upgrade a powermac g3 blue and white past 550mhz g4?

millhousemillhouse
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
hello, recently, about two months ago i think it is i acquired a powermac g3 blue and white and have since gone from 350mhz g3 to a g4 450mhz inside it. however with things the way they are not that im whining just worried about the machines longevity im wondering if it is possible to upgrade it past a 550g4 processor, i know xlr8 went down and made dual 500mhz's and even if i can track one down on the net they are about 1000 bucks (about the same as a sonnet dual 1ghz for agp g4's) i saw someone on this forum in some post i belive say they heard that companies might make faster zif procs and i guess im just curious if this is true since i wanna be able to use this machine as long as i can and being 16 without a job doesnt make it easy to buy new equipment. if anyone can help please post a reply with anything known.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    multimediamultimedia Posts: 1,035member
    It is "known" that faster B/W G4 upgrades will be announced at San Francisco MacWorld Expo 2003 and shipped shortly thereafter. Keep your b/w. I have one running G3 @ 500 MHz that says it's 450. It's the last tower with an ADB port. The Blue & Whites will rise again. I'm hoping we get a dual GHz upgrade for $999. But that's just a wish. The source of these upgrades is also not known yet. But a good guess would be PowerLogix. They seem to be going after all the late G3 and early G4 Macs. They just filled the need for Cube upgrades including a dual 800 Mhz upgrade for only $759.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    cool cant wait, and of course there is no way id ever ever get rid of this thing, i just will hate the day when its not usable as my main machine anymore, but ill just keep my fingers crossed for mac world SF 2003
  • Reply 3 of 16
    stagflation stevestagflation steve Posts: 294member
    The MPC106 chipset used in the Blue and Beige G3's is incompatable with the contemporary 745x G4's,



    Faster G3 upgrades are comming, but I am afraid faster G4's are probably out of the question
  • Reply 4 of 16
    jdbonjdbon Posts: 109member
    Faster G3s would be great. I just hope that they don't overcharge. It would be nice to get an 800mhz G3 zif under $200 dollars.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    aw man no faster g4's, that makes me mucho sad, heck i woulda loved a 667 or 733 g4 in this thing, and since i dont have 1 grand for a dual 500mhz upgrade i was prayin for faster g4's but oh well, the thing i dont get is this, how powermac 7200's and such can get 800mhz g4 upgrade cards but not my blue and white! its an outrage!
  • Reply 6 of 16
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    If they could incorporate the new PowerPC 750fx (the G3 in the iBook), it would be the next best thing to a G4. One of my friends has a 700 MHz one and he says it's much faster than his previous computer, a 533 MHz G4 tower, for everything except AltiVec work. The main problem with the lack of G4 upgrades for blue G3s is that generally you want either a G4 or QE. My brother's G3/400 is much choppier on the graphics in OS X than my mom's G3 upgraded to G4/400. Having QE and a G4 helps more, but it's somewhat redundant as far as I know, because AltiVec and the graphics card are both handling things. So if you get a fast G3, you want to get a Radeon PCI and do the QE hack to smooth things out. Then it'll be as good as new!
  • Reply 7 of 16
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    well it seems newertech who used to make upgrade cards has come back, i emailed em about future upgrades for blue and white g3's but they wouldnt tell me anything, said they couldnt, but maybe they will deliver!
  • Reply 8 of 16
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    I'd buy one for my Smurf.
  • Reply 9 of 16
    multimediamultimedia Posts: 1,035member
    [quote]Originally posted by Stagflation Steve:

    <strong>The MPC106 chipset used in the Blue and Beige G3's is incompatable with the contemporary 745x G4's,



    Faster G3 upgrades are comming, but I am afraid faster G4's are probably out of the question</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Not true. Faster G4 upgrades will be announced at MacWorld Expo San Francisco 2003 January. Stagflation is mistaken.



    [ 11-01-2002: Message edited by: Multimedia ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 16
    stagflation stevestagflation steve Posts: 294member
    Not unless one of the upgrade vendors has developed a bridge ASIC and I don't think any of the upgrade vendors has the engineering resources nor access to the IP to develop one.



    The 7450 class G4 is incompatable with the MPC106,
  • Reply 11 of 16
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    im a bit confused, one guy says faster g4's are comin the other denies it, guess only time will tell, for the one who says they are coming do you have any idea what the speeds/prices would be on them?
  • Reply 12 of 16
    multimediamultimedia Posts: 1,035member
    [quote]Originally posted by millhouse:

    <strong>im a bit confused, one guy says faster g4's are comin the other denies it, guess only time will tell, for the one who says they are coming do you have any idea what the speeds/prices would be on them?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    They have the resources and are doing it. No I don't know what speeds and prices. Jan MacWorld Expo SF 2003 will reveal all.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    sweet!!! id better start savin up now , i think ill just ask for cash for xmas this year and hope that 200ish is enough for a decent new g4!!!!
  • Reply 14 of 16
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Can someone like Programmer shed some light on this?
  • Reply 15 of 16
    stagflation stevestagflation steve Posts: 294member
    From MPC7450 Family Developer Guide:



    [quote]The MPC7450 family of PowerPC ISA processors differs greatly from the MPC750 and MPC7400 families of PowerPC ISA processors, the MPC7450 family of PowerPC ISA processors is not compatible with the MPC106 system controller that is popular in many third and fourth generation PowerPC implementations, <hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 16 of 16
    stagflation stevestagflation steve Posts: 294member
    Want More?



    [quote]Note that the MPC7450 differs from the MPC750 in some aspects of little-endian

    operation; in little-endian mode, the MPC7450 is incompatable with the MPC106,<hr></blockquote>
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