G4 7448 and 7457 swap

[socom_22]

im looking to mod my QS dual card. i was thinking of 7455B chips for better OC at pushing 1.6ghz or so. do you feel thats a better route than an interposer adapter and some other chip? i dont want to loose cache of course so im looking for ppc's with cache channels.

My experience with the PPC G4 chips is similar to @dosdude1 in that the 7448's are EXTREMELY delicate. I have also managed to crack a couple of them simply by applying the required heat to melt the solder. It is evident to me that excess heat might have been used previously to remove them from their original equipment boards. I won't speak for @dosdude1 but the 7448's I have are definitely salvage chips as they sometimes come charred with some kind of dark-ish substance, chipped corners on the die, etc. Makes me wonder what methods were used by the salvagers to actually remove them....

Anyway, back to your question. Best chips if you want L3 cache support are hands down the 7457s (if you can find them). They generally run cooler than 7455B's, use less power and also have 512 KB of L2. It is tougher to get them to clock as high as 7455B's though. See my posts on page 9 and 10 of this thread to see what can be done with 7455B's in an MDD using factory copper cooling.

 

[ervus]

They were probably cracked before you got them. I think they use pliers and a blowtorch to remove them, then transport them 50 miles on the back of a horse in a rusty bucket. "New old stock"

 

[JoyBed]

My experience with the PPC G4 chips is similar to @dosdude1 in that the 7448's are EXTREMELY delicate. I have also managed to crack a couple of them simply by applying the required heat to melt the solder. It is evident to me that excess heat might have been used previously to remove them from their original equipment boards. I won't speak for @dosdude1 but the 7448's I have are definitely salvage chips as they sometimes come charred with some kind of dark-ish substance, chipped corners on the die, etc. Makes me wonder what methods were used by the salvagers to actually remove them....

Anyway, back to your question. Best chips if you want L3 cache support are hands down the 7457s (if you can find them). They generally run cooler than 7455B's, use less power and also have 512 KB of L2. It is tougher to get them to clock as high as 7455B's though. See my posts on page 9 and 10 of this thread to see what can be done with 7455B's in an MDD using factory copper cooling.

Well actually I personally got the 7457’s quite high regarding the clockspeed and still running cooler than the 7455’s. I also got a quite cool idea for the PowerBooks. Because in recent years I learned FPGA programmimg quite well, so I got an idea. Basically making a accelerator PCMCIE card for the PowerBooks that would contain a FPGA and some RAM and Flash chip. The FPGA would have some accelerators in it and also a few small Power ISA cores but with PowerISA 2.06( the level of POWER7/7+ ) instead of the old PowerPC 1.10 in the 74XX CPUs in the PowerBooks. Then with the help of drivers you would be able to run software for the newer Power ISA CPUs. Instructions that can be executed on the 74XX will be executed on the 74XX and the rest of the instructions will be ran on the cards FPGA. Also the drivers will handle passing of some stuff that needs acceleration to the accelerators in the FPGA on the card(maybe smthng like video encode/decode, fast cryptography…). Also there can be a PCI-X/PCI-E card like that for the PowerMacs. It would basically bring the old PowerPC based Macs to the new world. Is there any programmer that could help with the driver side of things?

 

[JoyBed]

Small update: I have the H.264 decoder and POWER7-like cores in FPGA and the PCMCIA interface done. Now I need to design the cards for the PowrBooks and PowerMacs. Its good that I only need to design a PCMCIA version card(which is internally PCI), PCI-X and PCI-E. For experimentation i have the power cores and H.264 decoder connected to ARM cores for testing. Its currently able to play 1080p at 30Hz. Or people lost interest in upgrading their PowerPC based Macs?

 

[B S Magnet]

Small update: I have the H.264 decoder and POWER7-like cores in FPGA and the PCMCIA interface done. Now I need to design the cards for the PowrBooks and PowerMacs. Its good that I only need to design a PCMCIA version card(which is internally PCI), PCI-X and PCI-E. For experimentation i have the power cores and H.264 decoder connected to ARM cores for testing. Its currently able to play 1080p at 30Hz. Or people lost interest in upgrading their PowerPC based Macs?

Nah, no one here regularly lost interest in upgrading our PowerPC Macs. Any way we can eke even better performance from the PPC platform serves as testament to their robustness and to our community’s persistence for getting the best and most from these Macs. 💪

As for me, excluding my dodgy A1047, there’s still an A1139 and an M6411 running 24/7 in my home, each doing what they can.

I still have upgrade plans for both (namely, involving changing CPUs, which will require me to send those out to someone with the experience and gear to do so). With that comes planning, time, money, and the ability to track down the CPUs I need to get to where I want them to be. Life stuff being life stuff, especially after COVID lockdowns and emergencies ended, my energies and attention have been preoccupied on stuff which had been placed on hold.

But that does not mean I, personally, have lost interest in PowerPC Mac upgrades well and beyond anything Apple ever offered to the public — be so MC7448s inside PowerBook G4s or a 700MHz PPC750CXe inside a clamshell.

So yes, keep sharing with us what you‘re doing and on what breakthroughs you find and make. And as someone who does have the know-how and access to equipment to make things happen, you (along with folks like dosdude1 and LightBulbFun) become a pioneer of sorts who are doing even more with this gear.

This has been my pep talk. :lisa_simpson_meme:

 

[JoyBed]

Nah, no one here regularly lost interest in upgrading our PowerPC Macs. Any way we can eke even better performance from the PPC platform serves as testament to their robustness and to our community’s persistence for getting the best and most from these Macs. 💪

As for me, excluding my dodgy A1047, there’s still an A1139 and an M6411 running 24/7 in my home, each doing what they can.

I still have upgrade plans for both (namely, involving changing CPUs, which will require me to send those out to someone with the experience and gear to do so). With that comes planning, time, money, and the ability to track down the CPUs I need to get to where I want them to be. Life stuff being life stuff, especially after COVID lockdowns and emergencies ended, my energies and attention have been preoccupied on stuff which had been placed on hold.

But that does not mean I, personally, have lost interest in PowerPC Mac upgrades well and beyond anything Apple ever offered to the public — be so MC7448s inside PowerBook G4s or a 700MHz PPC750CXe inside a clamshell.

So yes, keep sharing with us what you‘re doing and on what breakthroughs you find and make. And as someone who does have the know-how and access to equipment to make things happen, you (along with folks like dosdude1 and LightBulbFun) become a pioneer of sorts who are doing even more with this gear.

This has been my pep talk. :lisa_simpson_meme:

Ye, you know, as I said earlier somewhere both my PowerMac and PowerBook are dead(mobo on the pmg4 and charging circuit in the dlsd), so I cant test out this stuff. So if I will roll out some prototype of the accelerator which currently is in phase of designing a PCB, I will need someone to do test for me. I will need someone with a PMG4, PBG4 and PMG5 with PCI-X and PMG5 with PCI-E. Thats at least 5 devices to manufacture, one for each machine and one for me to do hardware synthesis and tests on prior to loading it up to the accelerator and testing on machine. If someone knows how damn expensive FPGAs are will know thats a lot of money to just send out to the world to someone i dont even personally know. Hence why I want someone thats trusted here to be my testing person. Also if you need CPU swaps I can do that for ya. I can even help with hunting the needed CPUs for quite cheap, My DLSD got 7448 swapped for only 60 euros. I know some people that can get never used PPC CPUs. Also my life never went away from Power ISA, even tho I use newer machines that the G4s and G5s my workstations are IBM POWER CPU based. The only x86-64 is my 1U server that runs the FPGA software as that even after the teamup of Xilinx and IBM with the promise of porting their tools to POWER architecture never saw the daylight, so I needed it. Currently I have a working prototype of four PowerISA 2.06 based cores, H.264 decoder/encoder and M/JPEG decoder/encoder inside the FPGA. When all will go as planned than MAYBE our beloved PowerPC Macs will be able to play even 4K60Hz smoothly... Maybe... But I dont see it as a problem for the PowerMacs, theres plenty of IO for that, for PowerBooks maybe the 1080p60 will be max for the IO constraints. We will see.

 

[JoyBed]

After a VERY long time I got my DLSD working again. Still amazes me that the system profiler doesnt show actual frequency. After the 7448 swap I will pump the bus to 200MHz and the CPU to at least 2GHz. Will be a rock’n’roll powerbook. I think I again did something to the ram slot as its AGAIN not seeing the second ram stick… Easy fix tho. In a week you all will be seeing the sweetness of overclocked 7448 DLSD 😁 I am excited to see the GeekBench score.
EDIT: Now I have a test platform for the PCMCIA accelerator card at least.

 

[JoyBed]

A little update, out with the old, in with the new! The 7448 is now in my DLSD. Buuuut… The miraculously “fixed” charging circuit is dead even more so the powerbook doesnt power up… 😞😭 I was measuring and injecting the voltages to the regulators and finding whats dead and whats alive for 12 hours today… So the result is that I ordered 30 mosfets(3 types) and 3 regulators. Also the battery is totaly worn out, it can power the laptop for like 90 seconds so I also ordered new cells for the battery and a active balancer that I will also pack into the battery. So any testing of the PPC Accelerator will be delayed. Life really doesnt want me to have a 7448 Hi-res DLSD with a accelerator card 😞.

 

[warszawa]

Great Scots! I've always been curious about a BUS mod to 200Mhz with the 7448, seems all the swaps on the net have never tried pushing it that far despite the part being rated for it.

I wonder what the performance uplift would be even with (near) stock clocks at 1.7 compared to a Core Duo MB Pro from that era?

 

[JoyBed]

Great Scots! I've always been curious about a BUS mod to 200Mhz with the 7448, seems all the swaps on the net have never tried pushing it that far despite the part being rated for it.

I wonder what the performance uplift would be even with (near) stock clocks at 1.7 compared to a Core Duo MB Pro from that era?

Yea, thats the first thing I actually want to do, set the frequrncy of the bus to 200MHz, that alone would bring performance boost. Then also theres the fact that the 7448 is a upgraded version of previous version(7447) and also higher clocks of the core and less consumption thanks to lower nm process. And also double the caches. I would be happy if it would run at 200MHz bus and 2GHz core. We will see when i will fix the power circuitry. The 7447B is rated for 167MHz bus and overclocked happily to 189MHz. It would be cool when the 7448 would be able to overclock to 220MHz bus.

 

[JoyBed]

I got my hands on a few 7448 CPUs, anyone wants some? I have 1,2GHz, 1,4GHz, 1,7GHz versions. I can also offer the CPU swap services. And the best part is that they are DIRT cheap.

 

[headlessmike]

I got my hands on a few 7448 CPUs, anyone wants some? I have 1,2GHz, 1,4GHz, 1,7GHz versions. I can also offer the CPU swap services. And the best part is that they are DIRT cheap.

Where are you based? I see you have a German keyboard.

 

[B S Magnet]

View attachment 2355090 View attachment 2355091 A little update, out with the old, in with the new! The 7448 is now in my DLSD. Buuuut… The miraculously “fixed” charging circuit is dead even more so the powerbook doesnt power up… 😞😭 I was measuring and injecting the voltages to the regulators and finding whats dead and whats alive for 12 hours today… So the result is that I ordered 30 mosfets(3 types) and 3 regulators. Also the battery is totaly worn out, it can power the laptop for like 90 seconds so I also ordered new cells for the battery and a active balancer that I will also pack into the battery. So any testing of the PPC Accelerator will be delayed. Life really doesnt want me to have a 7448 Hi-res DLSD with a accelerator card 😞.

May I ask a dumb question about the different wafer sizes between the MC7448 and SC7448?

The MC7448 version, shown in your first pic, appears to occupy roughly 30 per cent more surface area versus the SC7448 wafer. What again is embedded in the MC7448 package which is lacking in the SC7448 package?

I think I noticed this at the time you first posted these pics, but I’m only getting around to asking about it now. Cheers.

 

[dosdude1]

May I ask a dumb question about the different wafer sizes between the MC7448 and SC7448?

The MC7448 version, shown in your first pic, appears to occupy roughly 30 per cent more surface area versus the SC7448 wafer. What again is embedded in the MC7448 package which is lacking in the SC7448 package?

I think I noticed this at the time you first posted these pics, but I’m only getting around to asking about it now. Cheers.

The one with the larger die is the original 7447B... All 7448s have the smaller die size.

 

[B S Magnet]

The one with the larger die is the original 7447B... All 7448s have the smaller die size.

Good g-d, how did I not see the second 7 in that string… 🤦‍♀️

 

[JoyBed]

Where are you based? I see you have a German keyboard.

I have a English US keyboard actually. Im from Slovakia.

Good g-d, how did I not see the second 7 in that string… 🤦‍♀️

Yeah, sometimes happens. I almost soldered the 1,2GHz version onto the motherboard instead of the 1,7GHz… You know… 2 and 7 looks the same aint it? 😂 Like your B and 8 😁

 

[headlessmike]

I have a English US keyboard actually. Im from Slovakia.

Ah, ok, I had just zoomed into your photo in post 282.

Which models can take a 7448? My only G4 at the moment is a 1.25 GHz 2003 15” PB with the original 7447. I mainly use it for early OS X and Classic mode software under Jaguar.

 

[JoyBed]

Ah, ok, I had just zoomed into your photo in post 282.

Which models can take a 7448? My only G4 at the moment is a 1.25 GHz 2003 15” PB with the original 7447. I mainly use it for early OS X and Classic mode software under Jaguar.

Well... In theory I can modify the BootROM firmware to accept the 7448 and report it as 7447 sooo... So the answer is basically anything that has 744X CPU in it. But also you can send me the BootROM dump and I will tell you if you have a native 7448 support or not.

 

[B S Magnet]

I have a English US keyboard actually. Im from Slovakia.


Yeah, sometimes happens. I almost soldered the 1,2GHz version onto the motherboard instead of the 1,7GHz… You know… 2 and 7 looks the same aint it? 😂 Like your B and 8 😁

I think what threw me is I knew the 7447A/B was a rectangular wafer, but from that angle, the 7447 in the pic looked like a larger square, not a rectangle.

 

[dosdude1]

Well... In theory I can modify the BootROM firmware to accept the 7448 and report it as 7447 sooo... So the answer is basically anything that has 744X CPU in it. But also you can send me the BootROM dump and I will tell you if you have a native 7448 support or not.

Only models that have native 7448 support are the DLSD PowerBook G4 and the 1.33/1.5 GHz Mac Mini G4. Others need to have 7448 support patched into the system firmware, which is pretty easy.

 

[JoyBed]

Only models that have native 7448 support are the DLSD PowerBook G4 and the 1.33/1.5 GHz Mac Mini G4. Others need to have 7448 support patched into the system firmware, which is pretty easy.

Yep. I would still like to see a 7458 CPU, its sad that they never made it. It would be quite a powerhouse.

 

[JoyBed]

Now I found a interesting piece of text! There always been questions about the MC or SC prefixes. MC is made by Motorola, SC is made by Freescale… And now hold your horses! If you encounter a PPC7448 or PC7448 that means: PPC is made by Motorola and is a preliminary testing sample and PC is that CPU after the prefix but made by Atmel!

 

[sailorMH]

MC is made by Motorola, SC is made by Freescale

I read somewhere that XC is testing / prototype, MC is standard type and SC is customized type - i.e. some modifications for customer.
I will try find the source.

 

[B S Magnet]

I read somewhere that XC is testing / prototype, MC is standard type and SC is customized type - i.e. some modifications for customer.
I will try find the source.

Sources always encouraged for every “I read/heard somewhere” citation.

 

[sailorMH]

an that is why I wrote that I will try find the source... It should be downloaded somewhere in my disk at home...