On Saturday, September 1, 2001, at 03:26 am, Andrew W. Hill wrote:
Sorry to pipe up again but I still think a yos. would be a better bet,
here is why (diatribe time!!):
>> WHATEVER YOU DO, DO *NOT* UPGRADE YOUR CPU TO A G3!!!
>>
>> I'm echoing the comments of others I'm sure.
>
> Not mine. I think G3 upgrades are great for the 7600. I wouldn't
> recommend them for the x100 series due to problems I had, but G3s in
> the PCI Powermacs are great.
It is all very well saying that, and yes I agree that the performance
improvement from 601 to G3/375 in my old 7500 was remarkable. What it
doesn't say however is that the G3 in my Yosemite is only 25MHz faster
than the one I had in my 7500 BUT it seems, due to the far superior
board, ROM system and ATA/33 interface, that it runs at 3 times the
speed. I admit it also has 576MB RAM which helps but, as you have all
said, the RAM is dirt cheap :)
>>> Okay, here's my deal...I have a 7600/200 with 176mb's of ram, and
>>> two 2GB
>>> scsi hard drives.
You have virtually the same system as my old 7500 (apart from the lack
of G3)
>>> b) USB (so I can use my nice logitech optical mouse, and not the
>>> crappy adb
>>> mouse that I have now)
>>
>> USB & Firewire cards are often more problematic than built-in USB or
>> Firewire (e.g. Apple supposedly demands built-in Firewire for Final
>> Cut Pro
>> 2.0)
It is not actually a System Requirement AFAIK (not for iTunes at least),
but a simple way of telling ppl with pre-aqua-case Macs to naff off (in
effect), with the possible exception of Beige G3 owners :), as they
don't live up to Apple's 'new image' (insert rude words about new image).
> It supposedly requires it for iTunes as well, but I'm running iTunes
> happily on 8500s with 233MHz 604e's. As far as mice go, the cards
> are fine. I dropped a $16 PC USB card into Dad's beige G3. We use a
> Microsoft mouse and an Imation Superdisk on it. No worries.
Yeh, I (am a fool!) ran it on a 601 in OS 9.1 (after waiting a good 30
mins for it to boot!)
Do bear in mind that a PCI-USB card does *not* activate on boot so if
you replace the k/b and mouse you can in effect not boot OS9.1 if it has
to do a disk check as the window comes up in the loading string that
says 'Disk Check complete' and, as the USB extension isn't loaded, you
can't press Enter OR click 'Done'. This was a constant source of bursts
of F words on my 7500 as I had to reach around the back and fish out the
ADB keyboard just to recover it after it crashed (which it did
regularly!). Also, as an amusing side, things kept happening when I
didn't touch the k/b, a matter I originally put down to dodgy USB cards,
however, I later discovered that my mouse cable kept hitting the ADB
k/b! DOH!
PCI-USB cards can also have issues with some peripherals. Which is a
mystery to me and I don't know which ones are problematic. I had trouble
with a Kodak USB digital camera on my 7500 (the software crashed on
searching for a USB port). It works fine on my Yos.
> Basically a lot of people don't need a fast CPU. I know I don't. My
> G3/450 works great for me. The RAM used to hold me back, the
> graphics and disk subsystems still do. My problem really isn't with
> the chip. Most home users don't care too much as long as it keeps up
> with the web. And it has a high MHz rating, of course.
It's true! I am running OS X in 1600x1200x32bit (Millions of colours)
mode on my Yos. Rev.1. and it is usable. I can only assume 10.1 will be
even better (I'll throw Apple a bomb if it's not!). If you want G3 speed
and power at the price you'd pay to add the stuff to your 7600 (plus the
value of the 7600) then get a 2nd hand or (even better) refurb. Yos. I
would only say make sure you get a Rev. 2 450 as these are the best
machines and have a better MoBo and cases. If you want to go all out for
a power machine you could get an AGP Sawtooth 450 refurb, which would be
over $1500 (compared to $800-1000 for a good Yos.), you could, but
before you do ask yourself (long and hard) 'Why do I want AltiVec
acceleration and do I need it?' and 'Is it worth the extra cash?'
The thing about G4s running OS X better than G3s is not really true to
any great extent. G4s multi task faster in OS X (AFAIK) because the
multi-threading is better on G4s. Apart from that, I have seen it on my
friend's (legendary friend by now it's all about to get confusing as my
*other* freing bought a 733 G4 last month) G4 Sawtooth 450 (he won't use
it most of the time and sticks to 9.1) and I use it on my Yos. 400. I
have compared them passively and found that mine runs about the same
speed as his in most areas. We both have 16MB Rage 128 gfx cards (he has
2 actually but n.m.) and we both run it at 1600x1200x32bit mode. I think
the major part of the G4 thing is that the newer (533/667/733/833/800DP)
G4s are better equiped, gfx card wise, to run OS X.
I don't think Apple will stop supporting G3s any time soon as they:
a) still sell iMacs and iBooks that are G3 based and they have 3 year
warrenties out on some which would meant they have to keep them going
for that long.
b) Have a large base of home and school users on iBooks and iMacs who
expect a decent life from the machines.
c) Haven't OFFICIALLY superceded the G4 (yet) and so can't move it down
a rung to the i-series computers.
Sorry, my 2 pence ran out ages ago. I'll shut my big trap door now ;)
--
Mark Benson
aka SiliconValleyPirate (EveryMac)
Kane_NUFC (Yahoo! Messenger)
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AirportMan (ICQ - 70745942)
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"Better to be a pirate than join the Navy"
- Pirates of Silicon Valley
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