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| Moderated by: Gary |
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daystar
Administrator
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Posted: Mon Mar 20th, 2006 11:06 am |
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This is a non-posting area. If you have any comments, please post in the support or general dicussion forum
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daystar
Administrator
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Posted: Mon Mar 20th, 2006 11:16 am |
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Q: What is the Freescale 7448 CPU?
A: The 7448 is the latest 360 Pin version of the 32 bit based PowerPC CPU from Freescale (formerly Motorola). It differs from the 7447 (A/B) CPU used in the faster PowerBook G4 Aluminum systems primarily by adding improved support for DFS (Dynamic Frequency Switching, Power Management, and an internal 1 MB L2 cache).
It is limited on the Mac in performance and scalability by is small allowance for voltage variation, modified pinout (fromt the 7447), increased cost and lack of support by Apple.
For comparison see: http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/app_note/AN2656.pdf
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daystar
Administrator
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Posted: Mon Mar 20th, 2006 11:22 am |
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Q: What are the issues / trade-offs when using the 7448 as a Mac CPU upgrade?
The 7448 from a "user's" point of view is not a slam-dunk choice over the 7447. There are a lot of trade-offs just to get 512MB more cache (the primary benefit between the 7447A and the 7448).
As current 7448 Mac users can attest, the chip is not supported by Apple's hardware, firmware or the operating system - there are hoops for users to jump through.
This basically means, that user's cannot update from OS to OS without first getting patches from the upgrade manufacturer, each and every time. It also means that you can NEVER boot from a third party CD/DVD in OSX... like Norton, DiskWarrior, and others since they also do not support the 7448.
Currently just installing or re-installing the Mac OS on a 7448 upgraded machine (with modified CPU & hardware/firmware), means doing the install on an external Firewire drive, then patching the install, then booting the drive on the 7448 based system and using Carbon Copy Cloner to move the patched OS to the 7448 upgraded system.
You can't run Apple's Disk Repair, becuase it requires that you boot to the OS CD/DVD.
And the real downer on the the 7448, is that it is nearly twice as expensive, and is limited in MHz to about 80% the speed of the 7447A/B.
Don't trust some of the promises made by PR-ware companies. Daystar's done, it (the 7448). We've shipped it. We actually know the possibilities and limitations.
Checkout Rob-ART's article at hhttp://barefeats.com/pbcd.html comparing the 2.0 GHz 7447 against the Intel stuff. It is a valuable upgrade with NO trade-offs.
That said, Daystar will be shipping the 7448 in mass, starting in May (once "user-friendly" software patches are complete).
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