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Older computers usable today

Project Alice said:
This is pretty much exactly my experience. I love my 1Ghz TiBook. It’s my favorite to play old games on, games running on the quake3 (idTech3) engine absolutely plays beautifully on it. I can even play kotor on it, albeit on the lowest settings.
My 1.5Ghz PBs are indeed noticeably faster.
I’d admittedly use the TiBook more often if I could connect it to wifi though. I don’t bother with getting the OG airport cards on my network. I live in an apartment complex. Allowing WPA1 would be a security risk.
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Yeah I set up a WEP network for my TiBook so i could use the internal wireless card. Not ideal at all, but i’ve been mulling some things to improve it. It’s firewalled off from the regular network, but that’s it.

i was using a nano USB wireless but they get really hot under normal circumstances and the TiBook’s exhaust fan is right there so it’s even worse. Kept having packet loss once it got hot.
 
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This is a very interesting option to make a cheap gaming PC. This guy found an Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB for $35 US, but it's a mining card, and has no outputs. So he uses video passthrough to send the video signal to the on board outputs. But apparently you need a 4th gen or higher Intel for passthrough to work on Windows 10, but older gens and AMD will work on Windows 7. I love stuff like this!

 
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timidpimpin said:
This is a very interesting option to make a cheap gaming PC. This guy found an Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB for $35 US, but it's a mining card, and has no outputs. So he uses video passthrough to send the video signal to the on board outputs. But apparently you need a 4th gen or higher Intel for passthrough to work. I love stuff like this!

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That's actually really cool. I could see this being more useful on a laptop. Not being able to use the internal display is the main reason I never understood the eGPU fad in the first place. If one could passtrough to the internal display, that would totally make it worthwhile for a laptop.

Side note, I watched that video on my TiBook. At 144p of course.
 
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What is OzTalksHW’s general approach to “beat the market”? Find an old tower for cheap and then throw a just good enough graphics card?
 
sanfrancisofont1984 said:
What is OzTalksHW’s general approach to “beat the market”? Find an old tower for cheap and then throw a just good enough graphics card?
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Good idea for Windows. A good dGPU from yesteryear still beats latest and greatest iGPU by a large margin. For Linux I honest don’t know where the cut off points are between good drivers and bad drivers for team red and team green. This applies to x86 only. Not familiar with what is cooking in arm.
 
sanfrancisofont1984 said:
SFF is not very portable. Haven’t seen one used on a passenger flight. If you have a private jet maybe?
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...Neither is this?..
sanfrancisofont1984 said:
Just my 2 cents, using laptops as “portable towers” is more ergonomic.
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A laptop with an eGPU (normally) requires an external monitor. If you want to use a laptop as a "portable tower" you have a SFF with extra steps.
You aren't going to be carrying a laptop and a monitor on a plane, are you?
 
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Macbookprodude said:
The following are the best computers to use today:

Notebooks: G4 Titanium 1ghz with SSD, PB G4 Aluminum 15/17 inch 1.67 DLSD.
Desktops: G4 MDD Dual 1.25/2MB L3 and Dual 1.42, PM G5 2.3/2.5 Quad.

The rest under those are useless junk that won't do much at all. The above are the top of their categories.. For instance a G4 PB aluminum without DDR2 will perform horribly, versus the DLSD. The Titanium G4 versus, say a weak G4 12 inch PB will perform nicely with the L3 cache.

Just my .02
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Macbookprodude said:
But, I can state that compared to my DLSD 1.67, the 1ghz Titanium with L3 Cache is much faster for some reasons. The 7447A/B processor lacks L3 which is why its so so slow, but the Titanium's 7455 with 1MB L3 runs very nicely, even with a nice 512GB SSD.
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Here's the scores for my 1Ghz TiBook
TiBook 1ghz.jpg
Literally slower in every way than a 1.5Ghz 12". It should be noted that the 12" is running on the original spinner, and my TiBook has an SSD.
Project Alice said:
I ran Geekbench 2.2.7 on the IBM, and a 1.5Ghz 12" PowerBook. The IBM had a higher score, but not by much. Considering it's technically 1100Mhz faster than the PowerBook, that's rather impressive for the PowerPC chip.
View attachment 956970View attachment 956971

I also exported them to HTML, macrumors wouldn't accept those extensions so I had to zip them.
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This was the score from my 12". If you look at the HTML or GB file you can see all the individual scores. But you can see from the screen shot the overall score is much higher for the 12".

I don't have the HTML version for the TiBook, because for some reason the Mac version of GB won't export to anything but a GB2 file (I exported the 12" scores using windows) so you'll need geekbench installed to view the individual scores.
 

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Project Alice said:
A laptop with an eGPU (normally) requires an external monitor. If you want to use a laptop as a "portable tower" you have a SFF with extra steps.
You aren't going to be carrying a laptop and a monitor on a plane, are you?
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Leave the eGPU, monitor, etc. at home or office. eGPU is an accelerator not an essential part.
 
I just felt that the 1.67ghz PB G4 was slower to me than my TI Book for some reason.. probably due to L3 as the 7447a/n lacks this which is why it sucks.
[automerge]1601865641[/automerge]
 
Project Alice said:
I’m gonna disagree with this. Absolutely not “useless junk”.
I don’t even own a DLSD PowerBook because I don’t have $500 to spend on a 15 year old laptop.
I have multiple 1.5Ghz models. They have served as my daily drivers for about two years now.
Saying a dual G4 is useable but say a 1.8 DP G5 isn’t, makes absolutely zero sense. My DP 1.8 as well as 2.0 does great, and runs circles around my MDD for most things. The higher amount of memory alone makes that true for any G5.
You also can’t say a Titanium PowerBook has merrit when it is in fact slower than every aluminum ever put on the market, save for the 867Mhz models.
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My other qualm with that is that the main achilles' heel with the MDD is the PSU. While I'm sure there are many MDDs out there still running fine with their original PSUs, the power supply issue is fairly well known. And when the PSU does fail, it necessitates either an expensive eBay replacement, or an extensive mod to use a standard ATX PSU.

From what I recall reading years ago, even Digital Audio and Quicksilver G4s have potentially problematic PSUs that are more prone to long-term failure due to poor design related to ADC.
 
That PSU problems are unfortunately a general problem because that is where are the electrolytics capacitors are sitting and they have a limited lifespan which are shortened whenever they run in a hot and/or not climate controlled environment.
I have my UPS gone bad because of it and I recapped a lot of PSU bricks from different electronics at work.
 
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Macbookprodude said:
I just felt that the 1.67ghz PB G4 was slower to me than my TI Book for some reason.. probably due to L3 as the 7447a/n lacks this which is why it sucks.
[automerge]1601865641[/automerge]
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Project Alice said:
Here's the scores for my 1Ghz TiBook
View attachment 962821
Literally slower in every way than a 1.5Ghz 12". It should be noted that the 12" is running on the original spinner, and my TiBook has an SSD.

This was the score from my 12". If you look at the HTML or GB file you can see all the individual scores. But you can see from the screen shot the overall score is much higher for the 12".

I don't have the HTML version for the TiBook, because for some reason the Mac version of GB won't export to anything but a GB2 file (I exported the 12" scores using windows) so you'll need geekbench installed to view the individual scores.
Click to expand...
It isn’t though. Did you see the scores?

If it feels faster maybe the drive is failing.
my TiBook does feel very smooth for a 1Ghz G4. But the faster AlBooks are just that..faster. The AlBooks compensate for not having the L3 cache with a much faster L2 if my memory isn’t failing me.
 
Project Alice said:
It isn’t though. Did you see the scores?

If it feels faster maybe the drive is failing.
my TiBook does feel very smooth for a 1Ghz G4. But the faster AlBooks are just that..faster. The AlBooks compensate for not having the L3 cache with a much faster L2 if my memory isn’t failing me.
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The drive isn't failing.. just Leopard is very very slow on a 1.67 DLSD.. When I timed my computers, the Titanium won, though it has an SSD in it.
 
weckart said:
My RPi4 in its Argon ONE case fits in the palm of my hand. I do have a 1920x1200 11" display to pair it with, too.
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I just received my Argon One M2 case today I have ordered some thermal paste waiting for that to arrive so I can set it up/ :)I got the paste because of this guy's video.
good video.:)
 
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Roxy.music said:
I just received my Argon One M2 case today I have ordered some thermal paste waiting for that to arrive so I can set it up/ :)I got the paste because of this guy's video.
good video.:)
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I got the M.2 expansion board a few weeks ago but didn't bother with pasting as I found the fan never came on except for a few seconds when booting. You should be careful with the SATA drive you pick as some run hotter than others. Go for a cool one rather than a fast one since you will barely notice the difference running over USB.

If you are going to thrash the RPi4, then maybe you might save a degree or two by pasting.
 
weckart said:
I got the M.2 expansion board a few weeks ago but didn't bother with pasting as I found the fan never came on except for a few seconds when booting. You should be careful with the SATA drive you pick as some run hotter than others. Go for a cool one rather than a fast one since you will barely notice the difference running over USB.

If you are going to thrash the RPi4, then maybe you might save a degree or two by pasting.
Click to expand...
weckart said:
I got the M.2 expansion board a few weeks ago but didn't bother with pasting as I found the fan never came on except for a few seconds when booting. You should be careful with the SATA drive you pick as some run hotter than others. Go for a cool one rather than a fast one since you will barely notice the difference running over USB.

If you are going to thrash the RPi4, then maybe you might save a degree or two by pasting.
Click to expand...
I have recoved my tjermal paste today and used it on the PI.I have not used the set the Pi yet.
 
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