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Simply not the same as a PCIe asic. I dont care how much theoretical bandwidth there is on USB3, or that they did away with polled mode. It is not the same if nothing else but because it has to go through two different driver stacks for data to enter and leave the media. The idea here is security consciousness, not simple function. Smaller attack surface is better.

No, but Thunderbolt 3 is PCIe (either x2 or x4, depending on the configuration/power mode), with a full 40GB/s of bandwidth. So what you do is you get a Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Box (something like this), and put standard PCIe NIC cards into it -- whichever ones you prefer.

(What would be awesome is if someone came out with a multi-ethernet Thunderbolt 3 breakout box. The best I've found is dual 10Gbit Ethernet to Thunderbolt, but something like 8 x 1Gbit to Thunderbolt 3, with a TB3 chaining port would be pretty awesome for a box like this. Intel -- are you listening?)

Yaz

The Mac Pro is now ridiculously stale. ("Days since last release: 833")

I've read articles speculating that Apple might be re-designing the Mac Pro again as many of its intended users are disappointed that it has no internal expansion at all. So Apple could be sitting on a design refresh, waiting for these new chips.

I even read speculation that Apple would cancel the Mac Pro product line, but IMHO that is very unlikely. Apple sells a lot more notebooks than Mac Pros, but I just can't see Apple walking away from a very high-margin product.

So now that there are refreshed Xeons, maybe we will see a refreshed Mac Pro.

P.S. I was surprised that Apple didn't release a standard enclosure for lots of hard drives or whatever. You should have your Mac Pro and then one box with one cord, rather than a half-dozen boxes and a half-dozen cords. But I guess Apple left that for third parties such as Sonnet. I watched the video for that Sonnet product I linked... it said that Sonnet followed Apple's guidelines for how to best mount a Mac Pro. Therefore, Apple has guidelines for third party vendors for Mac Pro mounting products.

Even so, it's amazing how complicated the Sonnet enclosure has to be to solve the problem. Thunderbolt connectors can pop out, so they invented a retaining device that uses a bolt to keep the plug in. You need to run multiple Thunderbolt cables inside the box. And they said they were not able to offer a passthrough for Thunderbolt because Thunderbolt won't work with one (they didn't elaborate, something about needing active circuits on both ends of the connection, but I don't know why that rules out a passthrough).

And oh boy is that an expensive way to go: buy an expensive Mac Pro, then spend another $1500 on the enclosure.

[1]: Yes, people will say that "real men use a NAS". As of today, Macs can't do iSCSI. Macs can't do 10GigE. Macs can't do FC. The fastest I/O you are going to get is from the Apple-only M.2 wannabee SSD. Even a Thunderbolt drive barely performs better than a USB 3.0 drive.

1. GlobalSAN iSCSI Initiator allows iSCSI Targets. Or if you like F/OSS Solutions, iSCSIIntiator does it, too.

2. Sonnet has a TWIN 10GigE to Thunderbolt adapter. Pricey, yes; but I think that might be the case with 10GigE overall. And you didn't say "cheaply"...

3. Several companies, including Atto, have both Thunderbolt to FC (as well as TB to 10GigE) adapters. Promise has a TB to TWIN 16 Gig FC adapter, too.

Sure, some of these interfaces cost as much as a cheap used-car; but OTOH, the people that need this stuff are generally not just surfing the web and posting stuff on Facebook. And again, you stated flatly that it couldn't be done; NOT that it couldn't be done on a "beer" budget.

So you see, Apple's decision to throw their design-decisions behind Thunderbolt is (finally) beginning to pay-off. They simply don't have to have a pile of dedicated connectors (not to mention the hardware to support them) for them to be able to offer (mostly through 3rd party vendors) these relatively exotic interfaces, for those who need them.

Did they go too far with the new MacBook's "one connector to rule them all" approach? Hell, yeah! But, all-in-all, Apple has made a very wise decision with ThunderBolt, and the proof is that other computer manufacturers are (finally!) beginning to agree.

Because racking things works well, a lot of workstation stuff gets racked.

And even more doesn't. Every workstation sold with a non-rack case is pretty certain not to be racked. Heck, the "old" MacPro wasn't that rack-able either.

Last but not least the "new" MacPro is designed around the new unified thermal core - while rack-able computers are designed to fit into a rack and do "thermal management" with as much loud fans as possible. Might as well complain a plane isn't designed to be a good submarine.

And despite all this - people still put new MacPros in racks. So fuck the whole lot of you. Just because you are to stupid to think of a way to do something doesn't mean you are right. It's just proof you suck.

4U: http://www.sonnettech.com/prod...

I don't know about other operating systems, but If you connect two or more Macs together with Thunderbolt, you get a virtual ethernet interface (just like you did with FireWire).
Great if you have two Macs with fast storage, but for everything else, I'm waiting for a 10GbE Thunderbolt adapters to come down in price.

Wedding and event videos fall squarely in this category. No bride will be okay with spending $1,500 for a Vimeo link.

And cheap USB2 keys that hold a couple hundred times as much data as a DVD don't exist. Nope, they do, and are far more convenient and resilient to damage than optical media.

You're right, they do. And let's even assume that I found somewhere on the internet that had some sort of packaging that resembled a DVD case, enabling this particular flash drive to be artfully labeled as the wedding video. What format do you suggest I provide the video in? .mp4? It's a fairly common format, generally well supported, but am I certain that the drive itself will be able to handle the throughput of a high bitrate video? Will the TV (or device connected thereto)? Or will there just be a whole lot of stuttering throughout? If she plugs it into her computer, will that play it back? Windows 8 might support .mp4 natively, but Windows 7/Vista/XP do not. Should I include a VLC installer for her? I don't know what OSX supports out of the box, but I think Quicktime plays it? Should she update Quicktime? What if she wants to bring it to her parent's house to see it - are her parents likely to have a Smart TV, or some other device with a USB input that reads .mp4? .MP4 may be the closest thing for compatibility, but no menus and awkward chapter authoring become a problem. .MKV solves those problems, but now we're playing compatibility roulette all over again. With a 64GB flash drive, I certainly could provide multiple formats, one with menus, one high-bitrate .mp4, one for the iPod, a Quicktime version, and even an MPEG-1 to be absolutely certain it'll play on something. Well, now I've spent $20 on a single flash drive for this bride, and increased my render time by a factor of five.

Or, I can, y'know, give her a DVD. I've yet to know someone who doesn't have the means by which to play back a DVD. If I'm feeling adventurous, I can ask her if she has a Blu-Ray player, and give her one of those. Still cheaper, still simpler, and still more reliable than gambling on a particular video format.

You also need storage space. HD video, art assets, high resolution multitrack audio projects, and CAD drawings aren't exactly compact forms of data, y'know.

Use the local SSD as a buffer for high speed work. Copy from network to local, work, upload back. Clear space, move to next job. If you require high speed links to large disk, use thunderbolt to add dual 10GbE for iSCSI or dual 16Gb fiber channel.

And how is that a better workflow than having one's data locally available on an internal hard drive? It's sure as hell more expensive, and the copy in/copy out plan is what one would generally have to do in that case, but it shouldn't be necessary. It's easily a half-hour each way - a half hour spent working around a technological shortcoming that is only there for design reasons.

That's a rather broad brush to paint with, especially since disk I/O over the LAN starts hitting a ceiling pretty quick. This would be easier to swallow if there were a PCI Express slot to add a 10GigE/Fiber/Infiniband card, but they did away with that, too.

False. See links above. Thunderbolt IS PCI Express. It's on a cable instead of a slot. Whoop de do.

That's indeed a fair point. It's entirely possible to go down that road, but now we're talking a storage array that costs more than the Mac Pro itself. Even the Thunderbolt RAID bays I've seen have cost several hundred dollars, and that's without drives...but I will indeed concede that it's possible. That's a large part of my point though - the standard

Wedding and event videos fall squarely in this category. No bride will be okay with spending $1,500 for a Vimeo link.

And cheap USB2 keys that hold a couple hundred times as much data as a DVD don't exist. Nope, they do, and are far more convenient and resilient to damage than optical media.

You also need storage space. HD video, art assets, high resolution multitrack audio projects, and CAD drawings aren't exactly compact forms of data, y'know.

Use the local SSD as a buffer for high speed work. Copy from network to local, work, upload back. Clear space, move to next job. If you require high speed links to large disk, use thunderbolt to add dual 10GbE for iSCSI or dual 16Gb fiber channel.

That's a rather broad brush to paint with, especially since disk I/O over the LAN starts hitting a ceiling pretty quick. This would be easier to swallow if there were a PCI Express slot to add a 10GigE/Fiber/Infiniband card, but they did away with that, too.

False. See links above. Thunderbolt IS PCI Express. It's on a cable instead of a slot. Whoop de do.

I'll agree that the GPU situation in the current Mac Pro is rather underwhelming, and a product of a design decision rather than making available options to the "Pro" customer. However, the GPUs are mounted with BGA connectors, and it would be feasible for someone to use a logic analyzer to figure out which pins on the connector are PCI express, which are DisplayPort, and which are power allowing for someone to make a 3rd party GPU upgrade card (if they could make it work with the thermals), but the market would be so small that nobody would ever turn a profit at it.

http://www.sonnettech.com/prod...

You're mounting that mac wrong.

You can always get a thunderbolt expansion chassis like Sonnet Echo Express III.

I process a lot of data and this doesn't impact me since the JBOD box is external anyway. If I did upgrade to the new Mac Pro, I may be able to use something similar to Promise announced 20 Gbps thunderbolt 2 RAID enclosure

That's simply false. There's a large amount of Thunderbolt accessories, including video gear, PCIe expansion chassis (very useful for laptops), and docks. Sonnet just announced this Thunderbolt dock, which seems to be a pretty great deal for laptops.

Looking at the dock they offer (Bluray + 2TB HDD) It's over $500... On what planet does that seem like a pretty good deal?

That's simply false. There's a large amount of Thunderbolt accessories, including video gear, PCIe expansion chassis (very useful for laptops), and docks. Sonnet just announced this Thunderbolt dock, which seems to be a pretty great deal for laptops.

http://www.apple.com/au/macmini/server/specs.html

85W. And you can get a rack for them. http://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacmini.html

Chances are a Thunderbolt adapter to a box with PCIe slots will eventually appear on the market.

Something like this you mean?

However, before you rush out and order your kick-ass dual-core turbo graphics card, remember that ThunderBolt is only two lanes of PCIe so it might not be optimal for that. The applications suggested in the ad are more sensible.

Please plug a 600TB SAN into your eSATA port. We'll wait.

Oh, you can't do that? I can with Thunderbolt and one of these Fiber Channel adapters.

Now I think I'll chain that off of one of these PCI-e breakout boxes so that I can also have a full blown desktop video card on my ultraportable notebook. We'll wait again while you plug a Radeon 6870 into your eSATA.

Thunderbolt is not for storage only.

Of course, what do I know?

Clearly, not much; at least when it comes to this topic. Can you plug a Fiber channel interface into SATA3 for access to a hundred TB SAN? How about a PCI Express card or Gigabit Ethernet?

This is a full expansion bus, not just for storage.

Yes. d3vi1 ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2173728&cid=36197702 ) is right-on. Linkie is http://www.sonnettech.com/news/pr2011/pr041111_thunderbolt.html . No pricing available yet, availability projected this summer. This stuff is so new there's only a handful of products right now.

Its only/main real use will be DisplayPort.

Wow, for a "geek" site, Slashdot seems inordinately populated with techno-IDIOTS, who don't bother to KEEP UP on IN THE PIPELINE THUNDERBOLT PRODUCTS. And there is beginning to be interest shown by other companies, like Canon, AJA, Apogee, Sonnet, and others.

You don't need a USB card reader, you can use the ExpressCard slot.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/memorycardreaderwritere34.html
It can stay in the slot if you like, so nothing else to carry. Looks like they're about $30, and it should be just as fast as the internal one in the 15".
The more powerful bit does include the eSATA port (since not much is actually ThunderBolt yet), but also card readers (not everyone uses SD, some people use things like Compact Flash), video adapters, extra ethernet ports, wireless cards (both wifi and cell data), and flash drives.
It's better than built in SD, really.

Same with the rack mounted server, fire takes it all.

But you can still rack it if you want , and get load balancing in a 1U form factor.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacmini.html

A PCIe "hub".

You mean like this:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusionraidexpander.html

or this:
http://www.dulcesystems.com/html/pro_ex.html

There's a company out there who do a whole range, including 13 slot expanders too, but I can't find them right now.

The mini is a bitch, and possibly the various Nanos aren't easy (really don't have an idea). But the full sized jobs have always been pretty easy change. Sonnet make third party ipod batteries which you can pick up cheaply - I'd think around 20 USD.

How many people sell kit for Apple hardware?

http://www.sonnettech.com/
http://www.powerlogix.com/products/index.html
http://macspeedzone.com/html/hubs/central/upgrades/processor/ (not recent stuff, but that's not the point)
http:/// any hard drive manufacturer

There used to be a few graphics cards available before the move to x86, although they've dried up now. Apple are doing nothing to stop ATi and nVidia from making retail cards for the Mac, so I guess it's just the appearance of low sales (they can only target the Mac Pro, sadly).

Plenty of people make hardware that's either for Macs, or Mac compatible. Some Macs have socket-upgradable processors as well, so you can add Intel to the list.

How many can people sell FairPlay tracks for ipods?

A better question is "How many people can sell music that will play on the iPods?" The answer is about 90% of the world's music retailers, through CDs and non-DRM music. The solution is not to get Apple to licence FairPlay, but to dispose of DRM altogether (and that aim was stated by Steve Jobs in an open letter some time ago). What good does licensing do?

Apple's as much of a monopolist as MS, it's just not as successful (yet).

No, that's just not true. You may think Apple are monopolistic, but they've not been taken to court and convicted of anti-trust charges which have held up under all appeals. They're under fire for the DRM in FairPlay, but they're not being sued around the planet (particularly in the US states and the EU) for their anti-trust misuse of their monopoly. It's a nice convenient little line to trot out that Apple are just as bad as Microsoft, but the evidence doesn't support it and never has. Apple definitely do things their own way, and people disagree with that from time to time, but that doesn't make them a monopolistic company who abuse that power to force others into deals.

Replaced my own Mini battery just fine with a kit.
The hairdryer phases were the only boring part.

I don't know if you've seen this, or if it's even a viable option for you, but check it out:

Tibook CPU upgrades

The first generation of PowerPCs (6100, 7100, 8100) still used the NuBus expansion sockets. It wasn't until the second generation (7500, 8500, 9500) that Apple switched to using the PCI slot in order to be able to tap into the PC market expansion cards (assuming the manufacturer wrote Mac drivers) and their lower prices due to scales of production. However, the "profession" Macs going back to the Mac IIs have always had expansion ports just like PCs (and Apple IIs), and the "hard core" users that bought these systems made as much use of them as their PC counterparts.

Sonnet Technologies still has processor upgrades for Macs based on 68020 through G4s and several Mac lines have had easily upgraded processor designs. I had a friend that bought a PowerMac 7500/100 and kept upgrading the processor until he finally bought a G5 as a replacement. The fact that most Mac users don't upgrade their computer except to add RAM or replace a full or dead hard drive is no different than the behavior of most PC users.

Except for bragging rights, replacing a processor usually isn't that cost effective. The last computer I bought a processor upgrade for was a 486sx33 to become a 486dx66 and then to a Pentium Overdrive. An upgraded processor is always hobbled by the old bus/RAM speed and with the economics what they are today, most users will just buy a whole new system and only a small minority will instead replace the motherboard, processor, and RAM (and probably hard drive) in order to see any real benefit.

What are you talking about? Sonnet Technologies has processor upgrades for macs based on 68020 through G4 processors. Sometimes an extension was needed to make the Mac recognize the faster processor, but Apple never prevented upgrades from being installed.

What are the chances that CPUs of the future will work with the same sockets/RAM that we currently have?

Dunno, how does a 66 MHz PPC601 motherboard with 72 pin SIMMS run a 500 MHz PPC G3?

The sort of thing you're talking about has been done on the Mac side for years.

Without knowing more about your tower (like which type of G4 tower it was) it sounds like if you're looking for a processor upgrade, you want one of these:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/pricelist.html#e ncorestg4

As far as memory goes, with the exception of the lowest end G4 you can max that thing out at 2 gigs, and I highly recomend you do. Memory will give you so much more life out of your mac than processor upgrades (not that a processor upgrade hurts mind you)

... and Sonnet is reselling them as their own product at a hefty markup.

When speccing a server for quality parts, you get a broader selection of quality chipsets at good prices with an {IA32|PPC}/linux solution than you do with a PPC/OS X solution.

If you don't want CPU choices, get a Mac!

By replacing the stock HD with a Seagate Barracuda V 120gb ($130) and the fan with a Papst fan ($15), I've made it so the the only audible noise my g4 makes comes from the PSU. Pretty quiet and pretty cheap, considering I needed a bigger HD anyway.

But I want it dead quiet, since I use it to record music, and I hate computer noise anyway. So next step is to replace the PSU, probably with one of these ($80). The only problem is, Apple doesn't follow ATX guidelines with its power supplies, but lucky for me some guy's already figured out the differences. Unfortunately, that's only for the Sawtooth g4s, those of you who have something else may be SOL. But there's no reason why you couldn't find out the pinouts of your own particular g4's PSU and match it to the ATX standard.

Only thing is, I'm never going to want to buy a newer machine, b/c my current one rocks so hard (or rather, so softly). So I started looking into g4 upgrade cards (more). I'm probably going to try and hold out till they come out with something that lets me upgrade to a g5, but i figure an upgrade card with the heatsink replaced with something more like this, perhaps with a fan controller, might be the way to go. Anyone know if it's possible to use a heatsink like that on an apple chip?

Of course, if I've got a heatsink like that, I'm going to have to cut a window into the case to show it off. Anyone know anything about how much EM shielding the case offers, and if cutting a big hole in it is a bad idea? I mean, I see all-plexiglass cases around, how do they get around the EMI problem?

Well, and then the cost of the Mac. I'm currently setting up an old 9500 with a G4 700 card in it to use as a server. Planning on plopping in 2 250 Gig hard drives using a Sonnet IDE card. Probably going to set it up using Software RAID. We'll see.......

For replacement CPUs, check out Sonnet Technology and Other World Computing. Sonnet makes most of the upgrade chips and Other World has some great support for issues involving CPU replacement/upgrade.

Well, I did put a 1GHz G4, a Radeon, and a USB/FW combo card in mine, so I am able to get a marginal amount of work done.

I don't know about the other five poor suckers, tho.

I upgraded my G3/266 to G4/533 and it is noticeably more responsive. I would definitely recommend the upgrade, since the chips are now fairly cheap. Also I belive sonnet recently released a 1Ghz G4 upgrade for the older beige machines. Still a little pricey, but probably worth it.

Apple hardware is closed to third party vendors?

I guess that means there are no Mac CPU upgrades from third party vendors... no disk controller cards from third party vendors... no thriving market in third-party optical and hard drives... and I'm sure Apple keeps a lock on the hardware so you can't install Linux or BSD. Yeah, Microsoft would just be doing what Apple do.

Or maybe you're full of it.

The upgrade does, as I implied earlier, involve putting a fan in your cube ( awww ) but it's a rather quiet fan, probably you won't notice the difference in noise. In El Salvador, you might want that extra cooling anyway.

Installing the processor upgrade involves a nearly complete disassembly ( and hopefully, reassembly ) of your machine, so unless you're technically skilled and inclined to do so, you may want to find someone skilled to do the job. Having said that, if you're careful, good at following directions and don't lose any of the many screws you'll have to remove, it's not _that_ hard...

There *is* a way to change the start-button so it causes 'sleep' instead of trying to shut down your machine. Do a search of Apple's support site, you might find something on that. I'd tell you but I wasn't the one to do it and don't know how it's done. It's also a simple matter to disconnect the cable to the switch, which you might not want to do unless you have a keyboard with a power button... but that fixes any start button issues! I know this last bit works OK because someone had a cube where the button went flaky.

Just to bring this post back on-topic, unless I'm reading the technote wrong and *only* the dual-processor machines are affected, I think the cube would potentially have some of the problems described in the Apple Technote on this issue but your network connection might save it, as is likely the case with our cubes, which are of course quite connected to a high-speed switch...

I agree, it's feasible to run OS X on a beige g3, with a few upgrades to make it a resonable machine. I did this myself for quite a while. The most important one for that particular box, imho, is the video card. A Rage Pro just doesn't cut it, period. Find yourself at least a Rage 128 or Rage 128 pro; they are cheap on the resale market. You can spend a whole lot on a Radeon or GeForce (remember it has to be a PCI one), but I am not sure that the benefits are worth it on this machine. Then again I didn't try it, so you migh disagree. Next, you want ram. At least ram is cheap; but watch out because Beige G3s need SHORT dimms. I went through a bunch of hand-me-down dimms that were a few millimeters too tall to fit in mine. The tower case may be different, but the desktop certainly needs the short ones.

Next... hard drive! The drive that came with that thing is DOG SLOW by today's standards. I myself was lucky enough to come across an Atto Ultra160 PCI card for my Beige G3. That coupled with a set of three 9gb IBM SCSI drives (7200rpm ultra2 drives) made a *huge* performance difference. Unfortunately a Beige G3 cannot boot to a striped software RAID device (that honor is reserved for G4s and newer, not even the B&W G3s can do it). I made do by putting my OS on one drive and my apps and scratch space on a striped raid. Way fast. Now... that said, I wouldn't be surprised if a brand new 7200rpm IDE drive (like those nifty new 8MB cache ones from Maxtor and WD) wouldn't perform just as well, if not better, than my rig. I wouldn't subject anyone else to trying to run LVD SCSI cabling all over the inside of that box, either.

Other caveats for the Beige G3: The video capture/TV tuner personality card is useless in OS X. At one point an Apple developer released some sample code that made it work, but that was quite a while ago during the time or 10.0.4 or so, and it hasn't been updated since. Oh also, I almost forgot to mention a USB card. Get one if you want a nicer keyboard, but save yourself a headache later and save your ADB keyboard because this machine needs an ADB keyboard in order to do things outside of MacOS (e.g. getting to openfirmware, zapping the PRAM, booting from CD, option-boot, etc).

One last thing is the CPU. Mine got upgraded to a 400mhz G3, which is just what I managed to come up with from spare parts. I overclocked the motherboard to 83mhz*5 and ran the CPU at 415mhz. I wasn't aiming to squeeze more cycles outu of the CPU, but increasing the motherboard's bus speed from 66 to 83 made a noticable difference. Even with a 266mhz CPU, I bet you could run it at 83*3.5 and get 290.5mhz just fine. Every 266mhz G3 I've run into has run stably up to about 300mhz. Go for the bus speed jump, though. If you're thinking of buying a CPU upgrade, don't bother to get one of the 800mhz G4 upgrades for this machine, because I really doubt it could take advantage of it. Lacking a faster motherboard and AGP, an 800mhz or faster CPU would be sitting idle an awful lot waiting on RAM access.

So how much does all this stuff cost?

• RAM: 2*256mb modules (careful, get short ones!): $70 or so
• 80gb 8MB 7200rpm hard drive: $75 or so
• Rage 128 Pro PCI card: $35 on eBay
• USB Card (probably with firewire, too): $30, and whatever keyboard/mouse you want
• CPU upgrade: No idea. Check ebay.

Oh, here's some links, too:

Instructions for overclocking a Beige G3

Sonnet's upgrades chips for Beige G3's

• Have fun. Don't spend too much on the thing. If you get past $400, it's probably just time to buy a new machine. Remember how cheap eMacs are - they really are a lot of Mac for the money.

* Max the RAM (which, IIRC, is 768M), but is getting more expensive since it's special voltage RAM for this line.

$180 don't forget - its not just voltage - its gotta be THIS ram, else its too tall for the case.

* Get a G3 CPU upgrade either new or used (G3 Upgrades are hundreds less than G4 Upgrades)

$169 for a G3/500, 300 for a G4/500 and $500 for a G4/1GHz (on a 100 mhz buss, YEAH!)

* A new video card, if you're still using onboard video. A Radeaon 9200 PCI is $80 from Compusa and probably be several orders faster than the onboard Rage Pro chip.

pffff.. okay.. i'll give you this. $80.

* Faster hard drive. If you're stuck on some old 5400RPM your perfrormance can suffer -- this goes in hand with the next thing:

$80 for your average everyday 80 gig 7200 RPM hard drive.

* New IDE controller. The onboard IDE doesn't do DMA/66/100/133 and is a real dog performance-wise. Something new can give you a surprising performance boost.

i'm sure we'll be using it not only for Photoshop, but for video editing too... so lets get ATA 133 and USB 2 and Firewire all at the same time... because i'm starting to wonder wtf all these PCI cards are going to go in a machine with only 3 slots....

$180

* Ethernet controller. If you have to push the limits, can even think about a new ethernet controller that will have less CPU utilization. ... plus, if you do this and later want to move to a slightly faster machine like a Blue&White G3 , which can be had for as little as $100 in 400mHz/0M/0M configs, the RAM and video card will carry over.

personal experience tell me this is a $20 item.

what's that all cost us bob???

$710 for a screaming G3 Frankenmac with every slot filled much like a high priced porno actress.

add $140 for a G4 500 to give you an amazing, unaccelerated, PCI based 500 megahurts piece of shit for $850 flat!

I mean - its only got a worse video card, slower bus speed, and no free 17 inch monitor when compared to a perfectly overpriced eMac.

i need to drink less dr pepper before bed.

* Max the RAM (which, IIRC, is 768M), but is getting more expensive since it's special voltage RAM for this line.

$180 don't forget - its not just voltage - its gotta be THIS ram, else its too tall for the case.

* Get a G3 CPU upgrade either new or used (G3 Upgrades are hundreds less than G4 Upgrades)

$169 for a G3/500, 300 for a G4/500 and $500 for a G4/1GHz (on a 100 mhz buss, YEAH!)

* A new video card, if you're still using onboard video. A Radeaon 9200 PCI is $80 from Compusa and probably be several orders faster than the onboard Rage Pro chip.

pffff.. okay.. i'll give you this. $80.

* Faster hard drive. If you're stuck on some old 5400RPM your perfrormance can suffer -- this goes in hand with the next thing:

$80 for your average everyday 80 gig 7200 RPM hard drive.

* New IDE controller. The onboard IDE doesn't do DMA/66/100/133 and is a real dog performance-wise. Something new can give you a surprising performance boost.

i'm sure we'll be using it not only for Photoshop, but for video editing too... so lets get ATA 133 and USB 2 and Firewire all at the same time... because i'm starting to wonder wtf all these PCI cards are going to go in a machine with only 3 slots....

$180

* Ethernet controller. If you have to push the limits, can even think about a new ethernet controller that will have less CPU utilization. ... plus, if you do this and later want to move to a slightly faster machine like a Blue&White G3 , which can be had for as little as $100 in 400mHz/0M/0M configs, the RAM and video card will carry over.

personal experience tell me this is a $20 item.

what's that all cost us bob???

$710 for a screaming G3 Frankenmac with every slot filled much like a high priced porno actress.

add $140 for a G4 500 to give you an amazing, unaccelerated, PCI based 500 megahurts piece of shit for $850 flat!

I mean - its only got a worse video card, slower bus speed, and no free 17 inch monitor when compared to a perfectly overpriced eMac.

i need to drink less dr pepper before bed.

Okay, a few things besides the obvious "buy an eMac" if you MUST MUST MUST keep this machine:

* Max the RAM (which, IIRC, is 768M), but is getting more expensive since it's special voltage RAM for this line.
* Get a G3 CPU upgrade either new or used (G3 Upgrades are hundreds less than G4 Upgrades)
* A new video card, if you're still using onboard video. A Radeaon 9200 PCI is $80 from Compusa and probably be several orders faster than the onboard Rage Pro chip.
* Faster hard drive. If you're stuck on some old 5400RPM your perfrormance can suffer -- this goes in hand with the next thing:
* New IDE controller. The onboard IDE doesn't do DMA/66/100/133 and is a real dog performance-wise. Something new can give you a surprising performance boost.
* Ethernet controller. If you have to push the limits, can even think about a new ethernet controller that will have less CPU utilization. ... plus, if you do this and later want to move to a slightly faster machine like a Blue&White G3 , which can be had for as little as $100 in 400mHz/0M/0M configs, the RAM and video card will carry over.

There's nothing here you couldn't do in an Opteron system. With an Opteron system built from scratch, you'd have the option of replacing the processor(s) or the motherboard when newer technology became available. With Apple, there's no upgrade path short of buying a new system, which can get expensive.

A common miscinception, which I used to share. Apples are VERY upgradeable. There are a lot of people running OS X on ancient beige Powermacs. Having spent years in the peecee world, I know how big of a fallacy the "upgrade a piece at a time" theory is -- I generally wound up gutting the machine every year and a half, keeping only the case (if that) and drives. I fully expect to get a lot more life out of my Macs than that, and spend a lot less time screwing around with them in the interim.

Mac OS X Version 10.2 requires a Power Mac G3, G4, G4 Cube; iMac; PowerBook G3, G4; iBook; or eMac computer; at least 128MB of physical RAM and a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card. Mac OS X does not support the original PowerBook G3 or processor upgrade cards. Verify your hardware is supported from the list below

negative... negative... At best you'd be getting a Sawtooth board (most likely the same yosemite board as in your B&W). Unless you just GOTTA have the AGP, there is no reason to expect a nocticeable performance boost from the Sawtooth board as compared to the Yosemite.
If you just need more juice, try this, its way cheaper and should suit your needs.

I take it you have never owned an upgraded Macintosh. Almost every PowerMac can be upgraded to at least a G3 (but most can go up to a G4) without changing the motherboard.

Heh, and people say that Macs can't be upgraded. Sheesh.

Anyone remember the fiasco when they tried to let other companies put out Mac Clones in the 80s?
I remember when Apple did the clone thing for a while, but that was the mid to late 90's I saw a PowerComputing mac clone for the first time at the 1996 Macworld in Boston. PowerComputing was one of the largest and best known MacOS Clone companies, and sold them from 1995 to 1997. In 1997, Apple purchased PowerComputing's which included "the right to retain key employees with expertise in direct marketing, distribution, and engineering, Power Computing's customer database, and the license to distribute the MacOS."

The offical story line for their demise was said to be "inventory and support problems, divisions in management, and heavy capital losses" but it is also well known that PowerComouting repeatedly bit the hand that fed them. At the time, PowerComputing was producing clones that were faster than the ones Apple were making at the time. Their slogan was "Were fighting back for the Mac, Lets Kick Intel's Ass" They were also drawing away developers from apple because of this. As you can tell, Apple didn't like this, so they quickly put an end to this.

To this day, my PowerComputing Power Tower Pro 180 is functioning quite well. It has a G3 upgrade card in it from Sonnet Technologies bringing it up to 300mhz, and its even running OS X

The processor costs $700! For the price of the processor alone, anyone can build a complete Athlon XP2400+ nforce2 system.

For the price of the processor you can have a reasonable PC.

This is not a troll, just a note of what happens when hardware is made in small quantities, and is not actively updated as fast as the competition.

In the land of PC's, people that want the absolute best, or the absolute cheapest build their own.

In the land of Apple, if you want the best, buy it directly from Apple. Cheapest? Probably eBay.

Apparently some do.