Upgrading Your PowerPC - Part 1
Powerlogix PowerForce G3 and G4 Upgrades

Reviewed By: Bill Stiteler

Review Date: December 20, 2000

Format: PCI cards

Developer: Powerlogix

Available for: PowerMac 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600, Umax/SuperMac J700, S900, Power Computing PowerBase, PowerWave, PowerTower pro, and Daystar Genesis/Millennium (see Powerlogix.com for complete compatibility chart

Retail Price: PowerForce G3 350 MHz - $199; PowerForce G4 400 MHz - $529

Availability: Out now

I've never been a fan of games with high-end requirements. This is because my machine could never meet them. My first Mac was a Performa I bought at Sears, which I dumped after three years for...this is still hard to say...a Performa 5200. But I sucked it down, bought the games, and learned to accept the lag. It helped that I really liked Myst, because every game I played on my 75 MHz, non-upgradable (NON!) 52' played like it was on Hypercard. This did have it's upside, as I recognized which games had real stories behind them, and which were just substituting polygons for plot. I made it my work to tell others about these great games; games that didn't need a lot of horsepower to give you a great night's entertainment. I considered myself a champion of low-end gaming.

In wrestling, they call what's about to happen a "heel turn."

That's right, low-enders, I'm super kicking you through the plate glass window in my own personal grab for power. Because I have finally picked up G3 and G4 upgrades from Powerlogix. MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Soon you shall all kneel before me! Kneel before Zod!

I'll tell you up front: I don't do graphs. If you want hard stats, I recommend the fantastic-though-abhorrently-named XLR8 Your Mac. I'm not a hard-core gear head--I'm concerned with power I can see.

I tested two cards, the G3 350 and the G4 400. I tested them on a 9600/350, which had plenty of power, but could still be a bit choppy when running things like Unreal Tournament or even The Sims when a lot of characters were on-screen. I was curious to see what the difference would be between my 604e 350 Mhz chip and the G3.

Physical installation of the G3 card was a snap. At half the size of the original board, I had more trouble taking out the 604e chip than putting the new one in. Starting up proved to be another matter. My 9600 froze the first few times I restarted my machine. But after I (finally) got a full load, installed the Powerlogix software, and rebuilt the desktop, the machine became more stable. At first I didn't notice any speed increase from the G3, until I ran The Sims. There was a subtle, but appreciable improvement. Their movement became smoother, stutters between actions became shorter, really, the whole game became more true to life than before. I tried a few more of what, for me, would be processor-intensive applications, and overall, the performance boost was slight. Again, let me remind you that my 9600 was running at 350 MHz already. I soon pulled the G3 out, anxious to try the G4 400.

Oh...my...god.

Bad stuff first: the PowerForce G4 comes with a fan built onto the heat sink. In addition to cheesing off Steve Jobs, it also makes installation a bit trickier, as you have to thread the power cable through the Mac and attach it to the ribbon connecting your internal drives (CD, Zip, Hard disk, etc.). I accidentally gave it a slight tug, causing the whole heat sink to pop off the chip (something PowerLogix warns you against in the manual). After a bit of study, however, I was able to reattach it, and get it running.

I had trouble rebooting my machine, just as I had with the G3 chip. Unlike the G3, however, this didn't go away after the first few tries. After about an hour of rebooting, reading The Boondocks Book, and finally just swearing, I went to my wife's computer and took my own advice. Visiting XLR8 Your Mac's comprehensive database of user reports did the trick. Seems that Powerlogix's PowerForce G4 cards have trouble if you have a controller card (Extra SCSI, USB, etc.) in the lower three PCI slots on 9600s. I moved my USB card up from the sixth slot to the first, and my Mac restarted with no problem. It's still running stable, but if I hadn't gone to XLR8 Your Mac (or if I hadn't had another internet-ready computer handy), I'd have been up the creek. Now where was I? Oh yes:

Oh... my... god.

The G4 400 is such a speed freak I kept expecting Friday and Gannon to show up and bust me. Back when I first got my 9600 I played some old games, thrilling myself stupid by seeing what X-Wing was like at the speed at which it was meant to be played. Now I was doing that with Unreal Tournament. I still hate the damn Office Assistant of Word 98, but now I can get rid of Max as he forms, rather than waiting three seconds. And three seconds with Max is a long time. A few other informal tests: duplicating my Unreal Tournament folder (520 Mb) took about two minutes, and when I deleted it, I didn't get a scroll bar telling me how quickly the job was going. The trash just...emptied. Weird.

If you're a hardcore gear head, you can also modify both the G3 and G4 in a couple of ways. The first is using the Powerlogix control panel, where you can increase (for speed) or decrease (for stability) the backside cache. Second, you can modify the bus and ratio of the card itself using jumper switches and a chart on the manual. I'm telling you this for the same reason that I tell you you're able to play a game over the internet; some of you may care. I saw the amount of power I was already getting, saw the warning that overclocking could damage the chip or cause system instability, and thought, "Man, I could really go for a Klondike bar right now." When gaming requirements begin to exceed the G4's power, you'll probably see a 17-part article from me on overclocking, but not now. I have power (thunderclap). KNEEL BEFORE ZO...(sigh).

A couple of other things: both chips came with a printed manual. However, when I'm installing something that is, in essence, replacing my entire computer, I'd like the manual to match the real world a bit more precisely. The manual had a few unnerving (if not critically important) discrepancies, most notably in it's representations of what the control panel and startup extensions looked like. The "Enable Now" button is actually a radio circle, and the startup extension has been completely redesigned from the picture in the manual. This didn't hamper the operation of the chips, of course, but when you're putting a new processor in, it can be a bit upsetting not to see what the manual tells you to look for.

In closing, these are both great chips. The G3 350 is a relatively inexpensive upgrade, and if you're running a machine other than a former top-of-the-line PowerPC, you'll probably experience more of a boost than I did. The G4 400 is a bit pricier, but blew me away--once I found out what the mystery problem was and could use it reliably. I gave the G3 credit for a trouble-free installation, and the G4's performance made me forget about that trouble it gave me at first. Just keep your old chip handy in case you need it to go online and find out what's wrong.

As for me, I see that scientists are theorizing the feasibility of quantum computers, working at the speed of light.

No doubt the upgrade cards'll be incompatible with 9600s.

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