vogelei@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Todd Vogelei) (05/19/89)
In the June Macworld is a note about Motorola announcing a 50 Mhz 68030 which is said to be faster than any Risc or Cisc currently available at up to 12 MIPS. The Chip is expected to ship in production quatities in late '89. My question for you tech types out there is what would happen if I were to yank the 16Mhz '30 out of my mac IIx and drop in one of these screamers. Would it make a diff? Would my mac now rnn at 50 Mhz (or whatever the speed was?) Inquiring minds want to know! Todd vogelei@nmtsun Macintosh: Now you're *WORKING* with power!
lauac@mead.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau) (05/19/89)
In article <2648@nmtsun.nmt.edu> vogelei@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Todd Vogelei) writes: > >In the June Macworld is a note about Motorola announcing a 50 Mhz >68030 which is said to be faster than any Risc or Cisc currently >available at up to 12 MIPS. The Chip is expected to ship in >production quatities in late '89. As a side note to this, Motorola also said that the 25 MHz 68040 would actually be faster than a 50 MHz 68030. >My question for you tech types out there is what would happen if >I were to yank the 16Mhz '30 out of my mac IIx and drop in one of these >screamers. Would it make a diff? Would my mac now rnn at 50 Mhz >(or whatever the speed was?) > >Inquiring minds want to know! Well, I'm not really a tech type, but I'm a rumor monger, so here goes: Apple had to completely redesign the logic board in order to take advantage of a 25 or 33 MHz 68030 (coming soon), so don't expect a 50 MHz chip to do you much good. The 68040 is software-compatible, but not pin-compatible with the rest of the 680x0 family. Therefore, Apple will have to redesign the logic board again. Perhaps another 15-18 months. >Todd >vogelei@nmtsun --- Alex UUCP: {att,backbones}!ucbvax!qal.berkeley.edu!lauac INTERNET: lauac%qal.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu FIDONET: Alex.Lau@bmug.fidonet.org (1:161/444)
Michael.Burton@f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Burton) (05/21/89)
The processing speed of your computer is determined by the interactions
of many different components of the machine. The 16MHz speed of your Mac
IIx is determined primarily by the frequency of an oscillator chip that
provides timing signals for the rest of the circuitry on the computer.
The 50MHz CPU that Motorola has announced is CAPABLE of operating at
oscillator frequencies UP TO 50MHz. If you simply plug one of those chips
into your IIx, you will probably get NO speed improvement at all.
Nor can you speed up your machine simply by plugging in a faster
oscillator, because other electronic components of the computer are
designed to work only with certain frequencies, or can work only at speeds
UP TO certain frequencies. You've probably seen companies advertising
accellerator boards for the Mac II, promising to speed the computer up to
33MHz. Those accellerators occupy rather large circuit boards, and cost
thousands of dollars, primarily because there are so many
interdependencies in that type of circuitry that it's almost necessary to
duplicate the entire Mac IIx motherboard on the accellerator card.
It would certainly be nice if we could speed our computers up by simply
replacing one chip. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Sorry.
--
Michael Burton via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH
UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200!Michael.BurtonMichael.Burton@f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Burton) (05/21/89)
One of the things that's exciting about the 68040 is that it gains speed advantages not only through a capability to operate at higher clock speeds, but by executing most, if not all, machine instructions in fewer clock cycles. (I think I read that the 68040 will average four times faster than a 68030 at the same clock speed. That's FAST!) I'm eagerly awaiting the Mac III! -- Michael Burton via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200!Michael.Burton