Quite apart from video performance, which others have covered, there are some important and rapid general system speedups in Apple's early PCI machines. Figures don't tell you all.
The PowerSurge machines are limited to their 50 MHz bus. But remember - this is a Fast Page Mode memory bus. In other words, the RAM cycles quite slow (AFAIR it's doing three wait-states to each access), so the RAM throughput - even with burst modes and the like - is quite limited. Hence the difference a big L2 backside cache makes to these machines. Combine that with in-built SCSI limited to 10 MB/s, and the base architecture is just stodgy. Okay, we can slip in all sorts of goodies (like fast ATA cards) but we can never get rid of the fundamental bottlenecks.
In the Beige G3s, the modest bus speed-up to 66 MHz belies the true benefit. The RAM is now synchronous DRAM, which cycles much faster. From these machines on, Mac memory performance is hugely improved. Run a simple Beige G3 next to a PowerSurge, even one which is fully tricked out. The difference is just in-your-face. What's slow in the Beige is the ATA disk (16.7 MB/s), but that can be improved with a card.
Get to the B&W, and the main bus at 100 MHz synchronous is now respectable, while the disk is up to 33 MB/s; get to the Sawtooth G4 with AGP and the disk is up to 66 MB/s. You have to decide for yourself where to drop in.
But my point is that even a Beige G3 still has a whole lot more punch than a PowerSurge. The bummer is that, without the NewWorld ROM architecture, the Beige G3 is no longer official for Panther, so already problematic.
If I were buying a newer box, I wouldn't buy earlier than a Sawtooth G4. AGP is good, the architecture is balanced, and its a lovely machine to work on for fixing and improving things inside.
GWW
On 22 Dec 2003, at 06:51, Simon wrote:
With respect to hopefully not getting too far off topic......
On 20/12/2003, at 8:20 AM, JW Holmes wrote:
I am at a decision point with my computer and I was wondering if anyone
might provided me with some information to help in my decision. I
currently have a PM 9600 upgraded with a Sonnet G3/500. I have 740 MB Ram
2 SCSI drives (9 GB each) on ATTO card, and a ATI Rage 128 Video Card. I
run Jaguar (10.2.8), and I am considering moving upgrading to a Sonnet
G4/700 and upgrading to Panther.
My dilemma is this: would I be better off just buying a used PowerMac G4/
500 for ~$450, or go ahead and get the Sonnet G4/700 for ~ $225 and
install it.
Right now 10.2.8 is very stable and I have not had any problems with the
machine. I would like a bit more speed but I don't play games so I don't
need blazing speed. I don't want to spend more than ~ 450 because I have
to buy Panther.
Any opinions would be appreciated.
JW
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