jp48+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan Pace) (04/05/91)
About half of the replys I got were requests for the information I would get. Since there were so many requests, I am posting a summary to the net instead of sending individual replys. Kevin Blissmer (blissmer@expert.cc.purdue.edu) says: that dollar for dollar the Dove '030 is probably the best upgrade for a Mac II. His father bought one and he says it does a good job of speeding up complex calculations. He hasn't found any incompatibilities. He says the Daystar, and especially an fx upgrade, will give better performance improvements. Of course you really have to pay for it. John Hardin (hardin@cadillac.cad.mcc.com@mcc.com) says: that he's going to wait until Apple unveils the '040 machines. He suspects the '040 will be a muvh better performer, and the fx upgrade should cost considerably less than it does now. He also states that for $500 the Dove upgrade should include SAM, SUM and Virtual. (He's right, the price I quoted did include those.) He says he's seen the board advertised without those options for around $400. He also reminds me that the only Sys 7 feature I can't use on a Mac II is virtual memory. He also reminds me that I can get virtual memory by buying a PMMU chip. Dave Platt (ntg!dplatt@apple.com) says: that third party accelerators are a way to speed up your existing machine, while the fx upgrade is the basis of a whole new machine. He upgraded his II to a IIfx last fall and is very happy with the results. J. Peter de Jong (hku!dejong@relay.EU.net) says: that he read a comparison of six accelerator boards on the market (about six months ago) but didn't remember the exact results. What he did remember was that the IIfx outran any accelerator board, even '030/882 - 50MHz ones. He says that if money means less than speed, get the fx upgrade. Finally, Pete Poorman (poorman@convex1.convex.com) says: that he also has an original Mac II. He mentioned his dilema to a friend at a major oil company (unnamed) who does a lot of image processing on Macs and frequently gets advance information from Apple. His friend stopped walking, looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and said: "wait." I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions from that and all the other statements. Personally I've decided to wait on the '040 CPUs and see what carrot Apple throws my way. Again, I've just tried to summarize the messages I got. If you sent me something that I misunderstood, please post a correction to the net - not to' me. Jon
dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) (04/05/91)
> I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions from that and all the other >statements. Personally I've decided to wait on the '040 CPUs and see what >carrot Apple throws my way. Having just upgraded one of my machines (a NeXT) from an '030 to an '040, I can say that the apparent performance increment is *large*, even keeping the clock rate the same. You may have yawned going from the '020 to the '030; you'll wake up for the '040. However: I spent $1000 for my upgrade, and that's from NeXT, which generally operates on very small margins for their cpu's. I'd expect an '030 -> '040 upgrade from Apple to be a pricey thing indeed. Of course, as more '040's become available, prices will probably fall. -- Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu UUCP: uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!s-dorner