Can a Blue & White with a G4 ZIF upgrade and a Voodoo3 card run with the "G4 Big Dogs"?
7/4/2000
"BARE facts on Mac speed FEATS"
© 1999 Rob-ART, Main Mad Scientist (aka Dr. Frankenstein)
Here's my hypothesis: If you already have a Blue and White G3 of any speed, you should be able to match performance with the newest G4 Sawtooth without spending an arm and a leg or without junking your old machine for a new one. Let's see if my hypothesis is correct.
Are you wondering if it makes any difference which ZIF upgrade you choose. In the graphs above and below, I highlight in RED the ZIF upgrade that's the fastest.
Conclusion: I think the hypothesis is CORRECT. Your Blue & White CAN run with the G4 BIG DOGS.
Of the three G4 ZIF upgrades tested, the G4/400 Newer Technology ZIF was the fastest. It was as fast as the overclocked PowerLogix G4 (running at 450MHz).
When it comes to games like Quake 3 Arena, the G3 ZIF upgrades proved to be just as fast as the G4's. If you're not into Photoshop, SoundJam and other "G4 Aware" software, you might consider a fast G3 ZIF upgrade over the more expensive G4 ZIF's.
Notice also that the AGP version of the Voodoo3 added very little advantage to the Sawtooth over the PCI verson on the others.
UPDATE: You can now get a G4/1000 ZIF upgrade for your Blue'n'White or Yikes. And, since the Voodoo3 is no longer available or supported, we recommend the Radeon 9200 PCI video card as the best GPU upgrade.
Related Articles:
We tested the Radeon 9200 on a Blue'n'White with the Sonnet G4/1000MHz ZIF upgrade.ÊWe compared it to the Radeon 7000, original Radeon, and Rage 128.
Where to Buy:
Other World Computing sells G4/1000MHz ZIF upgrades.
If you are a 3D accelerated gamer, you're going to want a faster PCI video card for your Yikes or Blue'n'White. Your best current option is the Radeon 9200 from Other World Computing. Check also the 4 star sources on Froogle.com or see used PCI video cards listed on eBay. If can find the original Radeon PCI card, we found it is just as fast as the Radeon 9200.
The 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI card used to be the hot setup but they are as scarce has hens' teeth and no longer suppored.
Test Configurations & Procedures
SYSTEMS USED IN TESTING
G3/300 Yosemite Yikes!
Sawtooth
CPU's
G3/300, G3/450, G4/400, G4/450 G4/400
G4/400
Bus Speed
100MHz 100MHz
100MHz
RAM
512 MB 512 MB
512MB
Graphics
66MHz PCI slot with either the ATI RAGE 128 or the 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI 66MHz PCI slot with either the ATI RAGE 128 or the 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 PCI
133MHz AGP 2X slot with either the RAGE 128 Pro or the 3Dfx Voodoo3 3000 AGP
G4 ZIF's TESTED
Newer Technology's MaxPower G4/400 ZIF
Sonnet Technology's Encore G4/400 ZIF
PowerLogix's PowerForce G4/400 ZIF (with dial to allow overclocking)
G4 ZIF's NOT INCLUDED IN THIS TEST
XLR8's G4/400 ZIF - good product that allows overclocking like the PowerLogix
G3 ZIF's TESTED
PowerLogix's PowerForce G3/400 ZIF (with dial to allow overclocking)
SOFTWARE USED IN TESTING
Photoshop 5.5 was given 300MB of app size on each machine. The test file was 27MB. AltiVecCore was enabled on all three test machines. The graph shows the total of 3 functions:
Rotate (30 degrees)
Gaussian Blur (30 pixels)
LightingEffects (Flashlight - default settings)Quake 3 Arena (DEMO) was used for the 3D Game test. Settings were "demo defaults" except for the screen resolution which was set to 1024 x 768. HOW TO RUN THE TEST: When the main screen appears, I press "~" and enter "timedemo 1" (return) and "~" once more. Then I click on DEMOS and run Demo1. Once it finishes and returns to the main screen, I press "~" once more to get the frames per second readout.