New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 09, 2003 3:52 PM |
esmith |
How fast will this be? Will there be considerable performance increases over a 500 mhz on a PTP or a 9600? |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 20, 2003 5:06 AM |
chibi_delenn |
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mjoecups358, You do know the specs on the Sonnet G4/800, right? It's got 256K of L2 cache running at 800 Mhz (the PL has 512K @ 800 Mhz L2), but the Sonnet also gets the very nice additional (and extremely noticeable) speed boost of 1 MB *L3* cache running at 200 Mhz. So as to your comment about the PL cache running at 800 Mhz, it's not faster than the Sonnet's cache by any means. :) |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 20, 2003 2:50 AM |
mjoecups358 |
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I think the PL 800 card is gonna be faster then the sonnet card in many applications due to the 800Mhz cache... Obviously altivec is a big deal, and altivec aware programs do kick butt on G4 hardware... That said, I look forward to a head to head, and wonder if the PL card will allow for overclocking of the G3........... Marty |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 19, 2003 12:57 AM |
paul_findley |
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I would have to concur with Chibi that the G4 800 is a much better upgrade than a G3 800, unless all you are doing is word processing and email. There are just way too many image processing, video, etc. applications that take advantage of Altivec, to ignore it. My threshold of pain as far as a price diference would be $100. If the G4 is available for $329 as someone mentioned, that would be a bargain (all things being relative; it would be hiway robbery in the PC world, where you could get a 2GHz processor and motherboard for less). Chibi: You are sacrificing a lot to keep that video card, if that is the cause of the problem with the Sonnet G4. Another place to look is RAM. Make sure it is all 2k refresh, 60ns. I found the Sonnet to be incredibly picky about RAM |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 17, 2003 12:46 PM |
willschou1 |
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The Powerlogix G3 800 was just anounced this week I belive . It is listed on their web site if you take the time to look. It is listed as being apox 2-3 weeks for availability. |
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Where is the G3/800? |
January, 17, 2003 11:04 AM |
earlyd416 |
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I haven't seen a PL G3(?)/800 announced or on their web site. What gives with this...is a rumor or what? BTW, I had problems with my PL PowerForce G4/450 card, initially, back in Jan 2000. PL was everything I would have asked for on standing by their warranty. I believe PL got a bad name because of the design snafu on their PB 466 upgrade which caused coked flow in the warranty pipeline because everyone of them had to have extensive modification to work correctly. But, as I said, I've had very good response from my warranty dealings with PL. --Dwight |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 16, 2003 6:51 AM |
gordner |
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For me the Sonnet G4/800 was plug & play. I initially had a problem in installing OS X, and the Sonnet support was quick and helpful. The only reason why I would prefer a PL would be the adjustability, since I know my 8500 can run at bus speeds of 57 MHz. A G4/912 would be great! As to bad cards, I once had one from PL. This can happen with all manufacturers. The best cards in my opinion came from XLR8, and their control panel was great. A pity that they are out of the market. How about the cache system - which one would be faster? The Sonnet with 256K at 800 MHz and 1MB at 200 MHz, or the PL with 512K at 800 MHz? |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 15, 2003 4:57 PM |
marcush |
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mjoecups358, your experience was unfortunate. I have to admit that I was a bit leary of buying a Sonnet product because of problem reports I'd read over at xlr8yourmac but since they had the only offering at the time I took what I thought was a risk. It turned out not to be. Now I also have a Sonnet ATA card, which I had also avoided at first and bought from Acard. I have not had any bad experiences with Powerlogix, though I would not want to have to deal with them over a warranty issue, and like their products. I've also had several. I'd still much prefer a G4 at the same clock speed though. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 15, 2003 1:30 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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I also purchased the Sonnet G4/800 card and then had to return it because it was flakey in 4 different boxes... I did get to rip some audio in iTunes at 10X though... I have use Powerlogix card in many installs including protools setups and with FCP and have always had good support/reliability. I never got a new PL upgrade that was whacked right out of the box (I've purchased about 20 of them). The first Sonnet I bought G4/800 was bad. Hopefully the PL G3/800 ships soon and I suspect it might not need any cache enabler either? Marty |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 14, 2003 6:23 PM |
marcush |
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I got my Sonnet G4 800 from buy.com exactly because of the OWC restocking fee. Although I buy a lot of stuff from them I don't buy big ticket items from them to avoid the restocking fee. This is somewhat off topic for this thread, but since the merits of the Sonnet G4's are being discussed relative to a Powerlogix G3 800 this is what I posted in the 7600/G4 800 thread: "My Power Tower Pro 225/Sonnet G4 800/Sonnet Tempo ATA/100 w/WD 80GB SE, IBM 120GB 120GXP,Pioneer DVR-104/1GB RAM/Macsense 10/100 ethernet/Ratoc Firewire-USB2.0/Radeon Mac Edition gets similar Xbench results. I'm just holding out for the IBM PPC970 before I buy a new machine, and with the performance I'm getting out of it I'm going to be able to do that as it looks right now. I'm running Photoshop 7, Final Cut Pro 3, DVD Studio Pro, and iDVD as well as the other iApps without a hiccup. Games run great too. For instance, RtCW runs at full speed with nary a slowdown, as do ST Voyager: Elite Force, Alice, and Aliens vs Predator. The only problematic game is Myth III, which even new Macs have trouble with. I just got MoH at Macworld last week and it plays pretty well too. It does slow down in large outdoor environments but not unacceptably. I think I can tweak the settings to fix that. Everything runs at 1024x768 which is very pleasing to my eye. I think the key components for my good graphics performance are the G4 800, lots of RAM, and the original Radeon Mac Edition card. It wipes the floor with the Radeon 7000 in terms of 3D performance. I'm very excited to be able to run iDVD, which I owe to the Sonnet Tempo card. I've burned 4 perfect DVD's so far. These were archived episodes of TV shows that I copied from my Tivo." Chibbi, perhaps there is a problem with your Radeon card that only becomes apparent with the Sonnet G4 800 installed? To conclude. I heartilly concur with Chibbi in saying that you'll get a lot more performance out of the G4 800 because OSX itself is Altivec optimized. Unless Powerlogix introduces a G4 800 or faster I wouldn't personally buy anything less from them. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 14, 2003 1:48 PM |
willschou1 |
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"Unless Powerlogix can offer the G3/800 for significantly less than the $395 + $9 shipping from OWC (yay no tax if you're not in IL!), then it can't hold a candle to the Sonnet G4/800." The list price for the Powerlogix G3 800mhz is $299.00 So in a couple of months some people will be selling it for less. Thw Sonnet is currently selling for $329.00 + shipping from some mail order places. I'm not sure what significantly less means to you... |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 14, 2003 7:20 AM |
chibi_delenn |
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willschou1, Perhaps I should have clarified better (this is what I get for NOT PROOFREADING). I bought two G4/800s. One from OWC (Rev 3), which did work for about two days, then began to corrupt everything onscreen when used in 3D apps/games, and a second one from Fry's Electronics (Rev 2), which wouldn't even boot past the Happy Mac screen no matter what I swapped in/took out/rearranged inside my mac. While I had a working G4/800, it was the best I've ever seen for our old macs. Unfortunately, it really just seemed to go absolutely wanker on me after two days, and since I'm a gamer, that just wouldn't cut it for me. Unreal Tournament, or anything using its engine, would instantly quit without any warning at all right at launch/intro maps (I have three Unreal/UT based games that I tested that on). CineBench 2000 and Quake 3, and even Star Trek: Elite Force all displayed corruption which got progressively worse and worse until I couldn't even play the game at all. But as I said before, I'm one of the 1% that have had problems with the Sonnet G4 in my mac. The only reason I didn't get the second G4/800 from OWC again was that they "tested" it (I use the term loosely - they tested it with the WRONG VIDEO CARD, and until I bugged them repeatedly about the test, WOULD NOT TEST ANYTHING OTHER THAN 2D, which I had told them was FINE for me), and it came back "good". Well, I later found out that they had used a Radeon 7000, and *not* the R7200 that I had in their tests. "Oops." So then they flatly refused me an exchange since the CPU was tested "good". That left me with either an exchange for a "comparable" product (what, there was something else comparable to a G4/800 for christ's sake? Geez...), or get a refund with a 15% restocking fee deducted from it. Since I had absolutely no other options for decent CPU upgrades past my G3/400 in terms of bang for the buck, I chose the latter, and got the refund. After a complaint to the BBB about the restock fee, I saw the entire amount refunded. Not being allowed to get an exchange of the * same product*, and then being told that because of the return being "good" that I'd have to take a $60 hit on the restock fee, you can see why I wasn't exactly pleased with OWC at the time. At least Fry's took my G4/800 back with no problems, other than me having to spend $7 for the bus/BART to/from Fry's. But since very very few people have had problems with the G4/800, I can wholeheartedly recommend it as the best "bang for the buck". Unless Powerlogix can offer the G3/800 for significantly less than the $395 + $9 shipping from OWC (yay no tax if you're not in IL!), then it can't hold a candle to the Sonnet G4/800. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 14, 2003 3:40 AM |
rpjallan |
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I have a 7300 which has been running perfectly with a Sonnet G3 300 for over three years. I would not hesitate to use another one of their products and hopefully will soon have a G4 800. I would not buy a PowerLogix product after reading about warranty problems on www.macintouch.com. Pity, I was considering their G4 500 upgrade for my G3 PowerBook. Richard |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 14, 2003 1:05 AM |
willschou1 |
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" Although in the end it didn't work out for me due to corrupting everything 3D onscreen, the Sonnet G4/800, if you can get it, is a * far* better deal than any G3 from Powerlogix. First off, the G4 itself nearly doubled my memory throughput from 56.7 MB/sec to 104 MB/sec. Not a bad jump, eh?" You can't get it to work in your machine and you have the nerve to say it's way better then the Powerlogix which isn't even for sale yet!!!!;-) I for one am not a fan of Sonnets products. They may well be better then they used to be but belive me they are the Ford/Chevy of the CPU world. Work fine and most people are happy but there is better for the buck. Powerlogix has a long history of clockable products and if we're lucky this will be also. I say it is way to early to say which will be better. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 13, 2003 8:47 PM |
chibi_delenn |
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Oh, and for the christ's sake gabb, please take off that caps lock. You look like a 11 year old AOLer ;) |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 13, 2003 8:37 PM |
chibi_delenn |
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Although in the end it didn't work out for me due to corrupting everything 3D onscreen, the Sonnet G4/800, if you can get it, is a * far* better deal than any G3 from Powerlogix. First off, the G4 itself nearly doubled my memory throughput from 56.7 MB/sec to 104 MB/sec. Not a bad jump, eh? Of course, if you really want to see how well it compared to my G3/400, I'll tell you about my Star Trek: Elite Force fun. On my G3/400 (what I use now, since the G4/800 didn't like my computer), I cannot even play it at minimal settings, as I get max 4 FPS, and that's in *light* traffic areas. On the G4/800 from Sonnet, I was able to play probaby between 20-30 fps at *max* settings in the game game. Now, you tell me that isn't a huge boost, even over a G3/500. For what you pay, you get G4/800 (real, not overclocked), 256K of on- die L2 cache running at 800 Mhz, and 1 MB of L3 cache running at 200 Mhz. Believe me, you're getting *way* more bang for your buck with the G4/800. Ya know a product has to be fast if I'm willing to peddle it, even though I coudln't get it working (99% of the people that bought it have no probs with it). :) |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 13, 2003 2:55 PM |
marcush |
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I have one. It runs perfectly on my Power Tower Pro 225. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 13, 2003 12:18 PM |
gabb |
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WHAT ABOUT SONNET 800 MHZ PCI G4? I AM CONSIDERING THAT, RIGHT NOW I HAVE NEWER TECH MAXPOWER G4 400 MHZ. I READ SONNET HAS WORKED AROUND SLOWER BUS SPEED ON POWER TOWER PRO ANS OTHER OLDER MACS/ CLONES. THE PRICE IS GREAT AS WELL, WHAT DO U PPL THINK? GABBY |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 13, 2003 11:36 AM |
marcush |
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I'd definitely be interested in a G4 upgrade with adjustable bus speed and cache ratios. I told myself that the Sonnet G4 800 would be the last processor upgrade for my Power Tower Pro but if Powerlogix has an offering I'll definitely consider it. |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 11, 2003 7:56 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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Oh yeah... They should be pretty damn fast... especially if running code small enough to fit into the cache.... in that case they will be the fastest upgrade to date for these systems (not accounting for Altivec of course). Of course for moving data across the PCI bus, it won't do that very much faster then your 500... I want one. Marty PS no delivery time yet... |
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RE: New PowerLogix 800 mhz G3 |
January, 11, 2003 7:53 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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I am also interested in this item... I am wondering if it has switches for bus speed and multiplier in the Powerlogix tradition.... I also noticed that it has only the 512K on chip cache which runs at FULL SPEED (800MHZ)... I see that barefeats.com has a comparison between the 800Mhz ibook and the 867 12"pbook which seems to show the cacheless 12" pbook has poorer cpu performance.... Interesting, for sure. Also OWC sells the 700Mhz G4 sonnet upgrade for $279 which is less then the MSRP of $299 for the PL 800M G3. Personally I much prefer PL over Sonnet. I have also also emailed PL to ask if they have "other" plans for accelerating the PCI powermacs and they said they are still thinking about various approaches. I'm pretty sure the Old World PCI powermacs are the greatest macs ever from a third parties point of view... They were damned expensive when new, and they continue to show there massive upgradeability... |