For funsies I looked up chips for sale and some 970MPs turned up. Out of curiosity I did a cursory search for a mod for the iMac G5 to upgrade the CPU but haven't turned up much. I know the G5 wasn't a hot target for mods owing to the fact that it was already a fairly high-strung, fragile, and ultimately short-lived platform, but I figure someone has to have looked into a few swaps.
I figure a Q&D swap of a fast 970fx into one of the lesser iMacs would be pretty straight-forward, but what I'd like to see is a 970MP swap. On the surface they're drop-in compatible with the 970fx but I haven't yet dug too deeply. I know heat dissipation will be an issue, and maybe a beefier power supply would be needed (the OE power supplies on half of these failed and need replaced by now anyway), but at a glance it doesn't look like it should be much more involved than, say, a 603 to 740 swap. The limiting factor may be the ASICs (what was the memory controller on these? Kodiak? U5 Lite?) not supporting two CPUs on the bus, or a lack of OpenFirmware support.
Has anyone seen or done anything like this?
I figure a Q&D swap of a fast 970fx into one of the lesser iMacs would be pretty straight-forward, but what I'd like to see is a 970MP swap. On the surface they're drop-in compatible with the 970fx but I haven't yet dug too deeply. I know heat dissipation will be an issue, and maybe a beefier power supply would be needed (the OE power supplies on half of these failed and need replaced by now anyway), but at a glance it doesn't look like it should be much more involved than, say, a 603 to 740 swap. The limiting factor may be the ASICs (what was the memory controller on these? Kodiak? U5 Lite?) not supporting two CPUs on the bus, or a lack of OpenFirmware support.
Has anyone seen or done anything like this?
