Quad G3 processors

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I never though/knew that G3 processors could be used as multiprocessors in a system. www.totalmpact.com They also have quad 500Mhz G4. I sure would love to get one of those.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Altivec_2.0

    I never though/knew that G3 processors could be used as multiprocessors in a system. www.totalmpact.com They also have quad 500Mhz G4. I sure would love to get one of those.



    That should be:



    http://www.totalimpact.com



    The link to the actual product is:



    http://www.totalimpact.com/products/...tal_mpower.htm



    And yes, that is pretty cool.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    Ok, so this would allow you add additional processors through your existing PCI slots, correct? How fast can that be when your PCI slots operate at such a lower speed than even the system bus??



    Joe
  • Reply 3 of 6
    Quote:

    Originally posted by joe_it

    Ok, so this would allow you add additional processors through your existing PCI slots, correct? How fast can that be when your PCI slots operate at such a lower speed than even the system bus??



    Joe




    True, but some operations just don't move that much data; it doesn't say whether the processors are sharing a bus on the card, but it does say that its using the Motorola 60x bus (not the fastest bus on the planet)... On the other hand each proc also has 1MB Level 2 cache, which is really rather a lot...



    And the whole set-up would have to be cheaper than having four seperate mobo's, powersupplies etc. Great for parallelisable operations? Remember that a lot of clusters run on 10/100 ethernet connections...



    Oh: and you can stick them into your PowerMac 8600, 9500, or 9600! Cheap at only $3200!



    [edit: adding thoughts]

    [edit: I really wish I would think more before posting]
  • Reply 4 of 6
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    This isn't really a "normal" MP solution. It's more like a cluster in a box and requires custom written code: the CPUs on the PCI cards aren't under control of the OS.



    You can use G3s in a traditional MP configuration but it isn't very efficient, as they have to share a single 60x bus (like the G4, but the G4 has the superior MaxBus) and (IIRC) don't share cache (unlike the G4).
  • Reply 5 of 6
    ryaxnbryaxnb Posts: 583member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Stoo

    This isn't really a "normal" MP solution. It's more like a cluster in a box and requires custom written code: the CPUs on the PCI cards aren't under control of the OS.



    You can use G3s in a traditional MP configuration but it isn't very efficient, as they have to share a single 60x bus (like the G4, but the G4 has the superior MaxBus) and (IIRC) don't share cache (unlike the G4).




    I've heard the G5 has even better MP support than the G4... does anyone know whether it has seperate buses for each processor?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ryaxnb

    I've heard the G5 has even better MP support than the G4... does anyone know whether it has seperate buses for each processor?



    Yes: http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html
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