Sonnet sent a note from Germany last night letting us know
that they have come out with a faster Crescendo G3/L2 card
for certain "Upgrade Challenged" Macs. These are
the clever cards that fit into the L2 cache slots of some
machines that have their processors soldered to the logic
board. The new card runs at 400Mhz and has 1MB of backside
cache running at 200Mhz. The card will run at 400Mhz only
on the specified machines that have a 50Mhz bus. These include:
Power Macintosh 5500, 6500
20th Anniversary Macintosh
Motorola StarMax 5000, 5500
The Sonnet cards are a snap to to install and come with a
simple 'no fuss' extension that enables the upgrade. When
the Crescendo G3/L2 is installed the machine initially boots
off the original processor, when it hits the Crescendo extension
the upgrade card is enabled, a G3 environment created and
the Crescendo G3/L2 usurps control of the machine. The boot
process continues to proceed seamlessly, now on the Sonnet
upgrade.
Sonnet also manufactures three other versions of the card
that operate in both machines with 40Mhz buses and 50Mhz buses,
Crescendo G3/L2 250 MHz-512K cache
Crescendo G3/L2 300 MHz-512K cache
Crescendo G3/L2 300 MHz-1MB cache
which we
reviewed earlier. We experienced some glitches with the
earlier cards during the boot process. Sonnet has since updated
their Crescendo extension which has apparently cleared up
this boot problem for some people, though for us the problem
still persists.
Performance-wise the Crescendo G3/L2 400Mhz benchmarks as
high as Apple's high-end Blue and White G3/400 machine, in
MacBench processor score. However real world performance may
be slightly less depending on what is being done, given the
Blue and White's faster (100Mhz) bus speed. Also drive and
graphics performance will be much better on the Blue and White
unless you upgrade those aspect of your machine as well.
A new G3/400 machine will cost you around $3,000.
The Sonnet Crescendo G3/L2 400 has a suggested retail price
of around $1,000, which will get you G3/400 Blue and White
'like' performance. If you are in the market for one of these
cards we recommend that your purchase it from a reputable
retailer that offers a generous return policy, should you
experience any problems or compatibility issues (this should
be standard operating procedure whenever and wherever you
buy something for use with your computer). Rumor has it that
MacCPU has some of these just released cards in stock so you
might want to knock on their door and ask (if it doesn't appear
in their product listing email them about it - I hear that
rumors are found on the back shelf).
Below you will find MacBench 4.0 Processor results for the
Crescendo G3/L2 cards compared to some of the base machines
they are designed to be installed into. The benchmark results
for the cards were supplied by Sonnet. Hopefully they will
send us a 400Mhz unit soon and we will do a proper review
of the card.
Question: To upgrade or to upgrade? That is the question!
What do you think is it better to update your current machine
with a $1,000 upgrade card or to shell out $3,000 for a whole
new machine? What makes more sense? Let
us know what you would do! Do you have a Sonnet card?
How do you like it?
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