Sonnet G4 Zif accelerator

[Dimitris1980]

Hello,

i would like to ask what it needs for the Sonnet G4 accelerator for Power Macintosh G3 Minitower 300 mhz. I see some pictures on the internet and some of them show the card only and others show also the fans. Is all the package necessary for the installation? The minimum OS that supports is 9.2? Is there a big difference at speed ? Does it need drivers? Can you turn off the sonnet drivers in order to run the power mac again with the native speed? I have the Sonnet G3 nubus at 500 mhz installed in my Macintosh Performa 6116 and the the computer is a lot faster and more responsive, the best buy i have ever done for my Macs.

Regards

Dimitris

 

[EvilCapitalist]

The lower speed accelerators (500MHz and under) just use the stock Apple heatsink.  The higher speed accelerators (700MHz up to 1GHz) are the much larger package that includes an additional power cable, a heatsink, and a fan when you get to 1GHz.  Both versions just use the standard Sonnet Crescendo/Encore driver package.  If I'm not mistaken the driver package is required to enable the processor cache and though you can run the machine without it installed you'll get a bunch of random Type 10/11 errors if you do.  Since you're replacing the processor entirely you'll always run at the accelerated speed.  I personally noticed a major difference going from a G3/233MHz to a G4/500MHz, though I didn't notice as much difference going from a G4/500MHz to a G4/1GHz which I'll chalk up to the limitations of bus speed, RAM speed, HD speed, etc.  So far as I know the oldest OS you can run is 9.2, though I've never tried with anything older to see if it would work.

There are a bunch of the lower speed upgrades available right now and there was one higher speed version that just sold recently.  The two auctions linked below are just to give you an idea of the differences between the lower and higher speed versions.

Lower speed (G4/450MHz)

Higher speed (G4/800MHz; already sold)

 

[Brett B.]

I wouldn't pass up a G3 ZIF upgrade either if one comes up for sale.  PowerLogix made some up to 1.1GHz.  G4 CPU upgrades are nice and worth pursuing but there's nothing you'll do on a Beige G3 that you really need it for.  The overclocked 400MHz G3 chip I have in mine, currently running at 433MHz, performs quite well in just about any OS9 application.  It's a dog in OS X but that is to be expected.

 

[Dimitris1980]

Thank you for your answers. They are very helpful.