Best 604e - 604ev cards, upgrades?

[CJ_Miller]

I am still looking for the 300 MHz card from my 8600, which I packed away somewhere ages ago. I figure that especially with all of the G3 upgraded PowerMacs out there, there would be quite a lot of these 604s available. But the reality is that I hardly ever find any. I think the fastest I have heard of was about 333-350 MHz? Also I know that there were dual cards, but they seem to be more scarce. Were there 604e/ev upgrade cards also? There must have been a year or so before everybody jumped onto the G3 wagon.

So which are the best 604s? And where are they all, anyway?

 

[Bunsen]

I've heard rumours of a 400MHz card. I have a dual 200MHz from Newer, which I haven't installed in anything yet. Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

 

[johnklos]

Hi,

The 400 MHz cards were never sold to the public, but I did see some when I worked in a university back in the day. They were in 8600s that came directly from Apple right before the beige PowerMac G3s came out.

If you need a CPU card, I have a few extra 604ev cards. I might even have a 350 MHz. PM me if you're interested.

To answer your question, the 350 MHz or the 400 MHz have to be the best 604 cards. They have 1 meg of 100 MHz L2 cache, and since the 604ev required a different ROM, nobody made accelerators with them. The G3s are slower when you measure instructions per clock, especially at floating point, but the much faster L2 cache usually makes them faster all around, plus they're available at higher clock speeds. Remember the Pentium on a snail commercials?

The G4s are closer to the 604s when it comes to both integer (instructions per clock) and floating point performance. Since a 1 GHz Sonnet Crescendo G4 can be bought for $100 USD, that would obviously give you the most bang for the buck for any 8600 or 9600. I have one in my colocated 9600 server and it's wonderful. It's fast and it's as stable as everything else in that system, which is to say it is perfectly stable.

The 350 MHz cards are often easily overclocked to 400 MHz.

John

 

[beachycove]

Note that you cannot put a 604ev (250-350MHz) in a plain-Jane 8600. There are two 8600 logic boards, the original and the "Kansas." If the badge on the front of your machine reads 8600/200, the fastest card that will work is probably a 233MHz 604e. If it is an 8600/300, you can put a 350MHz 604ev card in it (originally a 9600/350) — and they can generally be overclocked successfully, one advantage of the 604ev being that it does not get nearly as hot as the 604 or 604e.

I have a couple of dual 604e machines, as well as 604 and 604ev models. A 604 or a 604e can be put in most any machine. A dual 604e without cooling gets too hot to handle, and really can burn your fingers, so it can really only go in machines with a fan, like the 9500, the 8600 and the 9600. A 300MHz 604e without cooling just gets pleasantly warm. I have run my 8600/300 for years with no side fan in order to cut down on the noise. Overclocked might be a different story.

 

[trag]

To elaborate a bit on what Beachycove wrote:

Apple sold two machines called the 8600. There was the original 8600 and the 8600 Enhanced. The latter supported the 604ev cards and has the "Kansas" motherboard.

If you're not sure which you have there are two definitive ways to tell. The easiest is to go to Apple System Profiler and check your ROM Revision under Production Information. If the ROM Revision is $77D.34F5 then you have the Kansas logic board. If it is $77D.34F1 (or is that F2?) then you have the earlier unenhanced 8600.

On the logic board itself, if one locates the ROM chips (I believe they're on the bottom of the board on the 8600), which are four chips approximately 1.1" long and .5" wide, look at the Apple part numbers on the chips. If they are 341S0280 through 341S0283 then the logic board is the original 8600. If they are 341S0380 through 341S0383 then the logic board is the 8600 Enhanced Kansas logic board. The '341' bit may be wrong. I'm working from memory here.

On the 9600 the ROMs are on the top of the board, otherwise all of the above information applies for distinguishing the original 9600 from the 9600 Enhanced.

Also, on the 9600 Enhanced, the four square cache chips will be missing towards teh front of the machine from teh PCI slots on the logic board. The pads are there for the chips, but they are not installed because the 604ev cards have the cache on board.

If you look in Apple System Profiler and see $77D.28F2, then your machine has an 8500 or 9500 board installed (unlikely for the original poster, but including for completeness). The ROMs from the 8500/9500 are marked 341S0168 through 341S0171. The 7500 and 7600 also have these ROMs. The 7300 has the $77D.34F1/341S0280 - 341S0283 ROMs.

 

[CJ_Miller]

Thanks all for filling in some of the missing details! I guess people didn't run with these chips for long. Looks like I have a Kansas ROM - $77D.34F5. I always thought that Kansas was the 9600 board, looks like this is just the shorter version. It was a 300 MHz when I inherited it and I swapped it out for the Sonnet G3 500 MHz from my dead 8500. But I could barely tell the difference for most things.

Yes Trag, I am aware that a G4 would be much faster, but since I have "real" G4 systems I thought I would try to learn more about what was out there for native processors. Also I cannot really afford to buy upgrades for this machine now, and guessed that the older CPUs would be available for cheap or free. I wonder if the IBM RS6000 cards would work, but probably not.

 

[trag]

That was John K. who brought up the G4, not me.

 

[beachycove]

This thread over on 'Fritter might suggest that a 604e ZIF at 300+ MHz might work in a ZIF carrier card from Sonnet or the like.

Is the backside cache associated with a ZIF carrier card on the card or on the ZIF processor itself?

 

[johnklos]

A 604ev installed into a ZIF carrier would work, but only in a system with a Kansas ROM (meaning you'd be replacing one 604ev with another).

The backside cache is on the Apple 604ev card (1 meg of L2 at 100 MHz). While G3 and G4 ZIF cards almost always have L2 cache, the 604ev ZIF doesn't. You get the dual 32k L1 data and instruction caches, and that's all.

 

[avw]

johnklos where is the Sonnet Crescendo G4 1GHz availaible? I thought about ordering one, but they are sold out as far as I know, …

sorry for being off topic

 

[johnklos]

It's hardly off topic - after all, this site is all about making the most of our older machines.

I don't see any places which still carry the 1 GHz Crescendo G4. I'm glad I got mine while it was available. At $100, I would've thought it'd have been pretty popular and therefore more common, but perhaps Sonnet only made a certain number of them and that was that.

If I were you, I'd contact them directly and ask nicely. You never know...

 

[avw]

As far as I know, there are just around 150 units 1 GHZ cards. I read something about Sonnet got no 800 MHz G4 processors anymore, and Freescale offered therefore some 1 GHz models for the same price. Than Sonnet equipped their last Crescendo 800MHz batch with 1 GHz prozessors. I am very sad that I didn´t take one 2 years ago for $99. But otherwise I got the 800MHz (back in 2004 for $350, ...) so there is not much loss, It´s just that my 9600 for daily usage should break that GHz - border

So I thought you maybe have a source for some of the last 1 GHz, but ok, it seems I have to wait for a 2nd hand one (Sonnet told me last year there are none left).

 

[Bunsen]

On the other hand, if you can find a ZIF Carrier Card, you can put whatever G3 or G4 you have handy on it and then wait for a faster one to show up.

 

[beachycove]

That Applefritter thread speaks about a 604e ZIF, not a 604ev. You are saying that all the 604-based ZIF processors were 604ev?

 

[johnklos]

As far as I know, yes, but it's possible that ZIF-capable motherboards might've been around long enough that they overlapped with non-ev 604s. Then again, the 604ev was lower power and therefore better suited to the ZIF socket...

Does anyone know enough about the IBM RS/6000 line to know for certain whether there were pre-604ev ZIFs?