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PowerLogix Releases G4 1GHz Upgrade Cards
danamania writes "PowerLogix have announced their PowerForce G4 800Mhz and 1Ghz upgrades for existing G4 systems. Versions for the 100Mhz bus G4s (including the Cube) are available now, with 133Mhz bus versions coming later." PowerLogix also recently released a G4 upgrade to the "Pismo" PowerBook G3.
A Pismo G4 500 for $299 doesn't sound all that bad. Considering many of us spent over $4000 for the laptop new, this is quite a steal to extend the life of that little investment. I think many would also agree, they'd rather be lugging one of these around with them rather than the oh so fragile Titanium PowerBook. While the other upgrades are rather pricey, this is still tremendous news for Cube owners. I'm guessing they will probably be their biggest customers. Imagine a 1GHz machine in such a small enclosure! *drool* In anycase, re-release the GeForce2 and Radeon cards for the Cube and I'll be back in business!
i need to find out where you are buying 1GHz apple g4 systems for $900 dude.
I read this a Coupla days ago, i thought it was 750-1000Mhz upgrade cards!
I cant remember but are these PCI cards? I guess there wouldnt be much other ways to use them, but Macs dont normaly have PCI cards do they!
If they are PCI, i wonder if they could be used in any ordinary POP board. I hear people are already talking about using them with their AmigaOne-G3-SE's
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Sure, if it were a choice between upgrading a QuickSilver G4 or buying a new one for a little more money, people would spring for the new one... but it's not the same deal with the cubes.
-braxton
They are? Since when... I am always the last to find out, damn.
"For the price of these 'upgrades' you can get a new G4 at the same speed."
Wow.
Let us know where you can get a new 1GHz G4 for $800.
Such a deal...
"Besides, Apple are scumbags. They wrote viruses to destroy the ram that wasn't sold by them,"
Odd, most people understand that they just began to actually enforce the memory specification required for the systems.
Having moved non-spec memory to a couple of other machines with looser requirements, I didn't find any of the memory damaged, much less destroyed. It worked fine in the other systems.
"they'll write more viruses to destroy these upgrades."
Since they didn't do what you claimed in the first place, why should we be concerned about your latest prophecy, O Nostradamus?
About damn time. What exactly was the holdup? Not from PowerLogix but just from the upgrade manufacturers in general - was there some problem?
How, exactly, do they justify those prices? Unless my memory fails me, isn't the G4 incredibly cheap to manufacture - like under $100?
Newer has also announced such an upgrade.
ourpla.net is your planet
Yeah, but then you'd have an AMD system...
I've seen this one floating around a bit and nobody's bothered to answer it. The short answser, Apple made it a bit tougher to upgrade the Pismo Powerboooks (And probably the G4s as well if they require a mail-in) by putting the system rom chip on the same daughtercard as the proc. (Check out the ram installer guide of trans intl memory retailers, [transintl.com] for some good pics of the mem daughtercard of a pismo g3 powerboook).
That ROM is one of the ways the OS IDs the system and knows you're installing OS X on a Pismo Powerbook as opposed to a new iBook or a Blue and White G3 tower. So in order to upgrade you have to send them the whole unit (with a charged batt) so they--Powerlogix or NewPowr) can remove the ROM, slap it on the new G4 board, install it and fire the whole assemblage up for a quick spin through your pr0n collection before mailing it back. Thus you have 300 bucks for the total package. That's hardware, bench testing, a quick turn around guarantee and free return delivery. Not too bad for us Pismo owners dying for some Altivec goodness but just not able to swallow purchasing a Powerbook G4 and giving up our far more versatile (and proven durable) Pismo chassis.
I haven't checked out the info on the new G4 upgrades, but if it's just a PCI drop in with new ROM already onboard then it should be a breeze to install for the home user. Disabling the existing proc would be interesting but I'm sure the software included has some kind of OpenFirmware hack to tell your Mac which G4 to use and which one to cook hotdogs on. I'll have to dig around for some pix on the Cube upgrade...those puppies aren't built to be spacious on the inside.
cheers.
Now that the cube has
1000 Mhz upgrades
Dual 500 Mhz upgrades
How long before we have
Dual 1000 Mhz upgrades for the Cube?
What do you think? Doable? Too hot?
Renewed availablity of faster video cards would be a bonus too.
for a 500Mhz iBook? Yeah, I doubt it. I don't think it could possibly fit. Oh well, I just wish there was someway to add a G4 to my iBook.
Wishfully thinking,
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
http://www.viahardware.com/computex02sff_1.shtm
They even take real video cards, and have PCI slots.
With this new upgrade, suddenly the market value of my G4/350 is improved significantly. It's upgradeable to a GHz, and faster as new processors come on the market, according to PowerLogix.
I am very curious to see benchmarks on this stuff. For example I wonder how well a 1 GHz upgrade to my system with a 100 MHz system bus would stand up against a current G4/933 with a 133 MHz bus. (It would be unfair to pit it against a current shipping GHz machine as they have two processors).
I will also still be stuck with ATA/66 (it's ATA/100 in the new models I think), 2x AGP (vs. 4x in the new models). In the my field (music) I don't believe the ATA and AGP are a big issue, and I don't know if a 33% bus speed increase will translate to a big performance improvement.
I'll be keeping an eye on Bare Feats, an awesome Mac benchmarking site that answers a lot of those little nagging questions about performance.
Case Aluminum chassis 200(w) x 181(h) x 280(d)mm
Wow, it's in a 8 x 7 x 11 in enclosure with atleast 3 fans and passive cooling. I bet it sounds like a little toaster ready for launch when you fire it up.
On the other hand, the Cube's enclosure is a little over 6 x 6 x 6 in with no fans and is certainly nicer to look at than this oblong piece of aluminum.
Also, the SS50G and motherboard comes standard with intergrated video. It would appear you have to mod it to get a "real" videocard in it. Atleast the Cube comes with a "real" AGP videocard without any assembly required. I guess there is no accounting for taste though. You keep your frankenstein flying toaster and I'll keep my super model.