There are several cheaper ways to upgrade non-G3, Power PC-based CPUs on your FACStation, without buying a new G4 or dual processor G4. As pointed out by other correspondents, if you buy a G4, you will probably have to deal with a variety of 'connectivity issues' such as the need for USB connectable printers/adaptors, dongles and any other SCSI-based devices currently in use such as Zip drives etc. Although these issues can be accommodated (at a cost) as Matthias et al have suggested, dealing with such problems has caused major headaches for a number of users tempted to upgrade to G4s. Furthermore, to my knowledge at least, BD have not upgraded Cellquest to take advantage of the Altivec processing capability of the G4 chip. Therefore, Cellquest will not run significantly faster on a G4, than on a G3 rated at the same processor clock speed. Similarly, Cellquest will not run any faster on a dual processor G4 running OS 9.x. While the upcoming Mac OSX will allow many more applications to take advantage of the dual G4s, a major re-work of Cellquest will most likely be required for OSX compatibility. Are BD even planning such an upgrade, and if so, when? Instead, for about US$200.00, you can purchase a G3 upgrade card (running at about 400Mz with a 1meg backside L2 cache) for your 7300/7500/7600 Power PC Mac and make a huge gain in performance. Such cards are incredibly easy to install by swapping out the old PPC604e card found in all PCI-based Macs. Even faster upgrades are available and you can even get G4 upgrade cards for these Macs if you really want one. However, unless you are planning to use your FACStation computer to run Altivec enhanced applications such as the recent version of Adobe Photoshop et al, I see little reason to go through all the connectivity hassles (and cost) for little if any gain. This may not be everyone's idea of fun, but I recently purchased as separate items, a 500Mz ZIF (the 'processor') and a 'PCI Carrier card'. (You can also get them as a single card with the ZIF already 'soldered' into the card). I removed the 266 ZIF from the 'Beige' G3 in my office and replaced it with the 500Mz ZIF. I then installed the 266Mz ZIF into the carrier card and installed it into a 7300 running our dear old FACScan. The 200Mz PPC 604e card that I removed from the 7300 was then installed in a Calibur running off a 7600 containing an even older 120Mz PPC 604. Thus, we managed to upgrade 3 Macs for the price of one, we have not had to deal with connectivity issues with any of them, and all we have left over is one old PPC 604 card to use as a door stop. My 2c worth. Rob Sutherland University Health Network University of Toronto
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 03 2002 - 11:56:06 EST