A writer for the Japanese print mag “Macfan” is reporting that he bought a Core Duo 2 GHz CPU and installed it in his iMac Core Duo 17-inch — replacing the iMac’s stock 1.83 GHz Core Duo.
“The machine booted flawlessly and system information displayed the right 2 GHz frequency,” Hardmac reports. “A CPU frequency is related to two parameters, the bus frequency, and the multiplying coefficient of the CPU. On G3s and G4s, the easier way for overclocking was to modify the multiplying coefficient. Yet to prevent such a manipulation, Intel, and then AMD, locked those coefficient setttings directly inside the CPUs. That’s why overclocking of X86 CPUs require modifying the system bus frequency. So, as any other CPUs, the Core Duo have a locked coefficient. The system bus of those machines is at 166MHz (x4 = the announced 667). The original CPU had a coefficient locked to 11. The 2 GHz one is locked at 12. That’s why the simple fact of changing it allowed to reach the right, reference frequency, without any further modification. The real good news is that Apple didn’t find useful to add a lock inside the EFI in order to prevent a potential upgrade.”
Full article here.
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People surely are resourceful.
Waaaait a second. How’s this possible? It’s not just the CPU, but the whole motherboard that should be different between the two models. Plus of course the OS would be compiled for PPC, not Intel.
I’m not sure I buy this …. Or maybe he just meant it booted to some hardware-level state, not the full OS?
Hmmmm…..
Is this really news worthy?
John,
He replaced the chip on an Intel iMac. He did not change the chip from a PPC iMac to and Intel chip.
Ahhh, whoops! Yes, I should read the articles more closely, shouldn’t I??
Sorry about that. Makes more sense now!
JEG:
Are you serious? It’s newsworthy to the nth degree because Apple didn’t lock the EFI in order to prevent a potential upgrade.
lol John
n = 1
RE: Apple did not lock the EFI
Perhaps they will on future models, I hope not.
RE: 2.0GHz
Was it heat, supply/availabilty or price that kept the 2.0GHz out of the new iMac?
I’ve always been annoyed that Apple has a habit of kicking the 20″ up a notch. I wish the speeds were the same and the screen was the difference. Sometimes it’s not price, it’s SPACE it’s sitting in, and I’d like the fastest 17″ Apple can make. I can’t fit the 20″!
The new iMacs are upgradable. THAT IS NEWS.
Just ordered mine.
The next question will be if you can replace a Intel Solo chip with a Duo.
If you can buy a cheap iBook or Mini with a single core chip and replace it with a dual core CPU that would be great for users.
Huh, I can imagine a firmware patch coming out in two months rendering all CPU upgrades like this useless. That’s the sort of stunt Apple would pull.
The Core Solo and Core Duo chips are supposed to be pin-compatible packages, so yes, theoretically, you should be able to swap out Solo for Duo.
Sufficient cooling, however is a whole other bag of worms. If the heatsink/fan/heatpipe can’t wick away the heat of the faster clock speeds or dual cores, the every time the CPU crosses a temperature threshold, it’ll throttle down from max speed and worst case, fry it.
This is starting to sound like a PC forum.
Gee, can you change this chip for that? Will this motherboard let you use that one, are duo and singles pin-compatible etc.
This is why PC fans have liked their platform. I think they tend to be hardware fans not necessarily fans of Windows. They always get to use the latest and greatest. They can customize and change what they want. It’s just too bad that platform is tied to such a POS OS.
JerryT, I’d almost agree with you if we had the option between a bottomless pit of third party motherboard and component manufacturers. In the Intel Mac’s case, this is just Intel. It’s about a million times easier to figure out what works with what when it all comes from the same manufacturer.
I think this is excellent news, if nothing else I can see this converting more windows users (especially if the trend is continued through all of the lines including the power-towers!)
Say goodbye to those companies like PowerLogix and a large portion of OWC…I can’t imagine they are very glad to hear this.
notatotalsucker wrote:
“Huh, I can imagine a firmware patch coming out in two months rendering all CPU upgrades like this useless. That’s the sort of stunt Apple would pull.”
Actually, I have upgraded the processor in numerous Macs that I have owned. I have upgraded a 200 Mhz 604e to a Sonnett G3/400, a Powerbook G3/500 to a Powerlogix G3/900, and most recently a G4/800 DP to a Gigadesigns G4/1.8 Ghz DP.
Most pre-G5 Macs are eminently hot-roddable, and Apple has never gotten in the way of the fun. I expect some serious hot-rodding to take place with the Intel Macs.
MW = ready, as in are you ready to mod the hot rod?
*cough* 1.83 Ghz to 2 Ghz?
Apple probably didn’t give a rats ass if some bozo wanted to buy another processor to upgrade a .07 ghz. They figured, correctly, that there is no substancial savings and just a heck of a lot of risk doing so.
The next batch of Intel processors will be 64 bit and damm sure Apple will keep people from upgrading those.
Hot Rod Lincoln, what you’re doing is purchasing a 3rd party upgrade card for your computers (or having them swap the chips out.) While Apple doesn’t support these upgrades with OS X, it is allowed/tolerated, probably because not everyone does it – most simply buy a new machine.
What I’m referring to is Apple limiting a straight swap of the CPU by the average user as has been done here. I would be quite surprised if they allow this to continue, if only because people will swap out their CPU’s at a later date instead of upgrading to a new machine which I’m sure Apple would prefer.
MadHatter: Apple probably didn’t give a rats ass if some bozo wanted to buy another processor to upgrade a .07 ghz. They figured, correctly, that there is no substancial savings and just a heck of a lot of risk doing so.
If it was only a .07 upgrade I could see it, but at .17 this is where apple starts to draw the line.
MDN MW: Lost
The finer points of addition are lost on some.
Some of the people here (madhatter) are so closed minded. This is the reason most PC users hate mac users, they are a BUNCH of know-it-all, but dont’ have any clue what they are talking about.
And I am a mac user.
1) The new iMacs, as well as the mac book pros are using a standard processor chip from intel, and INTEL MOTHERBOARDS. In the Wintel world chips pop in and out, and people replace them all the time. THERE IS NOTHING DANGEROUS about it.
Geeze. Apple’s not going to disable people from doing it, it’s very easy to do, and disabling it via EFI causes all sorts of problems
AS FAR as the 64bit merom chip coming it, IT IS PIN FOR PIN COMPATIBLE WITH THE SAME SOCKET the current Intel iMac is using, AND YES. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO JUST “POP THE CHIP” right into the socket.
Not only that “gasp” you’ll be able to overclock it rather easily.
Also the macbook pros “dual core 1.67ghz” are also 1.8ghz underclocked, and sampled lower, meaning most will run at the higher speed with a simple adjustment on the motherboard.
And even more important, you can pop out the chip in the MAC BOOK pro (YES I HAVE VERIFIED IT FOR THE NEW notebook computers” and replace it with the faster chips that are coming with the new acer computer.
You can even REPLACE the GRAPHICS PROCESSOR if your brave.
notatotalsucker:
Hot Rod Lincoln, what you’re doing is purchasing a 3rd party upgrade card for your computers (or having them swap the chips out.) While Apple doesn’t support these upgrades with OS X, it is allowed/tolerated, probably because not everyone does it – most simply buy a new machine.
What I’m referring to is Apple limiting a straight swap of the CPU by the average user as has been done here. I would be quite surprised if they allow this to continue, if only because people will swap out their CPU’s at a later date instead of upgrading to a new machine which I’m sure Apple would prefer.
If Apple doesn’t care about the first, what makes you think they will care about the second? Do you really think that more people will be swapping processors now, than before? I really doubt it. It’s a small niche of users that ever even open their machines.
Apple doesn’t have to worry about people just upgrading instead of buying new computers. Sure in the Wintel world people “hobbyists” often upgrade their CPUs and GPUs all the time to keep up with the cutting edge, but this only works for a generation or so, maybe a year, and after that new machines come out with new ideas, new wireless protocols, faster ramsets, faster drive standards, and whole new video standards.
Apple’s not going to lose money because of this, It just lets people who want speed up their machine. It’s not a replacement for a new computer when the time comes.
It gives people who otherwise might only be able to afford a new computer every two years, some choices on how to affordably boost their machine until they can purchase a new one.