SEYBOLD EXPO, Booth #444, San Francisco, CA — August 31, 1999 —
PowerLogix R&D, designer of the best-selling PowerForce G3 line of
processor upgrades, today announced plans to produce PowerForce G4 upgrades
for PowerMacs.
The PowerForce G4 brings the power of Motorola’s AltiVec Technology (called
“Velocity Engine” by Apple) to earlier PowerMacs and clones.
The PowerForce G4 will be available in 350, 400, 450, and 500 MHz versions
with 1 Mb or 2Mb of backside cache. The G4 processor is a derivative of the
PowerPC 750 (“G3”) design. The Motorola G4 design changed from the 750 only
where required to gain “compelling multimedia performance,” to quote the
Motorola hardware specification.
These changes include:
– AltiVec instruction set
– Improvements in memory bandwidth
– Hardware based multiprocessing capability
– Copper process technology
– Improved floating point performance
– Additional bus ratio options
– Additional backside cache ratio options
For full benefit of G4 technology, software must be written to utilize
AltiVec. Graphics processing such as used in PhotoShop, and multimedia
tasks such as video will all benefit from AltiVec technology. Any software
not utilizing AltiVec will perform at levels comparable to G3 processors,
unless a 2Mb backside cache is enabled (G3 supports only up to 1Mb.)
“Initial MacBench CPU scores are impressive, reaching over 1630 on a
PowerMac 9500 running at 500 MHz with a fairly slow 166 MHz 1Mb cache,”
said Marc Reviel, VP of Engineering.
“We are very excited about adding the PowerForce G4 to our lineup of
processor upgrades, as well as bringing AltiVec technology to earlier
PowerMacs. Plus, the PowerForce G3 will remain a big part of the PowerLogix
processor line-up, as it still serves a vast majority of the market’s need
for speed at very economical prices,” said Robert Jagitsch, President.
The PowerForce G4 will be compatible with the standard set of Apple
PowerMacs from the 7300 to the 9600; Power Computing PowerWave and
PowerTower Pro; UMAX S900 and J700; and beige and some B&W PowerMac G3s.
Power Computing Catalyst-based computers (PowerTower, PowerCenter,
PowerCenter Pro) at this point are not compatible with the G4 processor
chip.
The PowerForce G4 ships with G4 Cache Profiler software. G4 Cache Profiler
reports clock speed and cache speed settings; allows easy configuration of
backside cache; offers compatibility settings (speculative addressing);
dynamic power management, and even support for configuring the backside
cache when using Linux. These features enable functions in older Macs that
are built-in to the latest Apple G3 and G4 products.
G4 Cache Profiler offers an intuitive interface and the most complete
feature set of any competing product, including software compatibility for
Adaptec SCSI cards, Media 100, and other cards that are usually finicky
when used with G3 or G4 processors.
PowerLogix, winners of many awards for the PowerForce G3 from MacWorld,
MacWeek, MacAddict and others, is proud to say that more G3 cards based on
the PowerForce have been shipped into the Mac market than any other card.
PowerLogix was the first to ship ZIF-style upgrades, the first to ship a G3
with 1:1 cache, the first to support the PowerBase; and was the first to
break price barriers at $1000, $500, and $200 for G3 products.
Pricing and availibility will be announced at a later date, with shipments
expected to start in 4th quarter 1999.
For more information, contact PowerLogix R&D, Inc, 3921 Steck Ave., Ste
A-105, Austin, Texas 78759, (512) 795-2978, Fax: (512) 795-2981,
info@powerlogix.com, http://www.powerlogix.com.