1.6/1.8/2.0GHz G5 CPU daughtercard swaps?

[oingoboingo]

Hi,

I was thinking about this the other day...does anyone know of any information on the web about people swapping G5 CPU daughtercards between different speed grade systems? If someone had access to 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0GHz systems it might be an interesting experiment to perform, and would certainly answer questions about the long-term upgradability of the system. I haven't been able to find anything by Googling around the place. Seems like an obvious experiment to try if you were daring...

 

[Rezet]

I'm not even gonna open a sidecover of my G5 without a good reason...

 

[G5orbust]

Well, I guess in theory it could be done with the single proc versions. The G5 uses daughter cards, so I would assume that it could be done in the same fashion as the G4 cards. But, one would have to have firmware upgrades that go along with the chip to make the cooling fan spin faster in accordance with the higher clock.


Picture of G5 daughtercard, courtasy of ChaosMint.com

 

[wr0x2]

The cooling fans spin based on temperature, not based on what kind of chip you have.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

thanks for the picture, that one heck of a card!

 

[tpjunkie]

the fans are also controlled by the OS anyway, so no firmware update would be needed

 

[iJon]

what about the front side bus. does it resign on the daughter card or the mobo itself. i have this odd feeling that it may be easier said than done.

iJon

 

[Dreadnought]

I think we will see it soon enough on xlr8yourmac.com. I think they are itching to get their hands on a couple of G5's they can overclock or use them for this kind of experiments!

 

[robbieduncan]

Originally posted by iJon
what about the front side bus. does it resign on the daughter card or the mobo itself. i have this odd feeling that it may be easier said than done.

iJon

Sort of both. There is a high speed bus form the daughter card to the motherboard so the traces are on the board. And the RAM bus which operates at 50% of CPU speed is also on the motherboard. You could hope that the 1.8 boards scale to 2.0Ghz (the 1.6 systems use a different motherboard so may well not scale that well).