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Powerlogix Dual 933

neonart

neonart

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 4, 2002
1,066
67
Near a Mac since 1993.
Powerlogix has a special upgrade on their site that their resellers do not carry- Dual 933 for $799. I figured it was a god deal and bought one and it's great! I upgraded a QS733. The OS feels extremely fluid! Scrolling in Illustrator is super smooth, where before it was very choppy. I timed some common tasks and the improvements were definitely there! The biggest improvement is the OS and how well it flows and how switching between apps is as snappy as 9 was!

Some people have noticed wake from sleep issues, specially on the 100mhz bus systems, but this one went well.

Just thought I'd share the experience.
 
I don't game on my mac- the improvements I noted were in ripping, VPC6, video exporting, AI, PS, etc.

Installation was very easy, but I've done this way too much. Basically you...
1- remove the old heatsink (2 metal clamps)
2- old card (4 screws)
3- plug in new card/heatsink (all as 1)
4- replace 3 of the screws (magnetic screwdriver needed)
5- install additional fan* (not really much louder)
6- connect additional fan electrical (easy)

*when you power up, make sure fan is blowing down into heatsink.


I opened the case and the heatsink was hot, but not horrible as I could keep my fingers on it a little bit. No crashes though.
I will later on see if there is anything I can do to improve airflow/cooling for the card. But just to be picky, not due to real concerns.
 
You probably got a large boost not only because of the Dual CPUs, but also because of the addition of a L3 cache. The QS 733 is known for its lack of L3 cache and the performance hit it takes because of that. Glad to hear you like your upgrade card.
 
congrats on the purchase. $799 is way out of my budget though..

i guess you will have to change your sig now. ;)

[edit: never mind, you already did. :D]
 
How are the bench marks on it?? have you ran xbench?? I'm buying my mom's 733 QS (she ordered a 12 inch powerbook) and was thinking serioulsy about upgrading.
 
I did not do Xbench results. I did time several common tasks listed below. I did not time any specific PS and AI tasks, but both scream! I laugh at Gaussian blurs- HAHAHAHAH... ok, sorry.
Here are the results which are on the main page of xlr8yourmac:
(Test 1) Startup speed: While I didn't expect much, and since my startup drive runs from a PCI Adaptec card your results will vary.
Apple 733: 1:31, PowerLogix DP933: 1:19

(Test 2) Rip a 47.1 min CD to MP3 160kbps
Apple 733: 4:59, PowerLogix DP933: 3:45

(Test 3) Max Rip Speed
Apple 733: 11.5x, PowerLogix DP933: 14.0x

(Test 4) Virtual PC6 Startup
Apple 733: 41 (sec.), PowerLogix DP933: 30 (sec.)

(Test 5) Export a 1:39 Complex iMovie to CD Quality
Apple 733: 2:39 PowerLogix DP933: 1:57

All these tests are not hugely intensive and still the results were very noticeable. Honestly a dual 867 would be just fine too- I have yet to saturate the processors.
But you can never have enough horsepower! ;)
 
Could I put this thing on a 450 Sawtooth? That just might be enough to make it more usable....

D
 
Originally posted by dukestreet
Could I put this thing on a 450 Sawtooth? That just might be enough to make it more usable....

D
Click to expand...

You would use a dual 900.
But speak to the folks at Powerlogix BEFORE you buy. Alot of people with the 100Mhz machines are having sleep issues with Pwrlgx upgrades...
Just a heads up.

Visit www.xlr8yourmac.com tons of great info.
 
Any idea how this performance stacks up against a dual 867 or dual 1 gig? I am seriously intrested, but it seems i could sell the computer on ebay and buy a 867dually for the same price as upgrading the 733.
 
I think I would rather have a Dual 867 instead of an upgraded 450.
You'll get a faster system bus, a new architecture, more pci slots, faster AGP, and of course a newer machine. (And you have no risk of sleep issues) The only downside is that you have to redo your stuff and re-install all your Apps, etc.
I'm willing to bet a dual 867 will be faster than your 450 upgraded to a dual 900. There are other things that will come to play in that comparison that 33Mhz can't make up for.

Also there are still a few retailers with brand new DP867's for $1499!
 
Remember, also, that not only are you getting a 133Mhz system bus, but also PC133 RAM. This can make a major difference in speed. Also, you'll probably be getting a faster HD and graphics card. You'll be getting a better system controller, too (I don't think the 450 has firewire and ethernet fed directly into the system controller). You'll be getting a better optical drive, too. Hmmmm, anything else......ummm.....a warrenty.....and as mentioned before, a faster AGP bus and more PCI slots. Now for the guy with the 733Mhz one, I say go with the new machine, too, just because 33Mhz is not that big of a difference and you are getting a faster graphics card, HD, and (I'm not sure about this one) DDR RAM?

Anyway, that is my two cents worth.
 
Originally posted by neonart
You would use a dual 900.
But speak to the folks at Powerlogix BEFORE you buy. Alot of people with the 100Mhz machines are having sleep issues with Pwrlgx upgrades...
Just a heads up.
Click to expand...

I just checked and found out that my machine will not support dual processors (it was the first set of G4s to be built) so I'll just have to wait until the 970s come out and get one of those.

But I'll make sure I get at least a dual!

D
 
Originally posted by hugemullens
How are the bench marks on it?? have you ran xbench??
Click to expand...

Results 108.21
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0
System Version 10.2.4
Physical RAM 1536 MB
Model PowerMac3,5
Processor PowerPC G4x2 @ 934 MHz
Version 7455 (Apollo) v2.1
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 256K @ 934 MHz
L3 Cache 2048K @ 267 MHz
Bus Frequency 134 MHz
Video Card
Drive Type IBM DDYS-T18350N
CPU Test 116.25
GCD Recursion 117.14 4.57 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 117.65 396.52 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 117.17 6.36 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 113.16 5.08

I still love the speed of this upgrade, but I do get one of the many varieties of wake from sleep problems. That is my Video does not come up after a long sleep. I've spoken to Pwrlgx I've been considering other options. I really want to keep the duals though...
 
How was the spped improvement in running vir pc? Not start up but running programs from within? I to have a 733 and vir pc really sucks on it.
 
Originally posted by ian559
How was the spped improvement in running vir pc? Not start up but running programs from within? I to have a 733 and vir pc really sucks on it.
Click to expand...

It sucks less.

It made a usefull difference, but it's not like running a 3.06 Ghz P4. You can actually do work on it and it's good. Window resizing and window switching is still sluggish though.
 
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