings to make QE function with a 32mb video card in a PCI slot. However, this routes all of the GUI functions through the PCI bus, which is slow. When you're resizing windows and doing Fast User Switching, the benefits will marginally outweigh the cost. But supposedly, when you're doing processor-intensive tasks (like capturing video, for example), enabling QE on Macs with PCI graphics cards worsens general performance substantially.
But again, mileage may vary. Panther (including the UI) seems to run much more smoothly on older hardware. Even Expose functions (although I imagine it'd be somewhat choppy with a lot of windows.)
I decided to go with the PowerLogix G3/800 upgrade for my B&W G3/400. Check to make certain you want a 900 MHz upgrade, as I've heard it wasn't as stable.
I wouldn't bother with the G4 upgrade unless I only had that machine and I worked a lot with Photoshop and played Quake III Arena. Sure, the operating system will make use of AltiVec but overall, I've noticed that my G3/800 runs non-AltiVec processes about 7 percent faster than a single G4/800 in my dual machine.
I wouldn't bother with the G4 upgrade unless I only had that machine and I worked a lot with Photoshop and played Quake III Arena. Sure, the operating system will make use of AltiVec but overall, I've noticed that my G3/800 runs non-AltiVec processes about 7 percent faster than a single G4/800 in my dual machine.
Re: Re: One thing to worry about...
Yeah that's what I thought, but the 750FX can run so hot that it crashes processes under OSX (it only happens when it is hot - if I put a fan on it, the thing is rock-stable) I use the PowerLogix tools to downclock the CPU, and it gains stablity, but then you lose the speed advantage. Given the choice again, I'd go for the G4.
I have a feeling either I have a dud, or its heat generation is concentrated on a few areas of the die causing signal problems.
Remember 7~8 watts in an area a few angstroms wide is hotter than the Sun.
The nice thing about OSX is an app crashes (like Safari) and the system carries on like nothing happened. I haven't received a kernel panic yet (knock on wood)...
-Wyrm
Yeah that's what I thought, but the 750FX can run so hot that it crashes processes under OSX (it only happens when it is hot - if I put a fan on it, the thing is rock-stable) I use the PowerLogix tools to downclock the CPU, and it gains stablity, but then you lose the speed advantage. Given the choice again, I'd go for the G4.
I have a feeling either I have a dud, or its heat generation is concentrated on a few areas of the die causing signal problems.
Remember 7~8 watts in an area a few angstroms wide is hotter than the Sun.
The nice thing about OSX is an app crashes (like Safari) and the system carries on like nothing happened. I haven't received a kernel panic yet (knock on wood)...
-Wyrm
Re: Re: Re: One thing to worry about...
What machine is it that you've upgraded? Guessing it's not the Pismo, but I'm suprised that the 900mhz G3 upgrade is running hot in a Mac desktop....... I've read positive reports covering the 900mhz G3 upgrade for the Pismo on XLR8YOURMAC, no crashes or anything....and that is with a smallish copper heatsink.
Perhaps it is an issue with the part? I did read of some reports of Pismo owners having to send their CPU's back in for replacement, which normally fixes the issues with heat & crashes...... not all CPU's come off the production line equal i guess.If not, maybe the heatsink needs to be realigned on the CPU die, even slight miscontact can cause extreme problems with heat dissapation from the CPU, this is true for any modern processor. Arctic Silver thermal paste works wonders for maximum heat transfer between CPU die and heatsinks, but too much can have the opposite effect .
Originally posted by Wyrm
Yeah that's what I thought, but the 750FX can run so hot that it crashes processes under OSX (it only happens when it is hot - if I put a fan on it, the thing is rock-stable) I use the PowerLogix tools to downclock the CPU, and it gains stablity, but then you lose the speed advantage. Given the choice again, I'd go for the G4.
I have a feeling either I have a dud, or its heat generation is concentrated on a few areas of the die causing signal problems.
Remember 7~8 watts in an area a few angstroms wide is hotter than the Sun.
The nice thing about OSX is an app crashes (like Safari) and the system carries on like nothing happened. I haven't received a kernel panic yet (knock on wood)...
-Wyrm
What machine is it that you've upgraded? Guessing it's not the Pismo, but I'm suprised that the 900mhz G3 upgrade is running hot in a Mac desktop....... I've read positive reports covering the 900mhz G3 upgrade for the Pismo on XLR8YOURMAC, no crashes or anything....and that is with a smallish copper heatsink.
Perhaps it is an issue with the part? I did read of some reports of Pismo owners having to send their CPU's back in for replacement, which normally fixes the issues with heat & crashes...... not all CPU's come off the production line equal i guess.If not, maybe the heatsink needs to be realigned on the CPU die, even slight miscontact can cause extreme problems with heat dissapation from the CPU, this is true for any modern processor. Arctic Silver thermal paste works wonders for maximum heat transfer between CPU die and heatsinks, but too much can have the opposite effect .
Re: Re: Re: Re: One thing to worry about...
Yeah - it is the Pismo, from PowerLogix. Hmm - maybe I should investigate further with them. Thanks.
-Wyrm
Yeah - it is the Pismo, from PowerLogix. Hmm - maybe I should investigate further with them. Thanks.
-Wyrm