How 'bout ease of upgrade?
Not all Macs are easily upgradeable with an expensive
card. Recent posts indicated costs as low as $500.
That's good for a Mac. Just plug it in and it's upgraded.
However, depending on the PC and the bios setup, you can
buy a pentium upgrade "chip" and simply plug it in the
socket for around $200 - $300.
The performance of the various processor card upgrades differ substantially, since there is a wide range of cards available, from 120MHz PowerPC 604 to 300MHz PowerPC G3 cards.
If budget is a issue, owners of older Macintosh's can opt for a PowerPC 604-based upgrade. Older and slower than the 604e, the 604 upgrade cards are available at 120MHz, 132MHz and 150MHz speeds from $90 to $200.
As I understand, the Pentium II upgrade is relatively
easy. A card that plugs into the Pentium chip socket.
I think Apple needs to address this.
What you're referring to is a ZIF socket. A Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) chip socket allows you to insert and remove a chip without any special tools. The ZIF socket is cheaper to make, and makes for far easier upgrades.
Apple's been using these since the 7500 - well over 2 years ago. But Apple didn't stop there:
Apple's current mini-ATX board, at about the size of a sheet of paper (8 1/2" x 11"), takes up less room inside the box. It's 36 percent smaller, for example, than the motherboard in my Power Mac 7300 at home. Because the board takes less room in the case, the hard drive's location drops to the base of the unit, which means more room in desktop cases for another device such as a Zip drive or an extra hard drive.
But what's not so visible is what's really significant. That smaller motherboard is a new design, one that has fewer layers of circuitry and shorter bus lengths, which together result in greater performance and lower manufacturing costs. Go Apple!
Finally, lets not forget the fiasco of the Intel Pentium "Overdrive" upgrade. It ended with a class-action award to purchasers who never saw anything near its advertised performance claims.
For more info on processor upgrades see:
Sonnett Technology at:
>http://www.sonnettech.com>
Newer Technology at:
<http://www.newertech.com>
and Cyberian Outpost at:
<http://www.cybout.com>
Ian Bruce
New York, NY
This was just a strawman, now wasn't it Bill. |
