Power Mac

 | 

Tech Specs

Power Mac G4 FireWire 800 (Early 2003)

LEM Staff - 2003.01.28

Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac G4The January 2003 Power Mac G4 was the first to require OS X, and is the first which cannot natively boot into Mac OS 9. It was also the first with FireWire 800 ports. This Early ’03 model was also the first Power Mac with a Bluetooth socket and support for 802.11g AirPort Extreme. Apple hit the 1 GHz mark in January 2002, 1.25 GHz in August 2002, and 1.42 GHz in January 2003. At the bottom of the new series, Apple ditched the dual processor to keep the price down – the 1.0 GHz single CPU model retailed for just $1,499.

Still, Motorola remained “behind the curve” with G4 processor speeds, which, extrapolated from Moore’s Law, should have increased roughly 25% every six months. Instead, we had a decidedly overhyped 14% jump in CPU clock speed. On the other hand, the price is 18% lower than the MDD model, further improving the value of the Power Mac G4.

Just like the Mid-2002 MDD, the two faster versions have a 167 MHz system bus. All models have two media drives bays (so you can have a SuperDrive and a fast CD burner or a second SuperDrive), four RAM sockets, and three independent drive buses that each support two devices. An Ultra ATA/33 (ATA-4) bus is used for the optical drive(s), Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) connects to the stock hard drive, and there’s also a normally unused Ultra ATA/66 (ATA-5) bus. Only the ATA/100 connector supports drives over 128 GB capacity. There are four 3.5″ hard drive bays inside the G4.

The fastest pair of new G4s have faster video cards, the ATI Radeon 9000. The dual 1.42 GHz model includes 2 MB of level 3 cache per processor, twice as much as the slower models.

Beware Apple’s claim of “four USB ports” – there are two on the computer and two on the keyboard, so once you’ve plugged in the keyboard, you’re down to three available. Make that two after you plug in the mouse. Your best bet here is to add a USB 2.0 PCI card, which also overcomes the speed limitations of this model’s built-in USB 1.1 ports.

Booting Mac OS 9

MacOS0Lives.com has documented a process for downgrading the firmware of this model so it can natively boot Mac OS 9. We’re hoping to find someone who has done the procedure who can distill this long thread into a more easily followed step-by-step process.

Keeping It Cool

Two CPUs can run fairly hot. Use good thermal paste (Arctic MX-4 is one, and you should probably reapply every few years) or a really good thermal pad. Consider replacing some of the fans with ones that move more air (and, in some cases, will also reduce fan noise).

The Power Mac G4 (FW800) uses a copper heatsink, and The House of Moth has tested it against the aluminum heatsink used in the original MDD model. The copper heatsink runs cooler by roughly 5°F (2.7°C). If you need/want a Mac that still natively boots Mac OS 9, this is one more thing to help it keep its cool.

A Better Video Card

For everyday use, the stock video cards are just fine, but if you’re into gaming with this PPC Mac, you will want a better video card than the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, which in some games will drop below 10 FPS. Again, The House of Moth provides an answer. By modifying an ATI Radeon 9650 from a Power Mac G5, performance in the OpenGL benchmark quadrupled compared to the 9000 Pro! This card also has 128 MB or, if you are lucky, 256 MB of video memory, which also helps with gaming performance.

“Games fly, even with all settings maxed out at full resolution. The card does run hot so I keep game settings medium-high until I can whack a fan on it or find another cooling solution.”

But you know gamers: Always looking for improved performance, and there’s really nice card that can go into the Mirror Door Drive that both Mark Sokolovsky and Greg Hrutkay recommend, called the ATI Radeon X850 Pro 256 MB. The card needs to be flashed to an X850XT ROM in order to work, and may or may not require some ROM modification. Mark Sokolovsky currently has one of these in his Power Mac G5.

See article: ATI Radeon X850XT vs Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL – This article shows pictures of the exact card that’s being recommended (X850XT ROM-flashed onto a 256 MB X850 Pro), and how it stacks up against the OEM 6800 Ultra DDL 256 MB upgrade that Apple released for the Power Mac G5. This article covers tech specs of the card, as well as some quicks (and precautions). It is recommended to add additional cooling or an extra fan in an MDD if you plan to use an X850 Pro-flashed X850XT, this card tends to run hot especially in a MDD.

What You Need to Know

  • AGP 8x cards can be used in AGP 4x machines when pins #3 and #11 are taped down.
  • Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) boot times for Power Mac with the GeForce 6200 fall into the 4-5 minute range, and it was initially suggested that you install Leopard with the Mac’s original video card to avoid slowing down the process. “gotoh” has posted the fix in The Mac Elite Forum. The delay is due to Leopard not supporting temperature sensors in G4 Macs. Simply remove AppleHWSensor.kext from /System/Library/Extensions and the delay goes away.

Details

  • Announced January 28th, 2003
  • Apple model number: M8570 (EMC 1914)
  • Model ID: PowerMac3,6
    • M8839LL/A (1 GHz Single Processor, 133 MHz System Bus)
    • M8840LL/A (1.25 GHz DP, 256 MB, Firewire 800)
    • M8841LL/A (1.42 GHz DP, 256 MB, Firewire 800)
  • Discontinued on June 23rd, 2003

How it stacks up in Geekbench vs a Base 2003 Power Mac G5

  • Version 2.4.3: 576 (1.0 SP) / 918 (1.6 G5) / 1047 (1.25) / 1224 (1.42)

Unsupported Mac OS X

  • Although it is not officially supported, the Power Mac G4 MDD can run Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard using a MacRumors community developed build. It is currently still in development based off the Darwin 10.8.0 kernel compiled from source. See LEM Article.
  • There is also a documented thread on downgrading firmware to be able to boot Mac OS 9.

Mac OS X

  • Requires Mac OS X 10.2.3 Jaguar through Mac OS X 10.5.8.

Core System

This Power Mac G4 shipped with PowerPC G4 Motorola 7455 180nm CPUs. System Bus is 133 MHz on 1 Ghz model; 167 MHz on faster models

  • ($1499): 1 Ghz, 1 Processor, 1 Core, 1 Thread, 1 Core Per-CPU
    ~17.5W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 1MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR
    .
  • ($1999): 1.25 Ghz, 2 Processors, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1 Core Per-CPU
    Per-CPU: ~17.5W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 1MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR
    .
  • ($2699): 1.42 Ghz, 2 Processors, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1 Core Per-CPU
    Per-CPU: ~17.5W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 2MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR

Video

DVI and ADC ports on all GPUs, Mac includes DVI-to-VGA adapter.

  • ($1499): GeForce4 MX 440 A5, 64 MB DDR SDRAM @~6.4 GB/s, Celcius, 128-Bit Bus
    • 29 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s,
    • 275 MHz GPU clock, 200 MHz Memory clock (400 Mb/s effective), ~13W TDP
    • 2 Pixel Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, DX7, OpenGL 1.5, Pixel 1.1 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • ($1999 and $2699): ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, 64 MB DDR SDRAM @~8.8 GB/s, Rage 7, 128-Bit Bus
    • 36 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s, RV250
    • 275 MHz GPU clock, 275 MHz Memory clock (550 Mb/s effective), ~28W TDP
    • 4 Pixel Shaders, 4 TMUs, 4 ROPs, 1 Vertex Shader, made by TSMC
    • APIs: DX 8.1, OpenGL 1.4, Pixel 1.4 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • (+$—): GeForce 4 Ti 4600, 128 MB DDR SDRAM @~8.8 GB/s, Kelvin, 128-Bit Bus
    • 63 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s, NV25
    • 300 MHz GPU clock, 324 MHz Memory clock (648 Mb/s effective), ~39W TDP
    • 4 Pixel Shaders, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs, 2 Vertex Shader, made by TSMC
    • APIs: DX 8.1, OpenGL 1.5, Pixel 1.3 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • (+$300): ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, 128 MB DDR SDRAM @~8.8 GB/s, R300, 256-Bit Bus
    • 36 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 8x @ 2.14 GB/s, RV250
    • 325 MHz GPU clock, 310 MHz Memory clock (620 Mb/s effective), 50W TDP
    • 8 Pixel Shaders, 8 TMUs, 8 ROPs, 4 Vertex Shader, made by TSMC
    • APIs: DX 9.0 (9_0), OpenGL 2, Pixel shader 2, Vertex shader 2

Memory

  • Single CPU 1.0: 256 MB – 2 GB 266 MHz PC-2100 DDR SDRAM ~2.13 GB/s
  • Dual 1.25 and 1.42: 256 MB – 2 GB 333 MHz PC-2700 DDR SDRAM ~2.666 GB/s
  • Note: Although the MDD Power Macs support up to 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS 9 is only able to recognize up to 1.5 GB of RAM.

Drives

  • ($1499): 60 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, Combo (CD-RW/DVD) default
  • ($1999): 80 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, Combo (CD-RW/DVD) default
  • ($2699): 120 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, SuperDrive (4x DVD, 2x DVD-R) default
    • All Configurable to: 4x 10K RPM Ultra160 SCSI drives (PCI card req.)
      Can be a combination of ATA and SCSI drives, too, but only space for 4.
      All models can also be configured with an optional internal Zip 250 drive.
    • 1.25 MHz /1.42 GHz Configurable to: SuperDrive (4x DVD, 2x DVD-R)

Expansion/Misc

  • 4x 64-bit PCI slots
  • 56k v.92 Modem (RJ-11 style connector)
  • Microphone: standard 3.5 mm jack
    • Compatible with line-level input
    • Not compatible with Apple’s PlainTalk microphone
  • Apple Pro speaker Minijack (rear)
  • Analog 3.5 mm 16-bit stereo sound jack (rear)
  • Front 3.5mm headphone jack
  • 2x FireWire 400
  • 2x USB 1.1 Ports
  • Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 style connector)
  • Kensington Security Lock
  • Optional: AirPort card
  • PRAM battery: 3.6V half-AA

Physical

  • Size:H/W/D 17 x 8.9 x 18.4 in/43.2 x 22.6 x 46.1 cm
  • Weight: 42 lb./19.1 kg

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Full list of online resources for the Power Mac G4 MDD Early 2003 on a separate page.

Short link: http://goo.gl/GJ6Bcf

searchword: firewire800