GigaBump an MDD

[unclemac]

Don't be too surprised if OWC thinks they are gone. Keep in mind that OWC owns (or at least has a direct interest in) almost all of the Giga competitors: NewerTech, PowerLogix and Mercury. The only other competitor out there that I know of that I don't think they have some connection to is FastMac.

Not saying they will not tell you the truth, just keep in mind their bias.

[RBR]

I called OWC this morning and the answer I got was that they did not buy Giga and did not know anything about it. They did suggest that I call http://daystartechnology.com/

I called them and a nice lady told me that she had been trying to contact Giga as well and heard that they were bought by someone she had never heard of before, but would try to find the name and call me....

I guess that we may eventually hear who it is if she does not remember and call me. (I will call her again in a few days if I do not hear back from her.)

I will try to remember to call http://www.sonnettech.com/ tomorrow. After that I guess that pretty much exhausts my list of "usual suspects", unless you have some other suggestions.

What this means is anyone's guess. If you hear anything, please post it.

[ricks]

Fun part of talking with someone at OWC is wondering if they know anything or not. I never heard anything about OWC buying Giga. OWC was buying most all of Giga's production last I heard. Other than that, I cannot see that there would be any benefit to OWC to actually BUY Giga. They already own enough of the technology and brand names that owning Giga would be redundantly repetitive.

When Apple announced the move to Intel it put the nail in the coffin of the 7448 Processor series..... AND ... it killed the future of the CPU upgrade business for PowerPC Macs. Not enough room to move and not enough market to develop new products. Or should I say to pay for the development of those new upgrade products. First came the G5s that put the G4s into the realm of stuck, since you cannot cram a 64 bit processor into a 32 bit machine and get any speed out of it. And then the Intel orphaned the PowerPC altogether. I am afraid the upgrade world for PowerPC will never look better than it does today. A dying breed: cpu upgrade developers. It was inevitable and we all knew it the day Apple announced the move to Intel. Which ironically was the very same day that OWC/PowerLogix announced G4 upgrades utilizing the 7448. Go figure.

Rick

[RBR]

A repetitive redundancy? Is that anything like Deja Vu all over again?

(With apologies to the Yogi.)

[eric]

Not sure if or who bought Giga. But when I saw the photo on this Sonnet page it really made we wonder:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_st_duet.html

The CPU board in the foreground with the double-fan and copper heatsink looks a lot like a Giga upgrade. Certainly doesn't have the same look or heatsink that most of the Sonnet's had like the purple heatsink in the background.

RBR, I had the same recent experience with Giga too. I never got a word from Tim via mail or voice when I tried for help at the end of last year and beginning of this year -- around the time of Macworld. My Giga now longer works but is out of warranty. Oh well, got some good years of use out if it.

[RBR]

I spoke with tech support at Sonnet this morning and he said "we have not assimilated Giga", that he thought they had just gone out of business.

Unless I hear something more, I guess that is about it.

I have downloaded what I could about setting things up to take Leopard. I would recommend downloading whatever you may need soon as there is no telling how long the web page will stay up. I guess you could check the internet archives later, but....

[kaye]

Been a long time since I updated any tests with this baby. Xbench update:
Kaye's GigaMDD
Radeon 9800 Pro ME 256MB VRAM and RAM Disk
85.08 vs previous best 84.42
BlockHead highest at 85.29 w/ overclocked 7455 CPUs under the G5s and Unknown scores.
http://db.xbench.com/comparesubindex...minVersion=1.3

No change to Cinebench 9.6 results. All CPU processing. Cinebench R10 I had not run on the GigaMDD before. Rendering (Single CPU) painfully slow. Had to use my son's CRT, no room anymore to connect the G4 to my Cinema HD Display.
G4
CINEBENCH 9.6
************************************************** **

Tester : kyum

Processor : GigaMDD1.42GHz DP
MHz : 1420
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : 10.4.11

Graphics Card : Radeon9800Pro ME-256MB
Resolution : 1152x870
Color Depth : Millions

************************************************** **

Rendering (Single CPU): 164 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 295 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.80

Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 169 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 506 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 1149 CB-GFX

OpenGL Speedup: 6.81

************************************************** **
CINEBENCH R10
************************************************** **

Tester : kyum

Processor : GigaMDD 1.42GHz DP
MHz : 1420MHz
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.4.11

Graphics Card : Radeon 9800ME-256MB
Resolution : 1152x870
Color Depth : Millions

************************************************** **

Rendering (Single CPU): 922 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 1645 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.78

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 1168 CB-GFX

************************************************** **
k

[eric]

RBR wrote:

I have downloaded what I could about setting things up to take Leopard. I would recommend downloading whatever you may need soon as there is no telling how long the web page will stay up. I guess you could check the internet archives later, but....

Well, that was good advice which I followed. Although the Giga in my DA died, I still have one in my Cube.

A couple of sites have already reported this, but the GigaDesigns has been offline for several days now.

Guess that signals the final demise of GigaDesigns...

[rwm]

This was my first xBench run with the DP Giga.
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=280080

[kaye]

Photo of my internal setup:

k