Thread
Assembling the Fastest OS 9 Machine
I´d like you to help with your great experiance to virtually assemble the fastest OS 9 machine ever. Interresting is to clear some questions regarding the most powerful possibilities. I´ll update this post after your suggestions.
Prozessor:
MAXPower G4 with a 2GHz 7448 prozessor seems to be the fastest availaible OS9 possibility. I heard that OS 9 cannot use the power of a second prozessor (is that approved?), so the dual 1,8 GHz from Powerlogix or Sonnettech are no options for OS 9?
Motherboard:
Quicksilver G4 because of the 133MHz System-Bus. Is there a big difference to QS 2002 to take that model? Why is there no Prozessor upgrade for 167MHz systembus-models?
Graphic 3D:
Seems to be the GeForce4 Ti graphics card with 128 MB DDR-Ram, which got the best 3D performance for OS 9. Later ATI Models don´t 3D at OS 9 at all, and 9200 is not as powerful like GeForce4 Ti. Am I right?
Graphics 2D:
In fact I didn´t realize a big difference (in 2D) when I swiched from my Village Tronic Mac Picasso 540 (4MB) to a Voodoo 5500 (64MB) back in 2002. So what´s the card with fastest 2D performance? I read somwhere that still the Formac ProFormance III is the choice, and much better than any ATI or GeForce?
Ram:
1,5 GB
Is there really no possibility to use more? For example as Ramdisk?
Harddisk:
Seems to be still a SCSI-Raid with some 15k drives, Fujitsu Allegro 9 (3,3ms) for example? (ouch this is loud). Do SATA-Raids reach this performance?
Others, ...
If someone would be verry rich we could think about an SATA Ramdisc with 16 or 32 GB DDR Ram as "work volume". Acard is offering such things for $ 500 up.
Your suggestions:
...
Prozessor:
MAXPower G4 with a 2GHz 7448 prozessor seems to be the fastest availaible OS9 possibility. I heard that OS 9 cannot use the power of a second prozessor (is that approved?), so the dual 1,8 GHz from Powerlogix or Sonnettech are no options for OS 9?
Motherboard:
Quicksilver G4 because of the 133MHz System-Bus. Is there a big difference to QS 2002 to take that model? Why is there no Prozessor upgrade for 167MHz systembus-models?
Graphic 3D:
Seems to be the GeForce4 Ti graphics card with 128 MB DDR-Ram, which got the best 3D performance for OS 9. Later ATI Models don´t 3D at OS 9 at all, and 9200 is not as powerful like GeForce4 Ti. Am I right?
Graphics 2D:
In fact I didn´t realize a big difference (in 2D) when I swiched from my Village Tronic Mac Picasso 540 (4MB) to a Voodoo 5500 (64MB) back in 2002. So what´s the card with fastest 2D performance? I read somwhere that still the Formac ProFormance III is the choice, and much better than any ATI or GeForce?
Ram:
1,5 GB
Is there really no possibility to use more? For example as Ramdisk?
Harddisk:
Seems to be still a SCSI-Raid with some 15k drives, Fujitsu Allegro 9 (3,3ms) for example? (ouch this is loud). Do SATA-Raids reach this performance?
Others, ...
If someone would be verry rich we could think about an SATA Ramdisc with 16 or 32 GB DDR Ram as "work volume". Acard is offering such things for $ 500 up.
Your suggestions:
...
Yes, but the 2nd processor can´t be used by OS 9. That´s what I read at different places. It will fit, it will work, but buying an Dual G4 for OS 9 resoults in using just one CPU. (But I´m wondering what earlier Dual-Macs did with 8.6 or 9.0.4 for example?)
Both Quicksilver and Quicksilver 2002 heave 133MHz System Bus Speed, also like PC133 SDRam. Are there other differences why you would take a later QS model?
I've never heard that any particular, fairly modern, OS can't utilize dual/multiple processors. NEVER believe (without checking multiple reliable sources) what you've "read at different places" on the web.
IIRC, it's the availability of multi-threaded (?) software (apps) that pose the problem for multiple processors under any OS. Are you certain that something like Photoshop doesn't utilize dual procs under OS9? I'd almost bet that there are some packages that will. As you said yourself, Apple offered multi-proc systems under earlier OS releases, that's a sure sign that something probably utilizes of them.
Listen to the man, a faster system bus speed, RAM bus speed, etc. will always make a HUGE difference in overall system performance.
I'm, slowly, getting a QS'02 Dual 1 GHz system up and running under OS 9 only myself. At some point I'll probably snag the later Dual 1.25 GHz (dunno if it was a QS or MDD offhand, it doesn't really matter to me) that was the fastest/last Native 9 System ever offered by Apple.
It sounds like you're setting up a system for older graphics apps, which is exactly why I'm setting one up. I've got all the peripherals I need for "Living in an OS 9 World" (a topic I'm planning to post when my new toy is fully (maybe even relatively) functional, now that I've picked up a Nikon CoolScan from that era. I have boxes full of licensed Graphics, CAD/CAM and Productivity software/docs for OS 9.
. . . and lots of boxes of slides and negatives to work my way through. :-/
Keep us posted on your progress, but slow it down a bit and make sure your research is thorough, comrade.
jt: speed pusher/hacker of obsolescent Macs from waaaaay back in the day! = 8-o
I forgot, there's only 4x AGP slot in a MDD but a number of the OS 9 bootable MDDs have 167mhz bus speeds and DDR RAM and ATA 100. Having a faster processor on a slow bus is limiting. If the processor has to wait while it moves data in and out of RAM then it's spending time sitting idle.
I do a bit of Mac collecting and like upgrade machines. Sometimes an older machine with a processor upgrade has a faster processor than a newer machine but the newer machine has a higher bus speed and faster RAM and runs circled around the supposedly faster older machine
Wayne
Read that: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/PowerLogix/PF47D1500C/ at the bottom the point "System Requirements" and that: http://lowendmac.com/reviews/08rev/maxpower-1.8-ghz-single.html at "Classic Mac OS Benchmarks" first paragraph. As I told, I´m not absoluteley sure, that´s why I´m asking here. So if someone can tell what OS 9 is doing with a Dual G4, ... ?
I´m not certain, but I´d like to heave informations
Maybe you are right, ...Maybe my english is too bad, but that´s what I said at my first posting: QS because of the higher System Bus Speed of 133 MHz, ... ?
I´m setting up nothing at the moment. I´m happy with my 9600 G4 800. It´s only virtual at the moment - for really seeing my upgrade possibilities for the next decade
Let me know, when you are ready.
Hey that´s exactly what I´m doing here, asking for further knowledge and informations about things I´m not absoluteley surebut slow it down a bit and make sure your research is thorough, comrade.
But I need people willing to share their knowledge, for example direct comparison of 32MB ProFormance with a 128MB GeForce4 Ti in 2D.To tell it again, I´m asking about prooved knowledge not collective speculation
None of the Prozessor Upgrades is listed(!) to work with a G4 with 167MHz System Bus speed. Not Powerlogix, not Sonnettech, not FastMac, Not Newertech, Not OWC, not GigaDesigns will work with 167MHz. Any other experiances? If yes, please tell me - thats the meaning of that thread!
what exactly do you need an upgrade for on a 1,25 or 1,42 ghz MDD ?
that machine on its own is already a monster especially if you have the 1,42 ghz version the speed difference between the 1,42 ghz and a 1,8 or 2,0 versions are neglicable
hunt down an MDD they are bette rmore versatile machines and are already mostly tricked out
id rather have an MDD then a QS
Simply because I don´t like OS X, and will never use it. And because I think that OS 9 is one of the most logical Operating Systems ever.
The later MDD models cannot boot OS 9. the "reintroducions" was a kind of fake (you have to have OS X installed). And 2 GHz in comparison to 1 GHz makes a difference.
I´m simply asking for the most powerful OS 9 system. That´s all.
There are a small handful of programs for OS 8.6 > 9.2.2 that make use of the second processor. Back in those days, apps had to make specific use of the second processor. If you ran two non-specific apps at the same time, they would both run on the first processor.
Photoshop made use of the second processor. Some plugins also made use of AltiVec. These two combined would smoke any PC setup back in the day.
Photoshop made use of the second processor. Some plugins also made use of AltiVec. These two combined would smoke any PC setup back in the day.
Someday I will also build the fastest OS 9.x native booting machine (most likely a single processor system). I have yet to bother since high end G4's still cost a few dollars and I am in no hurry to get one.
The fastest current PPC system I have is only a B&W with a G4-450 CPU upgrade (needed for a Matrox RTMAC setup I have). Some people love OSX, I just tolerate it when I need a more modern web browser (on both B&W's) but I mostly boot into OS 9. The 68K to PPC change still used the old GUI way, I just find OSX to be very un-mac like.
The fastest current PPC system I have is only a B&W with a G4-450 CPU upgrade (needed for a Matrox RTMAC setup I have). Some people love OSX, I just tolerate it when I need a more modern web browser (on both B&W's) but I mostly boot into OS 9. The 68K to PPC change still used the old GUI way, I just find OSX to be very un-mac like.
When current, Matrox stated, RTMac was only compatible with an AGP equipped G4 - however, I fitted a G4 500MHz ZIF card into a B&W which worked reasonably well
Any 167mhz NON FW800 logic board from the MDD series that has a 1.42 DP card installed makes for an 'official' fastest OS 9 bootable Mac
I cobbled a MDD 1.42 DP together from various spares and fitted a Radeon 9600XT Mac & PC edition card (fairly rare but fanless with 256Mb RAM onboard).
This made for decent video performance in Leopard and overall this Mac performed equal to a PowerMac G5 1.8 Uni I have had since new
As Bunsen so elegantly summarized: OS 9 (and earlier) cannot, itself, make use of a second processor. But some applications (such as Photoshop,) can. If you are not using an app that specifically makes use of a second processor, then it's going to waste.
The 167 MHz bus models would be faster, especially the DDR-RAM-equipped MDD models. And Sonnet does make a dual-1.8 GHz upgrade that is compatible with the MDD models.
The GeForce4 Ti is the fastest OS 9 compatible video card.
"2D" performance isn't all that different between high end video cards, other than for benchmarking. A GeForce4 Ti will be "fast enough" at 2D, while being the fastest at 3D.
The MDD models' hardware is capable of addressing 2 GB, but OS 9 is limited to 1.5 GB, period.
A SCSI RAID would be fast, but a SATA RAID of SSDs would win, hands-down. Of course, I don't know of any SATA RAID cards that work in OS 9. Although even one single fast SATA SSD may very well be faster than all but a truly massive SCSI RAID (that would require external hard drives.)
Yes, those are insanely fast; but modern SATA SSDs are almost as fast (the Intel X25-E can saturate the SATA bus both reading and writing, so even if the RAM-based one is theoretically faster, the SATA bus itself is the limiting factor.)
An overclocked 1.42 GHz Mirrored drive door will probably be faster than a 7447a because the Apple processor has 2 megs of L3 cache in addition to 256k of L2 cache as compared with 512k of L2 and no L3 cache on the Sonnet processor card. Coupled with the 167 MHz DDR memory bus and ATA/100 bus, I doubt you'd find anything faster.
With regards to disk, I'd say get a fast 1.5 or 2 TB drive with a SATA to IDE adapter. The drives these days are capable of running a real, honest 100 MB/sec, so you're not really going to see anything faster in such a machine.
With regards to disk, I'd say get a fast 1.5 or 2 TB drive with a SATA to IDE adapter. The drives these days are capable of running a real, honest 100 MB/sec, so you're not really going to see anything faster in such a machine.
Did the 1.42s come as FW400? I've only seen the 1.25s as FW400, though I imagine you could just get the 1.42 out of one of the FW800s and bolt it in.
Classilla is built on a 1.25GHz dual G4 MDD. I would have no patience for letting it build on a lesser machine, because even as it is from total utter scratch it takes over 90 minutes worst-case. I have a spare bodydouble for it too; I take no chances.
This sounds like very good advice. Even without overclocking, the much larger cache should give the Apple CPU a fair chance of keeping up with the Sonnet. And it'll be a heck of a lot cheaper.
Also note that the L3 cache is 2MB per processor, not shared.
Note however that the dual 1.42GHz CPU was only shipped in the non-OS 9 booting Firewire 800 MDDs. The fastest OS 9 booting machines were the dual 1.25GHz 2002 FW400 MDD, or the "reissue" 2003 FW400 single 1.25GHz MDD
Based on this, my theoretical formula for the fastest OS 9 machine:
- 2003 re-issue FW400 motherboard
- Apple dual 1.42 GHz CPU from FW800 machine
- overclocking optional
Even if you had to buy two MDDs, swap the CPUs and sell the second machine, that should work out way cheaper than buying a QS or MDD and the Sonnet 2x2GHz.
As to drive choices: How about a Firewire 800 PCI card with FW-SATA or FW-IDE converters? That should be usable in OS 9, right? And software RAIDable?
My setup works fine on that B&W, I have a Radeon video card in the 66mhz PCI slot (the model with the fan before they started naming them 7000 and took out T&L). I should get an early AGP system and move the setup to it someday. High speed G4 ZIF cards are still pricey.
I have that GPU in the 66MHz slot, but without the fan (DVI & VGA) - it came with a B&W that I collected for free in a Shopping mall car park. It has a ZIP drive too. The G4 500MHz ZIF card was sourced off ebay, someone was selling a Beige G3 with one fitted. I offered to buy the card only and they disposed of the G3 separately, no jumper settings - just plug and play
In my case they did - I was surprised to find this to be so when I bought a FW400 1.42 NEW just before the original PM G5 came out. It became faulty 5 years later, so I bought another that had a faulty processor and transferred it over as that one was FW800 only.
Working 1.42's were fetching crazy money on ebay this time last year...
The logic boards are interchangeable as long as they are 167 bus speed...
What are the exact differences between that two motherboards (except that the 2003 FW400 needs a installed X to boot native into 9)? Everymac.com and others have no answers for me.
The advice to overclock a original Apple 1,42 Ghz seems to be good. I found several pages with exact informations. Should often work up to 1,8 GHz.
About Ram-disk, the Gigabyte i-RAM is availaible for less than Euro 200 including RAM. And that should be a verry well 4GB harddisc for OS 9 and scratch partition! Ever seen a Oldworld machine booting from RAM-disk? That rocks!
I posted this over at PPCMLA, but since we're talking about it here too, I got one of the Sonnet dual 1.8s (1833MHz 7447A) over the weekend. Not cheap. But it sure is zippy! Virtual PC, for example, runs at a howling pace.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS.
I have a dual 1.8 GHz (1833 MHz) 7447a Sonnet card in an Xserve with 167 MHz bus and 2 gigs - it'll never see OS 9, but it runs OS X very well. It's actually pushed in excess of 500mbps of traffic with 500 Apache daemons, which is much more than I imagined it'd be able to do.
Recently I got a single processor 1.7 GHz (1733 MHz) 7448 for a Quicksilver primarily because of the 1 meg of CPU speed L2 cache (as opposed to 512k in the 7447a), and between that and a fast 1 TB SATA drive on the IDE bus (SATA-IDE adapter), it's noticeably faster at compiling than another 1.8 GHz 7447a system.
Recently I got a single processor 1.7 GHz (1733 MHz) 7448 for a Quicksilver primarily because of the 1 meg of CPU speed L2 cache (as opposed to 512k in the 7447a), and between that and a fast 1 TB SATA drive on the IDE bus (SATA-IDE adapter), it's noticeably faster at compiling than another 1.8 GHz 7447a system.
Sure, and Tukwila is the same way. But Power6 and Power7 both really get starved for data quickly if their caches aren't full, and take a bigger penalty than other architectures in those situations. Look at what TurboCore does to the Power7: it's not just a GHz increase, it takes over even more of the cache since the number of cores in flight is reduced.
IBM is bragging that even the slowest Power7 outpaces a 5GHz Power6, though I imagine that is workload dependent:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/ibm_power7_chip_launch/page2.html
IBM is bragging that even the slowest Power7 outpaces a 5GHz Power6, though I imagine that is workload dependent:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/ibm_power7_chip_launch/page2.html
I actually still have 4 Compaq 5000 units onlined at the house. Even though they are Quad PPro 200mhz they are all 1meg cache per chip. The memory buss gets saturated before the 4th proc really can be flexed but that was known even way back in 1997 or so.
I run Ubuntu Linux on 2 of them once finally figuring out the correct memmap= line to get them to boot without a kernel panic. The other 2 are running Windows 2000. Been running solid for years now. Keeps the basement warm in the winter too. Today they are my testing vmware farm using vmware server 2.0 under the Ubuntu and Win2k. All of them have the full 4Gig of ram in them and 5 9.3 Gig hd's on the array.
I run Ubuntu Linux on 2 of them once finally figuring out the correct memmap= line to get them to boot without a kernel panic. The other 2 are running Windows 2000. Been running solid for years now. Keeps the basement warm in the winter too. Today they are my testing vmware farm using vmware server 2.0 under the Ubuntu and Win2k. All of them have the full 4Gig of ram in them and 5 9.3 Gig hd's on the array.
I presume the 1.5GB RAM limit in OS9 is why my Sawtooth (AGP graphics G4) with 2GB RAM installed shows Built-in Memory 1.99GB; VM Off; Largest Unused Block 1.45GB; and MacOS using 5548MB? The OS just walls off the "extra" 512 MB? Anyhow, it runs.
Specs: 1.2 GHz PLX G4 with 2 MB level 2 cache, which helps with the 100 MHz system buss, 160 GB and 500 GB ATA drives on the internal controller, a pair of 1TB Barracudas on a PCI SATA card, and ATI Radeon 9700. Snappy machine in OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.4.11. With MacOS ROM 9.5.1, it has no trouble with large hard disks. It's my fastest OS 9 machine, beating the Cube which has an NV FX6200 GPU which is a dog under OS 9.
Specs: 1.2 GHz PLX G4 with 2 MB level 2 cache, which helps with the 100 MHz system buss, 160 GB and 500 GB ATA drives on the internal controller, a pair of 1TB Barracudas on a PCI SATA card, and ATI Radeon 9700. Snappy machine in OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.4.11. With MacOS ROM 9.5.1, it has no trouble with large hard disks. It's my fastest OS 9 machine, beating the Cube which has an NV FX6200 GPU which is a dog under OS 9.
Yep, you're right - no matter what you do, Mac OS 9 and below simply cannot address any more than 1.5GB of RAM, its a limitation built into the OS, and short of rewriting the Mac OS (which Apple already did with Mac OS X), there's nothing that can be done about it. Like it matters anyway - 1.5GB is heaps, and I do mean heaps for OS 9.
I don't know if it is "properly" supported, but it works for me. All resolutions and color depths are available, and 2D seems pretty fast. I don't run 3D games, so I can't say whether that's accelerated or not. The ATI extensions load except there was one I had to trash to get the system to boot. Apple System Profiler reports it as Card Model ATY, R350; Card ROM# 113-A07525-130. It's an AGP Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB flashed for Mac.
ClassicHasClass said:
" I posted this over at PPCMLA, but since we're talking about it here too, I got one of the Sonnet dual 1.8s (1833MHz 7447A) over the weekend. Not cheap. But it sure is zippy! Virtual PC, for example, runs at a howling pace.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS. "
I'm very intereted in to know how much speedy is your MDD whith Sonnet 1833MHz 7447A than my MDD single overclocked to 1.667Mhz.
Can you put please your Cinebench 2003 test results?
Thats mine G4 MDD 1.667Ghz Single:
Cinebench 2003
Rendering 1 CPU 154
Rendering 2 CPU ----
C4D Shading 189
OpenGl SW-L 498
OpenGl HW-L 486
Thanks.
Sorry for my English.
" I posted this over at PPCMLA, but since we're talking about it here too, I got one of the Sonnet dual 1.8s (1833MHz 7447A) over the weekend. Not cheap. But it sure is zippy! Virtual PC, for example, runs at a howling pace.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS. "
I'm very intereted in to know how much speedy is your MDD whith Sonnet 1833MHz 7447A than my MDD single overclocked to 1.667Mhz.
Can you put please your Cinebench 2003 test results?
Thats mine G4 MDD 1.667Ghz Single:
Cinebench 2003
Rendering 1 CPU 154
Rendering 2 CPU ----
C4D Shading 189
OpenGl SW-L 498
OpenGl HW-L 486
Thanks.
Sorry for my English.
This is a link of the Mac version.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.sit
It works on Mac Os 9 and Mac Os X.
I'm only interested on the Mac Os 9 results.
Thanks.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.sit
It works on Mac Os 9 and Mac Os X.
I'm only interested on the Mac Os 9 results.
Thanks.
Just downloaded it. StuffIt Expander gave me a funny error about "unable to verify resource fork of Cinebench 2003" and when I started it, it bombed to MacsBug with an illegal instruction. :O The archive doesn't *seem* corrupt and the resource fork looks okay, but it definitely won't run on this machine. Do you have another one you want to try to compare against?
edit: Actually, now that I examine it, it does look like a corrupt archive ... maybe binhex it as a safety measure?
edit: Actually, now that I examine it, it does look like a corrupt archive ... maybe binhex it as a safety measure?
Sorry. I don't know where is the error.
In any case, please try this other. It seems to work.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.img.hqx
Thanx
In any case, please try this other. It seems to work.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.img.hqx
Thanx
Hi all - I have been away for a couple of years, but am back at my old Mac antics.
Last week I bought what looks like the fastest PowerBook, a 1GHz Titanium. These machines appear to be finicky but this one looks quite good. It was cheapish. Only problem was that the audio out doesn't work at all. That kind of sucks because I mostly do audio and video work. I figured it wasn't too bad, since I like my quiet firewire audio interface. Then I was horrified to discover that firewire didn't work either... I actually got it running by scrubbing the logic board with 90% isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry. Still no onboard audio but now the firewire works. Going to max the RAM. I replaced the 60 GB stock drive which was noisy and very slow with a 160 GB Seagate which is silent and quite fast. When I can afford a second 1 GHz TiBook I am going to try to fix the audio on here - I suspect it's the output opamps.
My main machine for years has been my MDD G4. I bought a partial MDD, and a partial 1.42 GHz FW800 machine and combined them with the 167 MHz FW400 logic board. Has anybody used XServe CPUs in these? I have heard that they are somehow based on the MDD logic board. 1.33 GHz XServe CPUs seem to be cheaper and easier to find than the 1.42. It's got 1.75GB of RAM, GeForce Ti 4600, and Stealth serial port. It is decent in MacOS 10.4.11 but screams in 9.2.2. A few things to look out for: it is picky what version of the 9.2.2 system it uses. It needs one of the later 2002-2003 versions which were distributed with macs on the gray discs. This means it needs an OS X install first and then browse to the hidden cd folder "images", I think it's called classicbasic or some such thing. Also, these machines run damn hot. They have noisy fans which annoy, and they run hot besides. Mine averaged around 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit! It ran flawlessly for about five years, but then I put it away for a couple of months, and once I brought it out again it just kernel panics (X) or hangs (9). It broke from lack of use? Seems to have a serious bus problem now.
Consider that there is the fastest an OS 9 mac can be, and the fastest an OS 9 mac can be without needing special version of the OS and drivers. For instance, an MDD, eMac, or TiBook DVI won't run with a regular retail version of 9. It might require some fiddling and be slightly less convenient than running the next fastest, probably a Quicksilver.
Off to try to fix my MDD...
Last week I bought what looks like the fastest PowerBook, a 1GHz Titanium. These machines appear to be finicky but this one looks quite good. It was cheapish. Only problem was that the audio out doesn't work at all. That kind of sucks because I mostly do audio and video work. I figured it wasn't too bad, since I like my quiet firewire audio interface. Then I was horrified to discover that firewire didn't work either... I actually got it running by scrubbing the logic board with 90% isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry. Still no onboard audio but now the firewire works. Going to max the RAM. I replaced the 60 GB stock drive which was noisy and very slow with a 160 GB Seagate which is silent and quite fast. When I can afford a second 1 GHz TiBook I am going to try to fix the audio on here - I suspect it's the output opamps.
My main machine for years has been my MDD G4. I bought a partial MDD, and a partial 1.42 GHz FW800 machine and combined them with the 167 MHz FW400 logic board. Has anybody used XServe CPUs in these? I have heard that they are somehow based on the MDD logic board. 1.33 GHz XServe CPUs seem to be cheaper and easier to find than the 1.42. It's got 1.75GB of RAM, GeForce Ti 4600, and Stealth serial port. It is decent in MacOS 10.4.11 but screams in 9.2.2. A few things to look out for: it is picky what version of the 9.2.2 system it uses. It needs one of the later 2002-2003 versions which were distributed with macs on the gray discs. This means it needs an OS X install first and then browse to the hidden cd folder "images", I think it's called classicbasic or some such thing. Also, these machines run damn hot. They have noisy fans which annoy, and they run hot besides. Mine averaged around 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit! It ran flawlessly for about five years, but then I put it away for a couple of months, and once I brought it out again it just kernel panics (X) or hangs (9). It broke from lack of use? Seems to have a serious bus problem now.
Consider that there is the fastest an OS 9 mac can be, and the fastest an OS 9 mac can be without needing special version of the OS and drivers. For instance, an MDD, eMac, or TiBook DVI won't run with a regular retail version of 9. It might require some fiddling and be slightly less convenient than running the next fastest, probably a Quicksilver.
Off to try to fix my MDD...
Sorry for the lag, I was away from my workstations this weekend. The second image you posted, Tron, works fine. Here are the numbers:
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************
Tester : CHC
Processor : G4 7447A
MHz : 1833
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS 9.2.2
Graphics Card : Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Resolution : 1920x1080
Color Depth : Millions
****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 163 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 309 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.89
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 181 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 473 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 474 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.62
****************************************************
It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower. However, the rendering results are what I would have expected for a small bump in MHz (1667 -> 1833) with everything else being equal (MDD architecture and bus). What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************
Tester : CHC
Processor : G4 7447A
MHz : 1833
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS 9.2.2
Graphics Card : Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Resolution : 1920x1080
Color Depth : Millions
****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 163 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 309 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.89
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 181 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 473 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 474 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.62
****************************************************
It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower. However, the rendering results are what I would have expected for a small bump in MHz (1667 -> 1833) with everything else being equal (MDD architecture and bus). What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
Ummm...there were CPU upgrades for MDD/Xserve
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/XG4D1800/
That's the Sonnet one and I am sure there was another I saw a while back, maybe by Newertech.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/XG4D1800/
That's the Sonnet one and I am sure there was another I saw a while back, maybe by Newertech.
ClassicHasClass said:
"
What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
”
A standar Mac Radeon 9000 Pro 64 Mb.
ClassicHasClass said:
“... It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower...”
The test results may have some vary from once to another try.
This is what I obteined for several trials:
Cinebench 2003 Min Max
Rendering 1 CPU 154 157
Rendering 2 CPU -- --
C4D Shading 188 190
OpenGl SW-L 498 503
OpenGl HW-L 486 510
This are my graphics card related extensions and his version numbers:
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator v 7.0.9
ATI Graphics Accelerator v5.6.9
ATI Resource Manager v3.2.1
ATI Video Accelerator v4.8.7
QuickDraw™ 3D RAVE 1.8.1
OpenGLEngine v1.2.4
OpenGLLibrary v1.2.5
OpenGLMemory v1.2.4
OpenGLRenderer v1.2.4
OpenGLUtility v v1.2.4
OpenGLRendererATI v1.3.5
But I think this may be a CPU related cuestion.
By the way we already know two things:
- The Os 9 uses the second processor of the sonnet MDX dual the same way it uses other dual CPU cards.
- And the faster Os 9 machine is the MDD whith sonnet MDX 1.8 Ghz.
We just need to know if a Quicksilver whith MAXPower® G4/7448 dual 1.8 or single 2.0 will perform better.
Sorry for my bad English.
"
What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
”
A standar Mac Radeon 9000 Pro 64 Mb.
ClassicHasClass said:
“... It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower...”
The test results may have some vary from once to another try.
This is what I obteined for several trials:
Cinebench 2003 Min Max
Rendering 1 CPU 154 157
Rendering 2 CPU -- --
C4D Shading 188 190
OpenGl SW-L 498 503
OpenGl HW-L 486 510
This are my graphics card related extensions and his version numbers:
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator v 7.0.9
ATI Graphics Accelerator v5.6.9
ATI Resource Manager v3.2.1
ATI Video Accelerator v4.8.7
QuickDraw™ 3D RAVE 1.8.1
OpenGLEngine v1.2.4
OpenGLLibrary v1.2.5
OpenGLMemory v1.2.4
OpenGLRenderer v1.2.4
OpenGLUtility v v1.2.4
OpenGLRendererATI v1.3.5
But I think this may be a CPU related cuestion.
By the way we already know two things:
- The Os 9 uses the second processor of the sonnet MDX dual the same way it uses other dual CPU cards.
- And the faster Os 9 machine is the MDD whith sonnet MDX 1.8 Ghz.
We just need to know if a Quicksilver whith MAXPower® G4/7448 dual 1.8 or single 2.0 will perform better.
Sorry for my bad English.