Why the Sawtooth is the greatest Mac ever made
by
zen
Many people have their favorite Mac and for several different reasons. A lot of people in the Mac world tend to put aesthetics before function and expandability, by choosing impractical but pretty computers. The Cube, and any iMac from the G4 model on are perfect examples of this. To be fair, I do have a natural bias against any all in one computers, but at least the iMac G3's didn't sacrifice hardware health for the sake of design. The form before function thing is a big part of the Mac culture; one I have never been able to relate to and never will.
When I look at what makes a perfect computer, I look at reliability and expandability before anything else. Expandability means tower and the Power Macs Apple made in the 1997 - 2002 (8600 - Quicksilver) era are the most reliable computers Apple ever made. Within this elite group of hardware the Sawtooth has the greatest track record of them all in both personal experience and Apple service records. The first revision of the Sawtooth only had a 1.6 % failure rate and the Uni-N 7 revision of the tower was under 1 %. These numbers are very impressive on their own, but they seem even better when you look at MDD's or G5's. MDD's had a 6-11 % failure rate depending on model, and the first dual 2 GHz G5 has a shockingly high failure rate of around 30 %. The liquid cooled models are just as bad if not worse. People can chase after higher specs all they want, but what good is it when it stops running?
I actually switched from computing with 2x MDD (dual 867 and 1.42) to 2x Sawtooth in 2009. The dual 867 was decently reliable, but the dual 1.42 had some real issues with stability on every OS I ever ran on it. Then there is the G5 systems, which I feel are about the worst thing that ever happened to the PowerPC architecture, but I will get into that more in the future.
When most hear about my switching from the MDD to the Sawtooth they ask things like "why would you do that?". The answer is reliability combined with the G4 7448 CPU. I need reliability first and foremost, and I also had a strong desire to acquire a 7448 chip. The MDD's fail me on both these needs, because they are not nearly as reliable as other G4's, and they cannot take any of the 7448 upgrades since they are all only compatible from the Sawtooth through to the Quicksilver.
The Sawtooth are not only the most reliable Power Mac, but also one of the cheapest to buy of all the AGP equipped models. I see them these days for 40-80. Cheap enough that I have 5 total and plan to buy another few for a cluster I plan on building. 8+ systems is the sweet spot for G4 clusters, and I still want a few spares if the day comes that I need parts. I have built clusters for other people for years now, but this will be the first one I have ever built for myself. I am even at the point now of writing some of my own cluster software.
Breaking down the other G4 towers
MDD's are by far the most unreliable of all the G4 towers. Many people are understandably enticed by the stock specs since they are the highest of all the towers. If someone needs to get the best bang for their buck, and good performance without CPU upgrades, a dual 1.0 GHz Quicksilver might be the best choice for the long run.
The Gigabit Ethernet model has the same 2 GB RAM capacity as the Sawtooth vs the 1.5 GB limit in the Digital Audio and Quicksilver. Over the years though I have noticed the Gigagbit PSU's are not quite as reliable as the Sawtooth are. I would prefer the onboard gigabit vs the gigabit PCI card I have to use but the PSU tradeoff made the choice for me.
The Digital Audio and Quicksilver are both very reliable towers, but in my experiences the extra 512 MB RAM the Sawtooth allows is more of an overall system benefit than the 33MHz faster bus and AGP 4x vs 2x. OS X loves RAM as we all know, so the 33 % extra memory capacity and better PSU is why I chose the Sawtooth to base all, or at least most, of the computing I do. I have one Gigabit Ethernet system.
The Yikes (PCI Graphics) is one to avoid unless you get it for a steal. There is nothing unreliable about it, but it shares the same logic board with the rev. 2 B&W G3, and has a very slow memory controller compared to the AGP models with the same 100 MHz bus speed. Sawtooth's can be found for the same price or just a few bucks more and will perform noticeably better with the same CPU speed. The memory performs up to 3x faster, with a Yikes clocking in at only 180-250 MB/sec vs 500-800 MB/sec in a Sawtooth. Very impressive for the same bus speed which points to how important a good memory controller is.
The final word
Everyone has their own prerequisites for what makes a perfect computer but longevity, reliability and expandability are qualities that virtually anyone can get on board with. The Sawtooth meets all these needs and then some. They may be 12 years old now but when used by the right people they can still be extremely capable in the modern world.
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I'm with you, man, although I prefer the Gigabit Ethernets. I've had only two, and haven't experienced any PSU issues--the first one's logic board died because of a lightning strike right outside my house that caused a major surge that blew out some other electronics, too. I bought a bare replacement for $80 from an online shop, transferred over the innards, and I was good to go.
ReplyDeleteOne thing, though, to remember and that is for hard drive controller cards, avoid older third party ones from Sonnet Technologies--these were re-branded ACARD models that lacked support under 10.5.8. In this day and age, you can get SATA cards fairly cheaply--this is the way to go. You will be limited to 128GB or smaller drives on the logic board IDE bus unless you get a third party expansion card for your hard drives. I've got four drives crammed in my G4--two Western Digital 80GBs on the main bus and two more on an old Tempo ATA66 card (all are IDE drives I picked up for $10 on the clearance rack at MicroCenter--I'm still running Tiger on this bad boy). It runs a bit hot with the extra drives, so I took up a slot with a PCI slot fan and that helped alot.
Some G5 towers run great for years but my point is that overall they are very unreliable compared to even the MDD.
ReplyDeleteI setup and maintain a few G5 clusters. The main one I maintain started as 12x first gen dual 2.0 GHz and only 7 are left living today. Every single one of the 12 received very high end fan replacements and they run in an air conditioned and temperature controlled room.
It was actually down to 6 for a couple months but I was able to salvage enough functioning spare parts from the six that failed to make 1 that functioned again. The other 5 have either dead PSU's and/or logic boards.
The ones that do live make decent computers but I just personally have no faith in them.
"Sad, how "gigahertzes" ruined reliability."
ReplyDeleteOn the G5's yes but certainly not the G4's.
It's great that you found a healthy but still capable niche for your G5 to live in but my situation is very different. I don't own the ones I work on and under-clocking is never an option in cluster computing when it comes to calculations. All that matters is getting the result ASAP yet they have been too cheap till now to upgrade the ones that still live or even replace/repair.
There is also the fact that although the G5 are a pro tower they are owned by a lot of very non-pro people that would have no idea or ability to do what you have done to yours.
The MR forums are a perfect example. Many of the G5 owners there don't even understand how to install a HD. All these people are at the will of the G5 as they exist from the factory.
Old thread I know but for the sake of an alternative opinion, I'd like to say there are also multi processor G4 MDDs that work fine for many years. I'm not an Apple tech but have had the pleasure (?) to have worked with quite a few Apple setups over the past 31 years. At first in the graphics industry, later in the wonderful world of CNC and CAD/CAM world. Starting with the first Mac Plus with the original big 20MB HD under it… through several FX and CX models, Performas, 8100s, 9600s, G3s and G4s in various forms and guises, to the more up-to-date Intel stuff in the form of iMacs, MB Air and a couple of MB Pros.
ReplyDeleteBack to the G4… which is the machine I use the most, simply because I like it the most. Mine is an 867 dual which has been working every day, and that is spelled EVERY day, since I bought it brand new. It's still my favourite Mac today (end 2017). Yes it has the noisiest cooling system ever and fully deserves its nickname 'the windtunnel', but apart from that I cannot fault it. It certainly survived many other, and often less used, Macs. The notable exception here might have been my 8100, which might have still been working too had it not been drowned…. (which is another story). The original Apple 21" display is still working too. The keyboard has a cable to attach it to the computer, which is a big problem according to the new generation, but never runs out of batteries, has no connection lost problems, doesn't come with flimsy keys that won't last and is still working fine after 14 years of daily use.
What I've done, which may or may not helped its longevity, is that I have not loaded it up with HDs and PCI cards to give the power supply an easier time and keep temperatures somewhat sane inside, and I run a clean system. The internal disc is the original... (!) and only used for the System. All my work is on an external Firewire disk.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that the G4 is used to make technical drawings for machining and laser cutting in aluminium, CAD work, which means this nowadays probably $50 worth of Mac is producing work which is machined on equipment worth several hundred thousand dollars each… :-)
Time bomb?
I've been asked many times if I'm not worried that it will blow up one day, even been accused of being irresponsible and working with a time bomb, but it has so far outlived any Mac we've had here bar one... that's the even older G3 tower I have here as well which is setup as a complete copy (software wise) of my G4. So if the G4 does go bang, then I'll simply move the FW disk to my 350 G3 and continue. Oh and that G3 by the way operates a large format scanner... via SCSI (remember that?) on OS9. SCSI is one of those things which has been given a bad name by people who don't know, a bit like FireWire. I prefer them over USB and much more so over the later port used on iPads as they don't have a chip in them. Both have a sturdy connector and proper sized cable which doesn't come apart like the flimsy USB does. Although for some reason the old USB keyboards and mice have cables that last for years. If that's because USB 2 and 3 use thinner copper or just general build quality degrade, I don't know.
I read an article recently on the PowerPC, maligned by Steve Jobs when Apple switched to Intel while he hailed them as the best processor ever for years. So where is the truth? Usually somewhere in the middle but it in this case Jobs seems to have been far from telling the truth when and why he switched to Intel. Even today PowerPC chips are being used, particularly in sensitive operations. Why? Because they have an extremely low failure rate, which is somewhat more important than gigaflops when working in the petrochemical industry for instance. As for Intel being so much faster… the first Intel Macs were slower in the real world than the G5s they replaced, go figure. Your Intel might be more of a time bomb than my G4.
Why am I still using the G4?
Moneywise I can afford a newer model, I'm using it for work after all. I can probably justify writing one off every three years or so. But why would I? I can't draw any faster with a new processor, or type any quicker. It won'r run the latest versions of the software I'm using but honestly I don't need them even for the most complicated jobs. After all, drawing is perfectly possible with a pencil and paper, also in 3D and even for the most complicated jobs. If you can't make it without the latest 3D software then you should learn how to draw. The G4 is not slowing me down and can keep up with the other Macs on the network in terms of file transfer too. Oh, but then again we have an old fashioned network too of course. You know the geriatric copper cable one, called Ethernet', rather than the new and slower wireless version we seem to 'need' now. Our new MB Pros are the slowest on our network as they can only connect to the network wireless…
Alternatives
ReplyDeleteNewer Mac OSXs are too much focussed on Apps, iCloud and the like for me. As far as I'm concerned 10.5.8 was the last proper Mac system, with 10.6.8 still acceptable, after that it became a smartphone system ported for a computer. To me Apple has lost the part where computers were made to being an aid to do your job, a tool so to speak, and moved more and more into deciding what's best for us and telling us how to do our work. It doesn't work, there are far too many unnecessary processes going on in the background and too many messages flying over your screen.
Windows has never even been a contender. I've tried several versions over the years, but no, not for me. I've also toyed a bit with various Linux systems but quite frankly found them for nerds, made by people who have no idea what is happening in the real world and how people function. Just try and read a section in a Linux forum about solutions offered for a simple problem, it's ridiculously complicated. OS9 is miles ahead in user friendliness than even Elementary OS (which is seen as the most user friendly version of Linux).
The sad truth is that I have yet to find an alternative to my older Mac, sad because one day it will die… maybe I should start buying up a few for spares when that doom day comes.
The future
That said, I hope my G4 will see me out until my retirement, which is only another 13 years away. There are a few applications, called Apps now, that won't work on the G4. So far non of them have been vital for my work or for the G4 to do what I need. My only wish for the G4 is that someone, somewhere creates a better browser for it. I applaud the guy who makes TenFourFox as it allows me to surf the net with the G4 perfectly well. It can't keep up with YouTube but I can do internet banking with and I've yet to encounter a site which doesn't work with it. He's done a great job honestly. The problem is that it's based on the FireFox browser which is both processor hungry and bloated and therefore not a good combination for an older processor. Having said that, TenFourFox does work, it's just a little slower. Would he be able to do his magic on Safari though then we'd have a much better browser. I'm sure Apple prevents him doing that, they don't need people to keep using older Macs now do they?
Apple Mail works fine too (OSX 10.5.8) once I set both GMail and Outlook to 'accept less secure systems' which is quite frankly a joke as there isn't a secure e-mail system in the world, as proven over and over again by the likes of the NSA.
I've been called a dinosaur for sticking to my old G4. Some smile wearily when they see my 'workhorse', others are gobsmacked when they realise all my high tech work is made on a 14 year old computer with software which is now deemed 'abandon ware' and obsolete. All I care about is that it works for me. Keeping the old G4 makes perfect sense to me. It's still a youngster compared to the 41 year old manual lathe I still use almost daily too...
No matter the G4 model, it's noisier, less reliable and has less longevity than with a high quality 3rd party PSU, be it the Sawtooth or the MDD. The latter however is a vastly superior machine as we all know, and _can_ be equipped with not just one, but dual 7448s @2.0Ghz or higher (look it up), making it _the_ de facto machine. There's really no reason to use a PowerMac G4 earlier than the MDD as far as hardware is concerned. The list of superiority is huge: better ATA, faster RAM and bus, built-in GbE etc.. That too the Sawtooth, out of all the low-end slowpoke models.
ReplyDeleteThis article may be old, but all of the above were already true even back in 2012. Just lesser known. The commercial 7448 upgrade is also nearly never sold the past few years, rendering those earlier G4s that predate the MDD even more useless now.
TL;DR Get a good PSU. Don't blame a Mac model for your own shortcomings, that too to try to justify an inferior machine.