Dual 1.42 MDD

[Dronecatcher]

Well, I've been looking for one for a long time and now I've finally found one at a good price (£25).
I'm just blown away by how fast this system feels - apart from hard number crunching, it seems on a parallel with my Dual G5 - that double L3 cache really makes a difference.
It feels very comfortable on the web and amazingly it uses less CPU on Youtube with Webkit than my Core Duo iMac does in Firefox.
It's not as noisy as anticipated either - slightly quieter than my 933 Quicksilver I'd say.
It came with 2 hdds but I've removed one as I want to spare the power supply any excessive effort…but maybe that's just my paranoia
It was originally running Panther and the previous owners appeared to be using it for graphic design and running a business in 2009 - an interesting parallel, as at that time I was designing too on a Dual 1.25 MDD. As ever, no attempt at data security on the seller's part....all safely eradicated now under a new Leopard install.

 

[Juicy Box]

Interesting.

I was recently given one of these. My friend pulled it out of the trash at his work and asked if I was interested in it. I said hell yea!

I haven't messed with it much, but it does boot. The case is in almost perfect condition, and I was thinking of gutting it and just using the case. I just feel weird gutting a working Mac though.


Maybe I will install leopard and put all my old games on it from MacOS 9 and PPC.

 

[eyoungren]

Interesting.

I was recently given one of these. My friend pulled it out of the trash at his work and asked if I was interested in it. I said hell yea!

I haven't messed with it much, but it does boot. The case is in almost perfect condition, and I was thinking of gutting it and just using the case. I just feel weird gutting a working Mac though.


Maybe I will install leopard and put all my old games on it from MacOS 9 and PPC.

If you find no other use for it, might I suggest a server…

As you said, gutting a good, working Mac doesn't feel right.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Maybe I will install leopard and put all my old games on it from MacOS 9 and PPC.

You'd have to dual boot with Tiger to retain some compatibilty in Classic for your OS9 stuff.

 

[Juicy Box]

You'd have to dual boot with Tiger to retain some compatibilty in Classic for your OS9 stuff.

I don't remember, I guess 10.5 removed PPC support or dual booting? Was that when there was an emulator for PPC stuff? I can't remember the name, Rosita maybe? I thought that Rosita worked pretty well.

Anyways, I have disk copies of both, so maybe I might play around with both of them. Wonder if Front Row works?

 

[Dronecatcher]

I don't remember, I guess 10.5 removed PPC support or dual booting? Was that when there was an emulator for PPC stuff? I can't remember the name, Rosita maybe? I thought that Rosita worked pretty well.

Anyways, I have disk copies of both, so maybe I might play around with both of them. Wonder if Front Row works?

Mac OS9 can't be booted on a Dual 1.42 but OS9 programs can be launched inside Tiger via the Classic layer. If desired, the hard disk can be partitioned to have installs of Tiger and Leopard but Leopard doesn't have the Classic layer.

 

[Juicy Box]

Mac OS9 can't be booted on a Dual 1.42 but OS9 programs can be launched inside Tiger via the Classic layer. If desired, the hard disk can be partitioned to have installs of Tiger and Leopard but Leopard doesn't have the Classic layer.

Thanks, it has been such a long time since I messed around with Leopard, I couldn't remember how it worked.

I remember liking Tiger more than Leopard, maybe that was one of the reasons why.

I can't remember the name, Rosita maybe? I thought that Rosita worked pretty well.

I just looked it up, and the name was Rosetta, but this was to run PPC apps on intel Macs. The thing I was thinking about was "Classic Mode" within OSX to boot OS9 within OSX.

 

[weckart]

Mac OS9 can't be booted on a Dual 1.42 but OS9 programs can be launched inside Tiger via the Classic layer. If desired, the hard disk can be partitioned to have installs of Tiger and Leopard but Leopard doesn't have the Classic layer.

Apparently, the MacOS9lives Universal 9.22 is said to work very well with this MDD. Firewire clocks down to 400Mb/s and I am not sure whether the ethernet functions but it will boot OS9 without the firmware downgrade that used to be applied.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Apparently, the MacOS9lives Universal 9.22 is said to work very well with this MDD. Firewire clocks down to 400Mb/s and I am not sure whether the ethernet functions but it will boot OS9 without the firmware downgrade that used to be applied.

Ah, I'd forgotten about that. I think someone over there has also put together a list of software that makes use of the dual processors too (even though the OS does not).

 

[benwild_33]

I briefly had one of these but it had a bad power supply and the cost of a replacement was looking too expensive so I sold it, luckily it went to a guy who had a replacement ready, gave him a free PowerMac 9600 with it too. It's interesting to see how these compare to the dual Sonnet CPUs, my 1.8GHz gets very little extra despite having nearly 400MHz extra per core! I guess the extra cache does that.

 

[XaPHER]

@Dronecatcher My Fw800 machine is my daily driver and I'm still dual booting with the Mac OS 9 system restore provided by MacOS9lives. There are very few quirks and are of no concern(for me at least).

The ethernet works with no problem, sound has to be set once to be audible (via control strip is enough), fw400 ports doesn't work for me but fw800 will act as 400, no trouble. Deep sleep doesn't work as it can't wake up properly.

Else than that, if temperature bothers, one of the cpus can still nap with roughly any version of PL cpu director.

Booting a dual 1.5ghz 7455 in classic mac oses on a sata drive via pci-sata feels like booting the burning flames of hell in terms of speed.

 

[Hrududu]

Interesting to hear your thoughts on speed being quite comparable to a dual G5. Thats been my experience as well with my dual 1.42 and my June 04 Dual 2.0 G5. Most typical daily tasks are just about the same, but I do find the G4 to be far louder that what I prefer to be around.

 

[Dronecatcher]

my 1.8GHz gets very little extra despite having nearly 400MHz extra per core!

I think sometimes benchmark figures can be misleading - better to go with the overall feel. Your dual 1.8 will excel at number crunching compared with the dual 1.42 I guess.
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My Fw800 machine is my daily driver and I'm still dual booting with the Mac OS 9 system restore provided by MacOS9lives.

I may give it a go at some point - all my Firewire peripherals are FW400 though so I'd need a FW800 adaptor to use them.
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I do find the G4 to be far louder that what I prefer to be around.

Yes, definitely louder than a "good" G5 but quieter than a "bad" one

 

[Hastings101]

Nice find!

Also, I'm always amazed how people don't even do a quick wipe of their hard drive before selling things off.

I bought an eMac to install OS9 that came with panther pre-installed, and the seller was so nice as to include tons of documents plus all of their Gmail, banking, and other passwords--at least a couple of which were still working when my curiosity got the better of me. The same thing happened with an old black Macbook I bought last summer.

Of course I wiped both machines right away, but not everyone has good intentions. Really ridiculous.

 

[bunnspecial]

It's interesting to see how these compare to the dual Sonnet CPUs, my 1.8GHz gets very little extra despite having nearly 400MHz extra per core! I guess the extra cache does that.

Unless you happen to have one of the ultra-rare MDD CPU upgrade cards, there's also the fact that the dual 1.8s are running on a 133mhz FSB as opposed to the 167mhz of the MDD. You also have DDR RAM as opposed to just plain SD-RAM.

It's hard to get around the fact that the MDD is fundamentally a more modern platform than the Quicksilver/Digital Audio as much as I like the latter.

With that said, the Sonnet dual 1.8 is a pair of 1.42ghz 7447As overclocked to 1.8ghz. If you had one of the extremely rare dual 1.8 7448s, you might see the gap narrow quite a bit. I know that my 2.0ghz 7448 is a beast at single threaded tasks.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I briefly had one of these but it had a bad power supply and the cost of a replacement was looking too expensive so I sold it, luckily it went to a guy who had a replacement ready, gave him a free PowerMac 9600 with it too. It's interesting to see how these compare to the dual Sonnet CPUs, my 1.8GHz gets very little extra despite having nearly 400MHz extra per core! I guess the extra cache does that.

thats not too surprising a reasult

as you have said the Cache plays a big roll in it


because the 744x CPUs are very much bottle necked by the Bus they are on (esp in dual CPU configurations where each CPU is fighting with the other one for bandwidth)

and because of this a nice Large and fast L2/L3 cache helps a whole bunch...

I think sometimes benchmark figures can be misleading - better to go with the overall feel. Your dual 1.8 will excel at number crunching compared with the dual 1.42 I guess.
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as I have said above, Geekbench aint being miss-leading here.

the only time Dual 1.8 7447As could outperform dual 1.42Ghz 7455B with L3 is if you found a workload that happened entirely in the 7447As L2 cache and did not leave it. but most workloads are not like that so you run into the Max Bus bottle neck a lot more then you do with Dual 7455s and a large L3 Cache. since the 7447A runs out of cache much quicker and has to go to main memory much sooner which is a lot slower thanks to the Max bus.

this is what makes the 7448 such a speed daemon because not only is its L2 cache on die and full speed but its quite large at 1MB so it can cache a lot of stuff and feed it very quickly to the very fast core

its a shame no one ever made any 7448 CPU upgrades for the MDD, that would be one hell of a G4 system. (Dual 2Ghz 7448s using the stock 1.42 heatsink would be very reasonable...)

 

[XaPHER]

@LightBulbFun I've managed to get 3 freescale non-ROHS 1250mhz MPC7448 parts 2 years ago just for the heck of it. They weren't expensive and I always wanted to see one close-up, even without being able to use it in a machine.

If I can give my personal opinion I would have preferred 7457s with maxed out 4mb backside cache. if Apple hadn't dropped them for their machines, they would surely have reached the same clock frequency as the later 7447A/B's. A 2x 4mb backside cache 7457 @1.5-1.6ghz would be a titan in its own way. Still, a 2x1.8ghz 7448 with its MPX bus at full speed @200mhz would also be quite something.

 

[LightBulbFun]

@LightBulbFun I've managed to get 3 freescale non-ROHS 1250mhz MPC7448 parts 2 years ago just for the heck of it. They weren't expensive and I always wanted to see one close-up, even without being able to use it in a machine.

If I can give my personal opinion I would have preferred 7457s with maxed out 4mb backside cache. if Apple hadn't dropped them for their machines, they would surely have reached the same clock frequency as the later 7447A/B's. A 2x 4mb backside cache 7457 @1.5-1.6ghz would be a titan in its own way. Still, a 2x1.8ghz 7448 with its MPX bus at full speed @200mhz would also be quite something.

very cool! Me and a few others have been looking to find some 7448s for some BGA upgrade stuff but thats much easier said then done, at this point we are looking at what equipment (telecom stuff etc) used 7448s that we could possibly salvage chips from, im curious where did you get yours?

do you have pictures of the chips? would be nice to get some detailed shots

indeed its a shame Apple never used the 7457 there was some potential there alright

I think the fastest iv seen an MDD bus clocked up to 172Mhz, someone changed the Crystal oscillator it self IIRC

 

[0248294]

@LightBulbFun I've managed to get 3 freescale non-ROHS 1250mhz MPC7448 parts 2 years ago just for the heck of it. They weren't expensive and I always wanted to see one close-up, even without being able to use it in a machine.

Haha, nice. Too bad the prices on them don't seem to be as good as they were, I've been thinking about finding a 7448, and seeing if my 1.42GHz eMac's 7447 could be swapped for one. I know people in the past have managed to squeeze the original 7447 all the way up to a 2GHz overclock reliably on the eMac, mostly thanks to its overkill cooling system, I wonder what a clock-equivalent or even higher clocked 7448 could do in an eMac, given it runs cooler from what I've heard. Still, even with just such a 7448, I'd have the fastest eMac on earth if I swapped the chips and it'd work

 

[Dronecatcher]

as I have said above, Geekbench aint being miss-leading here.

What I mean is, just using a slightly different Geekbench version can change as much as 200 points on the score.
Plus, if you look at tables on Everymac, there's no linear correlation between specs and Geekbench scores.

 

[LightBulbFun]

What I mean is, just using a slightly different Geekbench version can change as much as 200 points on the score.
Plus, if you look at tables on Everymac, there's no linear correlation between specs and Geekbench scores.

in my experience I have found GeekBench 2 to be quite the good/repeatable benchmark as long as you stay with in the same version

I use 2.2.0 for 10.4.11 PPC/intel and 2.2.7 for 10.5.8 PPC (which is the latest versions for reach respectively)

see for example my 1.67Ghz 17 and 15 inch DLSDs and my 1.67Ghz Mac mini all benchmarked with in 1 point of each other in Leopard GB 2.2.7 (its also a good demonstration of how the DDR2 on the DLSD is really just for show)

https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/2636860

https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/2630434

https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/2601067

feel free to click on my username in those benchmarks and browse my other Benchmarks I have quite the library of Geekbench 2 3 and 4 results for many diffrent machines and setups

 

[Dronecatcher]

I use 2.2.0 for 10.4.11 PPC/intel and 2.2.7 for 10.5.8 PPC (which is the latest versions for reach respectively)

I use 2.1.2 - I'll run some comparisons with 2.2.7 later and note the differences.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I use 2.1.2 - I'll run some comparisons with 2.2.7 later and note the differences.

iv noticed that

I do recommend sticking with the latest versions for any given OS release as they are the most mature and most likely to give accurate and repeatable results

but yes between 2 versions there can be some variance in the score on the same hardware/setup.

and this is why I recommend comparing/using the same version across the board (this holds true for any sort of benchmark or test)

 

[Dronecatcher]

but yes between 2 versions there can be some variance in the score on the same hardware/setup.

Some quick tests between 2.1.2 and 2.2.7

Dual 1.42 MDD
2.1.2 1296
2.2.7 1232

Powerbook 12" 1.5
2.1.2 720
2.2.7 864

Powerbook 17" DLSD
2.1.2 873
2.2.7 972

This is what I mean about benchmarks, using 2.2.7 the MDD loses 64 marks, PB 12" gains 144 and PB 17" gains 99.

 

[AphoticD]

Some quick tests between 2.1.2 and 2.2.7

Dual 1.42 MDD
2.1.2 1296
2.2.7 1232

Powerbook 12" 1.5
2.1.2 720
2.2.7 864

Powerbook 17" DLSD
2.1.2 873
2.2.7 972

This is what I mean about benchmarks, using 2.2.7 the MDD loses 64 marks, PB 12" gains 144 and PB 17" gains 99.

My findings have been that Geekbench scores much more generously on Leopard (v2.2.7) than Tiger (v2.2.0). This is on both G4 and G5 Macs. Sometimes there is a variance of ~10% or even 200+ points. I’m not sure if this is an indication of underlying improvements in Leopard for or just a shift of the base score.

You’ve got to also remember that any background tasks will have an impact on the results as they will interrupt the benchmark processes. It’s best to switch off any Sharing services and kill background apps and extra menu items, disable the screensaver (and screen dimming) then run the test without touching the mouse or keyboard. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to also disable Spotlight and Dashboard, but I haven’t done that.

I would typically run the testing with the Highest performance Energy Saver options. This should prevent any throttling or stepping of the CPU, bus and RAM speeds.