Post your G4 CPU Upgrades! (Also G4 Cube!)

[EmilioCube]

So I just start a discussion here about what G4 processor upgrades you have (including upgrades from other Macs) where you got them from and for what price you got them. Of course some specs would be nice:

Clock
Single/Dual
74xx type
L2/L3 Cache size
Manufacturer
Geekbench score under Tiger (just to know how the upgrade compares to the stock one)

 

[EmilioCube]

My Cube is completely upgraded except for the CPU. I tried getting in a Dual 1.25 from a MDD but that ended up getting toasted.
I recently found a 2Ghz Newertech upgrade on ebay but the seller seems to have put the decimal point one place too far to the left lol
But I also found a 1Ghz Sonnet 7455 upgrade that arrives in a few days, I will have more specs and Geekbench when it arrives

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I upgraded my single 733mhz Quicksilver G4 CPU to:

Clock - 1ghz
Single/Dual - Dual
74xx type - 7450
L2 Cache size - 256kb
L3 Cache size - 2mb
Manufacturer - Apple
Geekbench score under Tiger -- Uhhhhhh

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I also "upgraded" my single 1.25 MDD CPU to:

Clock - 867mhz
Single/Dual - Dual
74xx type - 7455
L2 Cache size - 256kb
L3 Cache size - 1mb
Manufacturer - Apple
Geekbench score under Tiger -- Uhhhhhh

 

[EmilioCube]

I upgraded my single 733mhz Quicksilver G4 CPU to:

Clock - 1ghz
Single/Dual - Dual
74xx type - 7450
L2 Cache size - 256kb
L3 Cache size - 2mb
Manufacturer - Apple
Geekbench score under Tiger -- Uhhhhhh

Interesting.
I didnt thought Apple sold 7450s faster than 867mhz but everymac confirms that some late quiksilvers still had 7450s instead of 7455s.
And I also have to test my Cubes stock processor and upgrade.
I asked just to see how the 74xx types differ in terms of performance and that clock rate is not equal to speed.

What I am also curious about is what exactly benefits from Dual processors, Boot time, system apps, office apps, Minecraft fps ?
The only thing I know is that over the Time from 9.2.2 almost nothing benefitted from Duals and I have read that MP support in Tiger and Leopard has got all the way to being pretty decent.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Right, there is little gain under classic macos. I dont use os9 or earlier. In this QS I am running OSX Leopard which knows what to do with the dual cpu daugter card, so I get a boost in app performance.

 

[joevt]

I bought some G3 upgrades from OWC in July 2005 for a B&W G3/300 and a Power Mac 8600/200.

Item Number: PLGPFZGX11001M 
Description: PowerLogix PowerForce G3/1.1GHz (1100MHz) ZIF with 1024K L2 On-Chip Cache for the Power Mac G3 Beige, Blue & White; G4 'Yikes' PCI Models. New with 2yr Warranty.
Price: $319.00

Item Number: PLGPCIGX10001 
Description: PowerLogix PowerForce 750GX G3/1GHz (1000MHz) - Upgrade your PCI Based Mac (73/75/76/85/86/95/96/Clone) to 1GHz with this awesome upgrade card! Using an IBM 750GX G3 Processor w/1MB 1:1 L2 Cache.
Price: $229.99

But I replaced them with Sonnet G4 1GHz upgrades bought from the Sonnet Store November 2006

1 x Encore/ZIF G4 1.0 GHz (with B&W Support) (EG4-1000-1M-U) = $299.95
1 x Crescendo/PCI G4 1.0 GHz (PPCG4-1000-2M) = $199.95

I've also had some PowerPC CPU upgrades from other manufacturers (XLR8).

 

[EmilioCube]

That is a lot of upgrades. Speaking of XLR8, their upgrades were not that popular, but what I find the most interesting is their software which gave me actual temperatures of my stock Cube CPU. Only in steps of four degrees celsius, but still nice. I dont know how only this program manages to get temps but these values are definitely not made up as my tests have shown.
I hope this info can be useful for some, especially if you want to oc your proccesor and are on Tiger 11 which had the CPU director fixed (as well as Tiger 10 had) or you have a processor that has no thermal diode.

 

[joevt]

I hope this info can be useful for some, especially if you want to oc your proccesor and are on Tiger 11 which had the CPU director fixed (as well as Tiger 10 had) or you have a processor that has no thermal diode.

Did you mean broken instead of fixed? I don't think CPU Director works after Tiger 10.4.9.

 

[EmilioCube]

Yes, I meant broken. MacOS 10.4.9 is Tiger 9 for me. So is MacOS 10.4.10 Tiger 10 and so on.
I used "fixed" from Apples side.
Breaking a program that is made for upgrades which make Apple lose money because people then wont buy new macs, means the lack of earning more money, means fixing it for Apple. Yeah, whatever.

 

[M.Brane]

G4 533 DA single to dual 7447 1.4 Gigadesigns Max RAM, SeriTek SATA card, extensive cooling mods, USB/FW hub in the Zip slot.

Haven't fired it it up for a year or so, but last time other than some HD whine it ran ProTools 7MP just fine like it always did. One of the most stable systems I've had.

 

[joevt]

Breaking a program that is made for upgrades which make Apple lose money because people then wont buy new macs, means the lack of earning more money, means fixing it for Apple. Yeah, whatever.

I think whoever was developing CPU Director just stopped making updates (PowerLogix bought by OWC). Not Apple's fault. CPU Director has dependencies on parts of the kernel that are not guaranteed to be the same with each version of the kernel. It would be nice if the source code of CPU Director was released, so anyone could update it for 10.4.11 and 10.5.8 (and 10.6.whatever).

 

[EmilioCube]

G4 533 DA single to dual 7447 1.4 Gigadesigns Max RAM, SeriTek SATA card, extensive cooling mods, USB/FW hub in the Zip slot.

Haven't fired it it up for a year or so, but last time other than some HD whine it ran ProTools 7MP just fine like it always did. One of the most stable systems I've had.

The Goal for my Cube is also that category of dual 1.3-1.5Ghz 7447A or so. Powerful, but I dont want to spend too much on something like dual 2Ghz 7448s. Let us know more about the cooling mods!

 

[EmilioCube]

I think whoever was developing CPU Director just stopped making updates (PowerLogix bought by OWC). Not Apple's fault. CPU Director has dependencies on parts of the kernel that are not guaranteed to be the same with each version of the kernel. It would be nice if the source code of CPU Director was released, so anyone could update it for 10.4.11 and 10.5.8 (and 10.6.whatever).

I thought Apple actually actively tried to brake it with each update.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Well can't really do the test asked by the OP for reasons that follow:

-QuickSilver
-1.8GHz Sonnet
-1GB CF card as boot disk
-Radeon9000 128MB
Sofar so good...
- Sil3112 NOT flashed for PPC
- some SATA SSD partionend with RDB
- SBlive! (no Mac drivers)
- Voodoo3 (no Mac drivers)
- NEC USB2 card (might work with MacOS)
- C= gaming ATX case
Might switch the Radeon9000 against a RadeonHD3450, no modification accept taping those 2 pins, hence won't even work with Linux....

The Goal for my Cube is also that category of dual 1.3-1.5Ghz 7447A or so.

I'm in the process of selling a Dual1.8GHz Sonnet to someone who wants to put it into a Cube. Well I made it clear that I wouldn't take it back in case of failure since I have my doubts it will end well.

 

[EmilioCube]

OMG a dual 1.8ghz upgrade? Tell me when you are ready to sell it, and if you dont ask such a hilarious price as this single 2Ghz uphrade Ill buy it!
I do have a heavily upgraded custom VRM with 10 FETs (instead of 6) which have double the specs (in comparison to the stock FETs) so my Cube will definitely not fail.

 

[EmilioCube]

1.8GHz Sonnet

Do you sell this Sonnet or is the one you have in your Quiksilver a single model?

 

[EmilioCube]

1GB CF card as boot disk
-Radeon9000 128MB
Sofar so good...
- Sil3112 NOT flashed for PPC
- some SATA SSD partionend with RDB
- SBlive! (no Mac drivers)
- Voodoo3 (no Mac drivers)
- NEC USB2 card (might work with MacOS)
- C= gaming ATX case

Seems like you really benefit from the four PCI slots that the Cube does not have. The only thing I would also like to have is the USB 2.0 card, as I work a lot with USB sticks with my Cube, so having USB 2.0 would have been really nice.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Do you sell this Sonnet or is the one you have in your Quiksilver a single model?

The one is the QS is a single CPU one, and thats all I need since MorphOS does not support multi core/CPU. If it ever does I doubt it will do for G4s or even PPC at all.

The dual G4 is sold an payed for, so I should knew if it will even work in a Cube in a few days.

 

[EmilioCube]

Tell me when the upgrade took too much power for the VRM of the buyers Cube so it failed and took the whole machine with it so that I can tell him how to repair it make fun of him and have some malicious joy of his broken Cube heh heh heh.