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Gutted Apple Tower Powered By Athlon XP 2400+

Posted by pudge on from the yeah-well-you're-just-a-bunch-of-degenerates-anyway dept.

Ill Mitch writes "You have to see what the guys at the [H]ardOCP have done this time. Not only is it incredible to look it, it is a powerhouse as well. This is sure to upset the Mac-addicts. 2.25GHz of AMD Athlon XP power tucked very neatly inside a customized Apple G4 case. They call it the 'Rotten Apple'."

36 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. PC cases by brejc8 · · Score: 2

    retrosystem has a few cool PC cases from other computers.
    Also here is my attempt at it with an Atari ST.
    I'm gonna try the Apple II next.

    --
    Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
  2. the audacity of them! by realgone · · Score: 5, Funny
    This is sure to upset the Mac-addicts.

    Ah..... no.

    Hate to be the one to break it to you, but as upsetting events in my life go, this one ranks just below Sandy Duncan replacing Valerie Harper on The Hogan Family.

    Which is to say, not at all.

  3. Oh yeah, that's manly... [snort] by dbrutus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I took one look at the color scheme and immediately thought flamenco dancer (and not the male half of the traditional duo). It doesn't look bad but really, what's with the sexual insecurity bit? After all, traditional beige isn't really a very manly color while silver or other metallics are not normally considered feminine. It strikes me as pretty desperate.

    The only thing these guys want is an easy to open case with integrated handles and small interior lights that go on when you open it up. And with all the case manufacturers out there making cases to the ATX standard the closest they could find was a non-ATX case. What a damning indictment for the whole sector.

    1. Re:Oh yeah, that's manly... [snort] by DavidRavenMoon · · Score: 2
      I took one look at the color scheme and immediately thought flamenco dancer (and not the male half of the traditional duo). It doesn't look bad but really, what's with the sexual insecurity bit?

      Yeah.... Maroon! I picture a velvet leisure suit....

      And posing it on the table with the (still in plastic) potpourri candle... very manly!

      I guess silver and gray is for sissys. ;)

      Has anyone noticed that the air vents in the new case make the G4 look kind of like a Jeep?

      --
      -- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
    2. Re:Oh yeah, that's manly... [snort] by PythonOrRuby · · Score: 2
      Has anyone noticed that the air vents in the new case make the G4 look kind of like a Jeep?
      Tsk tsk... any real man knows that Jeeps have 7 vertical openings, not 4. ;-)
    3. Re:Oh yeah, that's manly... [snort] by DavidRavenMoon · · Score: 2
      Jeeps are for fucking Barbie and Ken. Real men drive Honda Civics and women crazy in bed.

      Ha ha ha!

      --
      -- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
  4. They got an empty case, right? by BitGeek · · Score: 4, Troll


    IT sounded like they got an empty case to put this motherboard in, right? They didn't buy a G4 and then downgrade it with that really slow processor, did they?

    Well, if you have a slow processor and a spare empty case, why not put them together. I really don't see what the big deal is.

    If you can't afford the whole computer, sure, why not cobble something together from parts. There's not reason to feel "rotten" just cause you don't have G4 running inside-- hell if you didn't go and tell the whole world, only the people who saw your machine running would know its slow.

    --
    Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
    1. Re:They got an empty case, right? by BitGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting


      While Macs are faster than PCs, I was really joking. I don't wish to seriously debate the issue-- there are people who would rather get paid $100 every week than $1,200 every 60 days... and those people buy PCs and think they are twice as fast. No matter how much I tell them the latter is a better deal, they go "but I get paid 8 times more often!" They confuse frequency with bandwidth.

      But since you said Apple says this is so, could you provide a link to Apple's test results showing AMD's much faster?

      Thanks.

      --
      Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
    2. Re:They got an empty case, right? by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 2

      Ok, so clock frequency != performance. We know that. However, by any reasonable performance metric (no, Photoshop tests don't count because Photoshop is highly AltiVec optimized but not very well SSE/MMX/SSE2 optimized), the Athlon/P4 creams the PowerPC. Look up the benchmarks for yourself. Artificial benchmarks, real world benchmarks. It doesn't matter. The G4 always pulls ahead in one or two benchmarks but loses in most of them.

    3. Re:They got an empty case, right? by Drakino · · Score: 2

      They confuse frequency with bandwidth.

      *cough* Too bad Apple slapped in higher frequency memory into the new G4s (DDR) without increasing the bandwith to the CPUs.

      The x86 platform is faster period. Sure, the PowerPC chips will outpreform the x86 chips when they are evenly clocked. But good old Motorola just can't advance the PowerPC platform, so Apple is reduced to doubling up the CPUs again to try to keep people buying. Hopefully this stall in CPU speed won't last as long as the 500mHz G4 stall did.

      As much as I love OS X, it will never gain the market accpetance it needs unless Apple does something drastic soon.

    4. Re:They got an empty case, right? by MoneyT · · Score: 2

      Internet explorer feels slow no matter what system you use.

      And 2k was no speed demon either (not for me anyways)

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    5. Re:They got an empty case, right? by BitGeek · · Score: 2


      Oh, that's really funny!

      So you want to do a "reasonable comparison" by turning off floating point path processing and compare two floating point math chips?

      You just admitted macs are faster-- photoshop, which is optimized for BOTH platforms, runs much faster on a mac.

      Could it be because of the Altivec accelleration? You say yes, and you're right! The G4 IS much faster!

      Sheesh.

      Tell you what... if you want that to be your standard, then I will insist we run both processors at the same clock speed. Just to be fair, after all, right!

      --
      Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
    6. Re:They got an empty case, right? by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      Amen. When you are right, you're right.

    7. Re:They got an empty case, right? by BinxBolling · · Score: 2
      The web browsers on that system felt like Mozilla on a 486.

      Out of curiosity, which browsers did you try?

      I use Win2K on a 1.something GHz Pentium in the office, and OS/X on a G4/450 at home. For a long time, I was inclined to think that OS/X was much slower than Win2k. I mainly felt this way because IE for Windows was so blazing fast compared to any of the browsers I'd tried on the Mac, and, well, I spend a lot of time in a browser.

      However, I've just started using Chimera as my browser on the Mac, and it's really sharply improved my general impression of the system's speed; Chimera, while probably still marginally slower than IE on Win2k, is much, much faster and more responsive than any other OS/X browser I've tried.

      I still think that OS/X is slower than Win2k, but the gap seems much, much narrower, now. Certainly I don't feel like I'm in that 'twilight zone' you describe, any more.

  5. Be manly with potpourri by MyNameIsFred · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's hard to believe his aim of making a manly computer when he has a matching potpourri candle next to the computer.

  6. sound of crackling plastic. by lateral · · Score: 4, Funny
    Er... a 2.25GHz electric barbeque in a big plastic case, does anyone else smell flame grilled plastic?


    L

  7. best case on earth by Snuffub · · Score: 2

    This just reinforces my opinion that that case is the best case on earth. I cant understand why everyone's shouting for apple to change it, in my opinion if it aint broke dont fix it.

    --
    --aiee
  8. Re:Airport anyone? by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 3, Informative

    it's not a "Quicksilver" case. The case was introduced with the Yosemite PowerMac G3 in '98 and is known as "El Capitan". The cheapest way to get one would be with a 350Mhz Yosemite G3. The latest Apple towers have a superficially similar but heavily revised case.

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
  9. As of right now... by Tokerat · · Score: 2

    The P4 2.8GHz and the Xeon 2.4GHz are the ONLY 2 chips on CPU Scorecard which are ranked above the G4 1.25GHz.

    Heeyyy...Imagine that! Now imagine if Motorola got off their ass and upped the G4's clock speed to 2.8GHz. You'd be blown away. Man I can't wait until the mythical^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H G5 comes out and wipes that smug little x86 grin off your faces.

    If a G4 at less than half the clock speed of a P4 can still keep that close in the grand scheme of things, then you, sir, are talking out your ass with a megaphone.

    --
    CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    1. Re:As of right now... by sedawkgrep · · Score: 2

      Funny that there is no hard data as to how they actually rate these chips.

      From the little I've seen, cpuscorecard.com is pure marketing bullshit.

      Unfortunately I cannot find any comprehensive benchmarks comparing a G4 to any x86. I find that odd considering there are comparisons between x86 and virtually everything else out there.

      If the cpuscorecard crap were true, there wouldn't be all this talk about the need for a G5, or move to POWER4 or other architecture...

      I mean seriously - if you had TWO of these "3rd fastest CPU"s available in a system (2 x 1.25 Ghz), there wouldn't be any discussion about any of this. Hell - you don't hear people with >1.6Ghz procs in the x86 realm crying about lack of processing power. If the PPC were really as fast as you say, there wouldn't be any crying from the Mac users either.

      --
      Is that a salami in my pants or am I just happy to be me?
    2. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      Scorecard uses "iComp"

      "The iCOMP value is the weighted geometric mean of four benhcmarks;

      ZD(Ziff-Davis) Bench - 68% 16-bit Whetstone - 2% SPECint92 - 25% SPECfp92 - 5%"

      "Scorecard" shows the G4 and Athlon 2600 dead even at 89% of the fastest processor, The P4 2.8. That is sort of funny, considering ZD bench which represents 68% of the weighted mean of iComp is not available on the Mac.

      Here are some additional resources using more modern benchmarks:

      Benchmarks using Spec2000 instead of the woefully obsolete Spec92.

      Comparison of The Dual G4 to other platforms in after effects rendering

      Here is some raw data from the obsolete 16-bit Whetstone which shows the G4 not even able to match a Pentium II clock for clock.

      This comparison shows how the G4 compares to a variety of rivals.

      This shows that under most conditions, the SDR equiped Dual G4 is faster than than the DDR version. Meaning the 1.25 GHz G4 is crippled with DDR. Which means the numbers from the other benchmark links will not scale linearly. The Dual 1.25 G4 is actualy slower clock for clock than the G4 with SDR.

      Also refrence Ars Technica's Seti benchmark showing that a Dual G4 1 Ghz produces work units at the same speed that a Dual PIII 1 Ghz.

      Has anyone found any other Benchmark comparisons of the G4 (besides the single photoshop benchmark on Apple's website) that might shed some light on the debate?

      So, choose whatever platform you like, but be informed about what you are paying for.

      You buy a mac, you buy it because you like OS X, which is far and away the nicest OS out there right now. You do not buy a mac because of performance, as anyone who follows the links can very plainly see.

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    3. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      CPU Name MHz Contest Speed StdDev StdErr% Count

      Power PC 7450/7455 G4 1000 rc5 10,525,403 50841 0.4 3

      AMD Athlon XP (Palomino) 2100 rc5 6,128,961 42741 0.6 3

      Intel Pentium 4 2800 rc5 5,522,975 0 0.0 1

      rc5 has definitely been optimized for altivec. It is a credit to the Mac community that when source code is available, they do an excellent job with optomized ports.

      Power PC 7450/7455 G4 1000 ogr 10,579,931 338 0.0 2

      AMD Athlon XP (Palomino) 2100 ogr 13,476,744 298544 2.2 2

      Intel Pentium 4 2200 ogr 7,684,803 0 0.0 1

      Knowing that the Mac community goes out of their way to create altivec optimized ports, the G4's performance in ogr is also quite telling.

      While it is unfortunate that the Pentium 4 2.8 has not been benchmarked in ogr, the best it could hope for is about 9.7 million, showing off it's crippled integer instruction prosessor.

      While these are not the fastest processors from Apple or AMD, if the numbers scale linearly, as they seem to in refrence to older processors, both processor types should see a 25% performance improvement with current clock speeds.

      This is a sticky point. At $3,299.00 for a dual G4 1.25 compared to just over $1000 for a complete dual Athlon MP system, the keys processed at a given cost look like this:

      26449827 running two rc5 clients on a dual 1.25 G4.
      36773766 running six rc5 clients on 3 dual 2100MPs.

      The Athlons are 40% faster at a given price in rc5.

      26449827 running two ogr clients on a dual 1.25 G4.
      80860464 running two ogr clients on 3 dual 2100MPs.

      The Athlons are 305% faster at a given price in ogr.

      So, there is a case where the G4 does not get crushed in absolute performance. But like other closed/proprietary hardware manufacturers such as sun and sgi, they pose absolutely no competition to open platforms on price/performance.

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    4. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      I don't understand how price would be a bogus factor.

      On an application with performance that scales linearly with more machines, such as the distributed client or webserving, the limit to performance is total cost and price/performance.

      How fast do you want to spend.

      There is no point introducing price/performance into a comparison of photoshop filters because the application will not scale across multiple machines.

      In that case you simply compare the two machines performance and question whether you are willing to spend an extra $2000 for inferior performance just because you like the look and feel of one machine over another.

      There are other factors. If you are limited by rackspace, then you need to know how much performance you can stuff into 1u reguardless of cost. In Apple's case, they can place a dual processor X Serve in 1u. In competition to X Serve, there are companies putting two dual processor Athlons into a single 1u rack.

      Another factor would be performance per watt. If you needed to perform ogr calculations drawing the minimum amount of power, the obvious power difference between running two Macs or a single Athlon become clear.

      So, you are right, it is good to have choice. It is good to be able to choose something besides proprietary software on proprietary hardware. Viva la x86, Viva la Linux.

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    5. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      PowerPC G4 1000 2 1500 256 Mac OSX 7.5 [572] Textures 4 8 Markus Groeteke Jun 11, 2002

      (8 seconds)

      AthlonMP 1667 2 1024 256 Win XP 7.0 [b / 543] Textures 8 3 Luca [effector] Feb 11, 2002

      (3 seconds)

      "yes, Newtek optimized for both for Altivec and SSE2!"

      Those are your words. Those are the benchmarks pulled off your site. That is not even half as fast rendering the same frame.

      Again the farm economy rules that benchmark. More macines mean better performance. Frame rendering scales linearly with machine count. Which means price performance counts. Which means you can buy 3 dual athlon machines instead of a single G4 tower and not just double the G4s performance, but render frames 6 times as fast for a given cost.

      Have fun with quake at 640 x 480... I guess...

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    6. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      choice = freedom.

      open platform = freedom.

      Why did Apple kill the clones?

      Why didn't Intel kill AMD,Cyrix,Via etc..

      Because Apple owns their platform.

      And while Intel dominates x86, they do not own it.

      x86 is free.

      PPC is proprietary.

      Could it be any simpler?

      If Apple had competition on their platform, do you think you would be paying over a thousand dollars for their bottom end product?

      The bottom end in x86 land is just shy of $150 for a complete system. That is competition, sir. That is computing for the masses. That is crossing the "digital divide"

      "Switch" to apple to make computing more accessable. Accessible to whom? Accessible to the middle 90% or the Top 5%?

      Might as well buy sgi or sun.

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

    7. Re:As of right now... by Perdo · · Score: 2

      What you say seems right, but it seems to me that Apple has closed firmware covering the G3 and G4, basicly there can be no competition on the Mac platform from the flavored mac era forward.

      As I understand it, OS X will not boot on Open Firmware, meaning the platform is efectivly closed. Additionaly, even if we got OS X to boot off of non Apple branded hardware, their eula specificly prevents doing so.

      I know of plenty PPC embeded and clustering solutions. Browsing the top 500 supercomputer list will reveal many, as well as embedded controllers for IBM and soon to be released Newisys Sledgehammer servers. Additionally, the Game cube uses a 485 mhz IBM 750fx, which is basicly a G3 with partial altivec instructions added.

      What I cannot find is a modern G4 based platform not maufactured by apple that is capable of Booting OS X natively. I have seen short lived attempts made, the best example being a hardware development platform for PPC that was put on "indefinite hold" shortly after this years Linuxworld Expo. I was there when an Apple lawyer handed them a court order informing them to pull the display or face an infringement lawsuit.

      Reguardless of the outcome, the motherboard was going to be priced far, far out of consumer's range. On the order of $6,000 a copy.

      So, unless Microsoft reverse engineers the current firmware as they did for Compaq with IBM's bios, Mac hardware is a completely closed platform.

      Modern PPC is effectively closed.

      --

      If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

  10. At least make something useful! by bsartist · · Score: 3, Funny

    Man, if you absolutely must trash a perfectly good Mac, at least make something useful out of it.

    --
    Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
  11. Re:They say marijuana leads to other drugs. by bsartist · · Score: 2

    ... it leads to fucking carpentry.

    Which leads to some really nasty splinters.

    --
    Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
  12. Re:someone did this not too long ago... by dbrutus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually the mac innards were ruggedized in a different case to make it more survivable for some heavy duty traveling use (concert tour? who knows) and the fellow doing this ended up with a useless case on his hands which he donated for the project. No macs were actually harmed in the making of this flamenco dancer case. B-)

  13. Re:Rotten Apple benchmarks and drag racers? by dbrutus · · Score: 2

    So, WU-BLAST runs faster than Apple BLAST? Ok, you're the expert, so I'll take your word for it but why didn't you try WU-BLAST on OS X instead of just comparing it to Apple BLAST? It is a supported platform after all.

    "Under MacOS X, WU BLAST is the only BLAST that uses multiple G4 processors to run faster. Other BLAST implementations, including Apple's own, either don't use multiple G4 processors or actually run slower when two processors are requested. Unlike the others, WU BLAST won't crash or hang your system when the use of multiple CPUs is attempted and it yields the most accurate results. WU BLAST also does not utilize any G4-specific instructions for peak performance, so while Apple might appreciate your doing this, you don't have to scrap your old G3 and buy a new G4 in order to run the fastest BLAST. WU BLAST runs on the same hardware that MacOS X runs on, although it will run faster on a G4 and again up to twice as fast on a dual G4."

    It sounds like the WU-BLAST team has a greater appreciation of the platform than you do.

    You're licensed, right, and not just using the 2.0a19 preview because your cheap? In that case you should have access to a Mac OS X binary.

    Oh, and if you get much improved performance using WU-BLAST, can you imagine what it's going to be like when they actually tune it for Altivec?

    I'd give it another whirl when IBM let's those 8 way superscalar G-5 PPC chips out the door.

  14. Now all they need is a leaked copy of Marklar... by dpbsmith · · Score: 2

    (... the top-secret
    x86 version of OS X)...

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

  15. Done before by Lxy · · Score: 2

    I've seen a similar mod before, and it was posted on /.

    Some kid decided that the handles on the G4 case would make a great LAN party box, easy to carry and such. Basically the G4 is just a funky ATX bx, as seen both in modding the G4 and building your own from shelf parts.

    --

    There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
    :wq
    1. Re:Done before by Cutriss · · Score: 2

      That "kid" would be me. :) ...Formerly of SLCentral.com, which is where the article is (currently) hosted. I'm going to be migrating it to private hosting shortly, though.

      Oh...and naturally, Kyle and Duckman offered no credit to those who had tread the path before.

      I wasn't the first, but I honestly thought I was at the time, and I credited the places where I got info from to help with the conversion. Kyle's seen my system before, as he linked to our article.

      Here's the URL if you're interested in reading it again. http://www.slcentral.com/articles/01/8/g4pc

      --
      "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
  16. Re:someone did this not too long ago... by TellarHK · · Score: 2

    When you realize that UT2003 is no big deal, feel free to send that unused machine my way. I'll take it off your hands. ;)

    --
    My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
  17. What I want to know.. by Suppafly · · Score: 2

    Is how does one get one of these cases cheaply? Its not really feasible to buy a mac just to gut it for the cute case..

  18. Art Supplies by freerangegeek · · Score: 2

    Honey, junior is out of paper for his art class project, can you yank our signed monet off the wall and take off the frame, I'm sure the canvas will work fine for his project.