[Informtion Room for G3]

(8/5 Update!)

As you know, the PowerPC chip of PowerBook2400 series is mounted on a daughter card. This means you can upgrade your 2400 by simply swaping for a faster card. However, in contrast to PowerBook500 series, the daughter card is located at where you can hardly access it. You will probably say, "What the heck!"

I give you a brief explanation of G3 chips. G3 is called by Apple Inc. As you know, it is a PowerPC750 chip. G3 is on the same product line of the PowerPC603 chip, and so low voltage and low cost. 266 MHz G3 chips are said to be equivalent to 350 MHz PowerPC604e chips. The cache on the G3 chip is a secret of this high performance. While recent Macintosh machines still have a motherboard running at slow clock speed, they have a high clock speed processor. This speed dissociation is a bottleneck of performance improvement. G3 machines provided by Apple Inc. can access the cache memory at a half speed of the processor speed. It can dramaticaly improve the whole machine performance.

So, Intreware, Inc. from Japan and Newer Technology, Inc. from the US have already announced that they would release a G3 card for PowerBook2400 series. Probably their cards will have similar price and performance. We are looking forward to it coming.

8/14/98 : 1.9 volt chip used for Interware 300MHz G3 card?

Interware, Inc. has announced they will release two different speed, 240MHz and 300 MHz G3 cards for 2400. According to Processer Mania's report, the release of the 300MHz G3 card will be delayed because Interware trys to secure 300MHz chips. So, does it mean that 1.9 volt chips will be used for the 300MHz version? The 240MHz version will come out on this summer and one month later, the 300 MHz version will be out. They said that in an interview of PowerBook 2400c Perfect Guide (Aug 1998).

　

8/4/98 : New G3 card from Interware Inc.

There is a rumor of the beta card from Interware Inc. having been released. A 1.9 volt G3 chip might be used for this card.

　

7/1/98 : G3 Card Impression!