Dual 604ev @ 300MHz?

[beachycove]

This is sort of interesting....

The write-up gets the nomenclature wrong, as there never was a 604e that ran at 300Mhz; that distinction belongs to the 604ev, which is a different chip with a much better 1 MB cache. It is what runs in the final versions of the 8600 and 9600, from 250-350MHz.

Were there, however, really clones that could run a dual processor 604ev? I lived in Europe right through the 90s, and followed the Mac world avidly then as now, but have never heard of these seemingly German machines. I now want one.

 

[Dog Cow]

I was reading some interesting Usenet posts the other day about the maximum clock speeds of a 604 being restricted to 3 times the bus speed.

 

[trag]

I was reading some interesting Usenet posts the other day about the maximum clock speeds of a 604 being restricted to 3 times the bus speed.

That can't be right, unless they meant the PPC604 as opposed to the PPC604e. There were zillions of 200MHz PPC604e machines shipped with a 50MHz bus speed. So clearly 4X clock multiplier was available. IIRC, 3.5X was available as well.

I looked at the link to the PIOS. I think that the 604ev at 300 MHz statement and the dual processor statement are independent of each other. In other words, the PIOS comes with a single 604ev (interesting in itself; I thought only Apple shipped those) but the base machine has the ability to use dual processors. This is emphasized on the Umax S900 clones (clone of a clone) because the motherboard has two CPU slots. They're not actually any more capable of dual processors than any other X500 (PowerSurge) based machine. It's just more obvious.

 

[Dog Cow]

I was reading some interesting Usenet posts the other day about the maximum clock speeds of a 604 being restricted to 3 times the bus speed.

That can't be right, unless they meant the PPC604 as opposed to the PPC604e

They were talking about the 9500, so I suppose it was the 604 and not 604e.

 

[beachycove]

I looked at the link to the PIOS. I think that the 604ev at 300 MHz statement and the dual processor statement are independent of each other. In other words, the PIOS comes with a single 604ev (interesting in itself; I thought only Apple shipped those) but the base machine has the ability to use dual processors. This is emphasized on the Umax S900 clones (clone of a clone) because the motherboard has two CPU slots. They're not actually any more capable of dual processors than any other X500 (PowerSurge) based machine. It's just more obvious.

Yes, and if the Umax secondary processors are scarce as hens' teeth (which they are), the secondary processor in the Pios would be even scarcer (& needing connection with a similarly unfindable ribbon?). Most likely very few machines shipped at all, and fewer still with two 604ev cards in them.

On the other hand, the machine in question seems to me to be buckets more capable than the Umax clones, because presumably those can't accept a 604ev processor, in the same way that a 7500, say, cannot. There's a significant difference between the 604e and the 604ev, involving more than just 100 MHz. The whole chip was re-engineered.

Still, it's nice to dream of a Pios dual 604ev @ 300MHz out there waiting to be "liberated." Wait for me, baby, wait for me....

Apologies for the double post earlier, by the way.

 

[trag]

Yes, and if the Umax secondary processors are scarce as hens' teeth (which they are), the secondary processor in the Pios would be even scarcer (& needing connection with a similarly unfindable ribbon?). Most likely very few machines shipped at all, and fewer still with two 604ev cards in them.
On the other hand, the machine in question seems to me to be buckets more capable than the Umax clones, because presumably those can't accept a 604ev processor, in the same way that a 7500, say, cannot. There's a significant difference between the 604e and the 604ev, involving more than just 100 MHz. The whole chip was re-engineered.

The cable connecting the two processor cards in the S900 was just a (?)14 pin ribbon cable. Easy enough to make your own even, if you have the crimp-on ends and the bulk cable. All readily available at Mouser and Digi-Key and their ilk. The scarce thing is processor cards wired for the ribbon cable, and secondary processor cards built in a mirror image of the primaries.

Still, I'm not convinced that that description guarantees that there was ever a secondary processor card built with a 604ev.

The differences in the 604ev processor card and regular processor cards are very minor. I consider it much more likely that PIOS built a modified 604EV card which will work in the standard PowerSurge (X500 & clones) slot than it is that Umax spun the S900 board for them. As far as I can tell, the only difference in the 604ev cards/slots and the older cards/slot are some minor power supply pin differences.