Well after what must be the
longest wait for an upgrade card on any computer, Newer
Technology finally delivers the goods! Our user group is lucky enough
to have a first hand opportunity to test the upgrade card. Let's get to
the details.By Ashish Mishra
Well after what must be the
longest wait for an upgrade card on any computer, Newer
Technology finally delivers the goods! Our user group is lucky enough
to have a first hand opportunity to test the upgrade card. Let's get to
the details.
Note: This is not a full review of the G3 card. The impact of this card
can only be ascertained over a few weeks of testing - so please check back
for further information as time progresses.
The CardNewer will be shipping the final product August 15th. It's important to note that the card we received is a beta (hopefully with no problems!). The configuration of the card is final: it is a PowerPC G3 running at the 240 Mhz, with a 512 kb L2 Cache running at 120 Mhz. (This is a 2:1 ratio).
Installation
Newer 2400 has taken an interesting route with the very difficult to take-apart 2400.
Unlike the remainder of Newer's upgrade cards, of which the user can perform an installation themselves, the 2400 is really a tough machine to take apart (at least for most users).
Newer does not provide a installation manual for the 2400. However, they do include a waiver that you can sign and return asking for the 2400 installation manual. The waiver, of course, pretty much says you void your warranty. Not something to be taken lightly.
My personal preference would have been for Newer to do the upgrade for us (ie. you ship your PowerBook to them), an option they were considering at one point, but obviously dropped to keep the cost down.
The company also makes it very clear that they will not assist end-users with installation. Absolutely "no-way" is the impression you get from the documentation. So unless you are a "2400 super-genius" as Newer explains on the waiver, don't consider putting yourself in the stressful situation of taking apart the 2400, without any back up plan, or Batman at your side.
Having said (and read) all this, I went ahead and installed the 2400 upgrade card myself! (Let me first say that I have experience taking the 2400 apart, and some of it isn't all good: I broke my 2400 once, so that should be a warning). (Batman by the way, is my cat, and got quickly banished from the room!)
With regards to the Newer installation manual, it is complete with pictures, however not always as clear as could be. This again, can be very stressful. For the most part, it is an excellent manual. (But don't take this as encouragement).
The installation took over 45 minutes, a 15 minute break in between, and three chocolate bars. I recorded the install on video-tape (45 minutes) - of which I'm struggling to find away to put into a QuickTime video. (Boy is it huge!)
It went without a hitch, ... well for the most part:
I went to turn on the machine immediately after putting it back together, and the dreaded yellow sleep light came on, and wouldn't go off. (This if anyone remembers, is the symptom I experienced the first time my machine died, and had to be sent away to the great Apple Gods in Texas).
Fortunately, this time around, it was just a matter of plugging in the AC power, and toggling the power switch in the back of the 2400, and up it came!
Pictures:
All pictures on this page by Ashish Mishra. You have permission to use them freely, as long as you credit the source as Mac2400.
SpeedThe NUpowr upgrade card is fast, make no question of that. Compilations of CodeWarrior and NewtonScript code took 1/3 the time on a standard machine. Photoshop "sharpen" on a 1600 x 1400 image took 1/2 the speed. Indeed, the G3 processor does live up to it's marketting hype.
The speed isn't however, always apparent. Although the computer is more responsive, the speed increase isn't noticeable unless you're doing something very CPU intensive, like calculating the American debt :) What we mean is that the 2400 is already a pretty fast machine, so it's hard to notice the difference between 1/3 second and 1/2 a second (say in making an alias of a file). Remember, the bottleneck in most computer operations is not the CPU - it's the hard drive, bus speed, (and mostly the user!)
Anyway, without further adieu, here are the benchmarks:
(The reference machine is a PowerBook 2400 of a standard US configuration 180 Mhz, 80 MB of RAM, a IBM Travelstar 3.1 GB drive, and OS 8.1)
Legend: RD: Ram Doubler, FM: File Mapping, Lib or Libmoto: the Motorola math library extension
Screenshots
Ah, the big surprise. OS 8.5 has several performance improvements, but who would have guessed an FPU score of 3 times faster without Libmoto?
Screenshot
The 2400 G3 running OS 8.5a9. Surprisingly this alpha of 8.5 actually runs slightly slower than 8.1 according to benchmark scores.
Battery LifeAfter several weeks of testing, I have to conclude that battery life is affected, but by how much varies. If you are running the 2400 with the G3 Cache set at the default 120 MHz, my tests show about a 33% decrease in life, and the machine definitely gets hotter as well. If you run the 2400 with the cache disabled entirely, battery life seems to be as long as usual.
Software compatibilityI have absolutely no problems running software on the 2400. The change feels entirely transparent, and if it wasn't for the Newer G3 startup screen, I'd probably forget I have the new card in my machine! It's as simple as that.
StabilityGenerally I have had no problems. I do have to report one occurence:
I use my PowerBook for about 8 hours straight in an air-conditioned office. One afternoon, after about 7 hours, running the G3 cahce at 120 Mhz, and while running Virtual PC running a processor and hard drive intensive program (ie. a game), my PowerBook shut itself off. (It was plugged in). Judging from how hot the machine became (I could barely hold it), I have to conclude that the 2400 shut itself down because of overheating. Very disconcerting. I have not been able to repeat this, so I cannot concretely conclude that this problem is due to the G3 card. I can however, tell you that I've never ever had this problem before.
Ralph Mawyer came up with a possible reason: is it a cumulative effect of heat? ie. the processor running intensely, the hard drive running intensely, the battery charging , and an ethernet card running?
My preventive medicine has been to disable the G3 cache entirely, because it results in a much better battery life, and the machine doesn't seem to get any warmer than usual, even when running the same game under VPC.
AdditionalYour experiences with the 2400 may vary, as noted below:
Ed Noonan has been testing the 2400 G3 card for several months now had this to say about the card:
"According to Jeremy's Temp CSM, my highest temperature ever was 165°F. It was 95°+ that day (with no air conditioning) and I failed to remove the2400c from its Wetsuit. My PB 2400c has never overheated and shut down. In fact, it seems to run cooler with the G3 and 4MB hard drive upgrades. Right now it is at only 91°. At one point, my NUpowr G3 PowerBook 2400c was on continuously for about 4.5 hours in a hot room (my 8600/300, two printers, a scanner, and assorted peripherals sure heat up my study) and it was only at 138° F per Jeremy's Temperature CSM. That's great as far as I'm concerned--cooler than when it was powered by a 603e chip. After only 30 minutes, my PB2400c/180 heated up to 149° F. The 2400c/180 maxed out at 160° F. Prior to the day when I abused my 2400c by not pulling it from the Wetsuit, my maximum temperature was 141° F."
"I just read "NUpowr G3 2400: First Look" and have to say that I have not experienced any reduction in the battery life of my 2400c due to the NUpowr G3 upgrade. I have used my NUpowr G3 2400c continuously for almost 3 hours under battery power. I wish I knew somebody with a 2400c/180 (and the same hard drive/RAM configuration as me) to compare some of these times with, but that time sure seems comparable to my pre-upgrade battery life. I have written a review of the NUpowr G3 2400c for a national magazine (which shall remain unnamed until it prints), in which I didn't knock the 2400c at all. By pushing my cache to 160, I got higher MacBench 4.0 scores than you guys did: a processor score as high as 790 and I experienced no problems." [thanks to Terry for passing on the messages]
So results among the testers seem to vary. (I've only had the card for a few weeks) One possibility is a hardware change in the cards, another obvious difference is how we use our machines.
Naritomo, my counterpart in Japan has remarks very similar to my own. As always, these are just opinions.
Mac 2400's buying adviceIf you need speed, there is no question, you need the G3 upgrade card. At a suggested retail of $899 USD, it's not exactly the best price-point, especially when a brand new G3 Powerbook can be had for $2200. Then again, compared to spending another $2200, nine hundred is definitely cheaper :)
It probably won't run Mac OS X in the future (but that is vaporware at this point anyway). It does extend your 2400's lifespan for several more years, and with OS 8.5, you'll have a machine that is really fast.
It it quite a thrill to have the smallest Macintosh perform as well as it's bigger siblings.
It's a little early to rate this board, as I need a few weeks to fully test it, but I will give it a temporary score of:
8.5 comets out of 10.
Pros:
Cons:
More informationOn our sister site, Extremely Private PowerBook 2400c:
Naritomo's impressions of the G3 card
More benchmark scores on a Japan Localized PB2400 G3
The G3 software extension and control panel
