Beyond Old World... |
October, 22, 2003 5:39 PM |
ian |
I love OWC, XPF, and what Ryan is doing for supporting Old World machines in OS X and keeping them alive, but I wanted to share my experiences with my 9500, and moving away from Old World boxen. I want to keep helping here, but these are my impressions over the past week: I inherited a Dual 500 Gigabit Ethernet G4 from a friend of mine last weekend, and I haven't even considered booting my 9500 since setting up the G4. I enjoyed building the 9500 and having it run as a server for a year, running Jaguar alright, but with some significant issues and many bugs in operation. First it was RAM, and not wanting to work while interleaved. Next, it was RealTek network cards not being supported on machines not officially supporting OS X. After that, getting a PC Radeon 7000 flashed to work in the Mac (which could have been avoided by buying a Mac card, but still...) Reordering the PCI cards to function properly every time I get a new add-on is a major inconvenience, and don't even get me started on just opening the case of the 9500. After getting my ATA card, the 3 hard drives, and a NIC out of the 9500, I pulled the two existing drives out of the G4 and plunked everything in. The G4 swallowed it all up, and didn't need the USB, FireWire, or second 100Mbit NIC. It didn't need the PCI Radeon 7000, since it already has an AGP Radeon card with ADC and VGA. After backing up all the data, installing a fresh copy of the OS, and setting the RAID back up, it's been a champ. The machine is significantly faster, and even network throughput has tripled when compared with the 9500. While I don't mind playing with Old World machines, still, I could not recommend that many people upgrade their old machines to the extent I did my 9500. Processor, RAM, hard disks, interface cards. It costs a lot, and it is probably not as cost effective in terms of price/performance as buying even a used G4 or even a B/W G3 machine. I'm enjoying the new found speed, ease of expansion, and look forward to compatibility with Panther on Friday. Good luck, Ryan, and I look forward to testing XPF 3 with Panther on the 9500 as the development progresses, but using the G4 as the serious work machine. |
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RE: Beyond Old World... |
October, 26, 2003 8:30 AM |
swoup1213 |
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I'm an old world lover, 9500 and PowerCenter 132 both upgraded with ram, G3 400 cards, video cards, extra hard drives. But I have to agree with Ian, I recently picked up a G4 450 AGP Sawtooth (384 ram, 30 gig drive, DVD-ROM, SCSI card) from eBay at a price which did not equal my upgrades in the past. My 9500, which I'm using now and has become the family computer and works great in OSX 10.2.8 for the internet, Microsoft Office, etc. But since I'm a graphic artist, I'm in need of a faster motherboard that can deal with the new software being written for OSX only. Call me Dr. Frankenstein...I stripped out my extra 36 gig internal SCSI drive from the 9500 and put that in the G4. I stripped out the 9 gig internal SCSI from the PowerCenter and put that in the 9500 and I transplanted the internal CDR-RW from the PowerCenter into the 9500 and the CD drive from the 9500 into thePowerCenter, everything works....Ha ha ha...what was that Egor?. A big thanks to Ryan, I will be using OSX on the old world machines as long as they run. Keith |
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RE: Beyond Old World... |
October, 25, 2003 3:17 AM |
gordner |
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I've got a 8600 fully loaded with the fastest upgrades. Initially I started with a 8500, which went through several upgrades. When I started the latest round, I bought a 8600 to which I transferred all the latest stuff, and left my earlier generation upgrades in the 8500. Both computers now run the latest versions of OS X thanks to XPF, and most certainly I'll be giving Panther a try. It has been great fun and I learned a lot along the way. But I'm afraid it's time for the 'Old World' to finally retire. I've got myself a Dual 2 GHz G5, and it simply blows my old guys away. To be fair, as long as you stick to Internet, Email, word processing or other simple stuff, the old machines still do quite well. But once you use more demanding software, the difference is enormous. The G5 finishes PS 7 Bench advanced (50 MB file) in almost the same time than the 8600 G4 800 the basic test (10 MB). The advanced test takes an eternity on the 8600, so I didn't try. So save your bucks for a new G5. Hopefully they'll serve us as long as the old guys did... |
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RE: Beyond Old World... |
October, 23, 2003 12:09 PM |
jseibyl |
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good luck ;-) , I am saving my coin for a dual g5, but until that time, I shall continue to bear the scars of my bleeding fingers when I crack open an 8500/9500! Hows that for drama? ;-0 |
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RE: Beyond Old World... |
October, 23, 2003 1:04 AM |
smwalker |
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Yeah, but you don't have the sweet ADB mouse and keyboard I have with my 9600 (and a lot easier to open than the 9500). Seriously, I started with a used 7500 with bad mobo for cheap and then I just kept upgrading and got a 9600. I've learned a lot and my 9600 w/ G4 upgrade card (Sonnet 800 mhz) is fast enough. I've enjoyed this forum a lot and have learned much. We're lucky to have macs in this age of the pc, be they new world or old. |
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RE: Beyond Old World... |
October, 22, 2003 9:13 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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You lucky bastard! Marty PS I have a PBG4 Ti15" 867Mhz |
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