G4 power consumption?

Dirge · Post by **Dirge** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:11 am

I have become interested in Apples G4 Cube as it is passively cooled. I wonder how much power the device draws and how many watts of heat the processor must dissipate through convection.

I know a very complete list of Processor Electrical Specifications exists for x86 cpu's but what about ppc?

http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

Does anyone know where to look for G4 specs?

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:27 pm

er, try www.ibm.com yet?
just took a quick look there, found tons of stuff simply searching for g4 and g4 power consumption, but most of it seemed to beat around the bush, didn't notice any specific numbers.
motorola's site doesn't even look worth poking around in, "g4" alone found like three irrelevant articles in english, their whole site is disturbingly consumer-oriented

markjia · Post by **markjia** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 12:02 pm

The G4 is a great CPU. The only fan in my graphite G4 is for the PSU (but it is only 400 MHz, and I think the new ones have more fans).

However, the G4 cube was something of a failure...It was discontinued due to overheating as I recall. They couldn't cram all the stuff in such a small space. I would not recommend getting one (not to mention that they are several generations old).

You can build a low power fanless PC and get similar performance I think. Alternatively, you can try looking for some faster graphite G4s (but still only have one fan). Plus, you can mod them to use a fanless ATX power supply. I wish I could keep using my mac as my primary machine (OS X is so much beyond any other OS), but unfortunately, compatibility with everyone else is inconvenient.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:53 pm

OS X is so much beyond any other OS

Could you explain this a bit further?
As far as I know OS X is basicly a normal Unix core with more or less a skin of top to get a Mac look and feel and it has a nicely build in emulator to run old Mac software.
So, what is the major difference between OS X and a normal Linux setup?
I am not a Mac freak, so I might have missed something of great importance here.

You can build a low power fanless PC and get similar performance I think.

Yes, a few of us has build fanless PC setups that are more powerful, but I still think the G4 design was a very nice build. So far only nice players and DIY have made similar things with passively cooled PC's.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 12:06 am

G4 Cube did fail due to a number of reasons. Overheating was primary among them. Dust contamination on top loading slot DVD drive was another. That computer was designed to be a showpiece, not to be run for heavy work. I've also seen the innards, it's dangerously compact. A notebook has greater room / air inside.

MacOS-X is AFAIK based on FreeBSD Unix with a couple of improvements for stability. Yes it's only a skin outside but a damn good one. current gnome or KDEs look horribly copycat and horribly slow to me. The nice mac look is also slow but if you turn down the flashy bits it becomes very usable and nice. As far as I can tell, the only thing bad about it is that it's made by Apple !

markjia · Post by **markjia** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:28 am

OS X is just nicer...

I use Debian on my laptop, and it is substantially more trouble to setup (esp installing new hardware). With OS X, it just works. No nonsense.

I also have XP...

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:19 am

Straker wrote:motorola's site doesn't even look worth poking around in, "g4" alone found like three irrelevant articles in english, their whole site is disturbingly consumer-oriented

That is because Motorola split of its semiconductor devision into freescale semiconductor. That site has a lot more technical documentation. The Motorola brand is now only used for consumer electronics.