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Upgradable G5 DPs?

maclamb

maclamb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 28, 2002
432
0
Northern California
Dell sells DP capable machines that come with 1 cpu - the second can be added later.
Why does Apple not do this? Can this not be done with the G5 DP machines?
 
Because I can buy an Intel or Athlon processor off the shelf.

When was the last time you saw PPC 970s for sale in the retail market?
 
well, yes, but Apple could sell the processor...or someone else - I don't buy intel cpus from intel - and maybe the reason you don't buy ppc cpus off the shelf is because there is no "open cpu slot" - so chicken and egg?
and - sonnet and powerlogix get their cpus from somewhere...

So far I don't see that as a real reason not to.
 
Originally posted by io_burn
I beleive the single processor G5 towers have a different motherboard than their dual processor companions.
Click to expand...
Bingo...

While the motherboard may be technically capable of supporting a second processor, the board is in reality lacking some of the key components for the second processor.

And since each G5 processor has it's own elastic bus to the UniNorth3.x (while the G4s share a single bus) -- it's unlikely that a daughter card with 2 G5s will be released.

You'll note only one WHITE PLASTIC CPU SOCKET...

G5 Single CPU Logic board
 
Perhaps I was not clear.
Yes, thank you, I realize that a Single CPU capable MB will only accept 1 cpu ("ya think?")
If you read my orignal post it was about Dell's DP capable MB - meaning the MB has 2 cpu sockets.
I was aking basically:
Given that apple has two G5 MB (SP and DP)
AND
Could a DP MB run with one CPU - and if so - wouldn't it be cool for apple to sell a single CPU on a DP mb - Less $ upfront (I might buy a DP CAPABLE G5 with one CPU NOW and uypgrade later.

that was where I was going....
 
The problem with these CPU daughtercards is the CPU cooling system needs to be calibrated every time the CPUs are moved to a new slot.

I'm sure Apple could release a Applescript to do it, but Apple avoids the word "upgradeable."

They've dropped this word from their lexicon since losing the lawsuit on a machine that was orphaned by the 3rd party market -- Apple had to engineer an upgrade for the machine -- the upgrade was quite expensive for everyone.

Heck, they got their panties in a knot when 3rd party manufacturers started saying the hidden slot inside the Bondi iMacs could be used as an upgrade slot.
 
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