Ordered a new machine ... now the waiting begins

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Praxis
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Post by Praxis »

Not to mention that the Mac would be FAR upgradable.

I saw a post on Macworld forums the other day (I visit there once in a while, they've got some good help there if you want to know how to do something), and there was a guy with a very, very old PowerMac 8500.

Now, a PowerMac 8500 is OLD. It's not even capable of running OS X (try finding a PC not capable of running Windows 2000, you'll get the idea). It's a 180 mhz machine, one of the early PowerPC Power Macs.

A brief check at Apple-history.com reveals that it was made in 1995.

Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor (which should perform approximately equal to, oh, a 1.4 ghz P4?).

I'd like to see you run Windows XP on your Pentium Pro... ;)
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Post by Uraniun235 »

I'd like to see you run Windows XP on your Pentium Pro...
If I could find an extra 128MB of RAM to double it's memory, I'd be quite willing to try it.
Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor (which should perform approximately equal to, oh, a 1.4 ghz P4?).
I could throw a 1.6 GHz Athlon XP into one of those old abominable ECS motherboards with the SDR and DDR memory slots and run it off SDR-SDRAM, but I doubt it'd perform as well as my 1.6 running on DDR. While I imagine there's quite a performance increase, I doubt that G4 is really operating at it's full potential.
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Post by phongn »

Praxis wrote:A brief check at Apple-history.com reveals that it was made in 1995.

Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor (which should perform approximately equal to, oh, a 1.4 ghz P4?).
Um, I'm pretty sure the max upgrade is a 500MHz G4...which should be roughly equvilant to a 500MHz K7.
I'd like to see you run Windows XP on your Pentium Pro... ;)
Intel released a Pentium II/333 upgrade for the Pentium Pro. Give it enough RAM and it'll run XP, though you probably should turn off Luna.

Also, some guy on Ars got a hold of an ALR 6-way PPro machine and promptly put W2K Advanced Server on it :D
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Post by Praxis »

Uraniun235 wrote:
I'd like to see you run Windows XP on your Pentium Pro...
If I could find an extra 128MB of RAM to double it's memory, I'd be quite willing to try it.
Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor (which should perform approximately equal to, oh, a 1.4 ghz P4?).
I could throw a 1.6 GHz Athlon XP into one of those old abominable ECS motherboards with the SDR and DDR memory slots and run it off SDR-SDRAM, but I doubt it'd perform as well as my 1.6 running on DDR. While I imagine there's quite a performance increase, I doubt that G4 is really operating at it's full potential.
Well, of course it's not at it's FULL potential...the bus speed of the motherboard limits it.

It'll probably perform almost as well as a normal 800 mhz G4, with the exception of games and Photoshop (and other things that make a lot of use of the system bus). But you'd be stupid to try to run modern 3d games on a PowerMac 8500 anyway :)
phongn wrote:
Praxis wrote:A brief check at Apple-history.com reveals that it was made in 1995.

Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor (which should perform approximately equal to, oh, a 1.4 ghz P4?).
Um, I'm pretty sure the max upgrade is a 500MHz G4...which should be roughly equvilant to a 500MHz K7.
I'd like to see you run Windows XP on your Pentium Pro... ;)
Intel released a Pentium II/333 upgrade for the Pentium Pro. Give it enough RAM and it'll run XP, though you probably should turn off Luna.

Also, some guy on Ars got a hold of an ALR 6-way PPro machine and promptly put W2K Advanced Server on it :D
Well, W2k server probably isn't too intensive. They get to cut down the GUI effects on servers. What I mean is with a full GUI, all effects enabled, etc.

In general, Macs aren't bogged down by special effects, because they have a system called Quartz Extreme, that uses the graphics card to 3d render the entire desktop and make some awesome effects, taking the load off the processor for drawing the desktop completely. It's slated to be copied by Microsuck in Longhorn, with Avalon.

However, a PowerMac 8500 wouldn't have such a graphics card, which means the effects WOULD slow it down a bit. So being able to run OS X on such a machine is even MORE impressive.

However, we're talking about from a 180 mhz to a 800 mhz processor. Over 4 times increase, plus the velocity engine in the G4 to give even more performance. I'd imagine it'd be about equivilant to replacing a Pentium Pro with a 1 ghz Pentium 3...

As for the upgrade being 500 mhz, check here:
You will dress you links in the future
Note the upgrade, G4 800 mhz, 1 MB cache

Dress thine links, please - Phong
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Post by phongn »

Praxis wrote:In general, Macs aren't bogged down by special effects, because they have a system called Quartz Extreme, that uses the graphics card to 3d render the entire desktop and make some awesome effects, taking the load off the processor for drawing the desktop completely. It's slated to be copied by Microsuck in Longhorn, with Avalon.
That's not how Quartz works. Compositing is done entirely by the CPU; afterwards QuartzExtreme does its OpenGL thing.

Longhorn works somewhat differently, ask ggs for details.
However, a PowerMac 8500 wouldn't have such a graphics card, which means the effects WOULD slow it down a bit. So being able to run OS X on such a machine is even MORE impressive.
I think it'd slow it down more than a bit, considering it has an 40MHz FSB! The lack of QE would further impact performance.
However, we're talking about from a 180 mhz to a 800 mhz processor. Over 4 times increase, plus the velocity engine in the G4 to give even more performance. I'd imagine it'd be about equivilant to replacing a Pentium Pro with a 1 ghz Pentium 3...
AltiVec on a 40MHz system bus is more or less useless. It's starved for data on a 166MHz bus, nevermind one a quarter of its speed.
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Post by Uraniun235 »

It'll probably perform almost as well as a normal 800 mhz G4, with the exception of games and Photoshop (and other things that make a lot of use of the system bus).
Gee, what would it be useful for, then? Could it be... maybe... office applications? Things that that very 180MHz Pentium Pro could do also?
It's slated to be copied by Microsuck in Longhorn, with Avalon.
"Microsuck" is about on par with such witticisms as "Micro$oft"; i.e., horrible abominations comprised of 'anti-comedy' energy. Nobody, but nobody, finds such jokes funny.
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Post by BabelHuber »

Well, apparently, you could buy a CPU upgrade, and slap in an 800 mhz G4 processor
... which is slower than a $50 AMD Duron... :mrgreen:

Seriously, upgrading a system which is to old doesn't make much sense.

You get extra raw processing power, but the CPU will spend most of its time idle, waiting for the old, slow RAM, HD and graphics card.
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Post by Durandal »

Woohoo! My G5 was the first to arrive, and it's here now. I'll pick it up during lunch. But we ordered 37 of them, and mine is the only one to arrive so far. It must be fate. :)
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Post by Uraniun235 »

Congratulations! While I'm obviously not a Mac fan, I can appreciate the strengths of your new computer. Best of luck with it.
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Post by Praxis »

Awesome...
Tell me how it works!
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Post by Durandal »

Uraniun235 wrote:Congratulations! While I'm obviously not a Mac fan, I can appreciate the strengths of your new computer. Best of luck with it.
Oh God it's so fucking fast.
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Post by Praxis »

Okay, I'm drooling now...
Ever since I used that dual 2 ghz G5 at CompUSA...MAN, I WANT ONE!

GIVE IT TO ME! NOW!...okay, Praxis, control yourself...no, I can't...control...
GIVE ME IT!!!!!!


*ahem* prentend that never happened.
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Post by Ace Pace »

I like macs, ever since I saw how they could do special effects work, but I have computers first for playing, then everything else, have fun with your mac

*goes back to playing Far Cry*
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Post by Crayz9000 »

I got a Macintosh LC III recently. Shall I post benchmarks for it whenever I get a Mac monitor? ;)
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Post by HemlockGrey »

Hey guys, know what I have? A SIX YEAR OLD PII 350! SO FUCK YOU ALL!
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Post by General Zod »

HemlockGrey wrote:Hey guys, know what I have? A SIX YEAR OLD PII 350! SO FUCK YOU ALL!
bah! i've got a refurbed Compaq K62 300. so bah yourself. :P
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Post by Crayz9000 »

Darth_Zod wrote:bah! i've got a refurbed Compaq K62 300. so bah yourself. :P
Pshaw... I have a Zenith 8088 laptop.
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Post by Durandal »

Crayz9000 wrote:I got a Macintosh LC III recently. Shall I post benchmarks for it whenever I get a Mac monitor? ;)
OMG IT'S A RISCK CPU SO IT MUST BE FASTER THANA 3.0 GHZ P4!!!one
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Post by phongn »

Alright, since the thread has devolved ...

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