★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.macsonly.com/soncr.html

Review: Sonnet Crescendo 604

by Dana Baggett

Price: $399 (1 MB L2 Cache card additional $149)

Pros: First 604 CPU PDS card, doubles speed of 60 MHz 601 CPU, easy installation and setup

Cons: Several bugs

Rating: Withheld for now

Brought to you by Macs Only!

Sonnet Technologies, Inc., just began shipping its new 120 and 132 MHz 604 accelerator cards, called the Crescendo, for the Performa 611x (which come with a 60 MHz 601 CPU) and Power Mac 6100 (which came with either a 60 or 66 MHz 601 CPU). The 120/604 goes in the 60/601 computers and the 132/604 goes in the 66/601 computers. Several weeks ago I ordered the 120 MHz version to go in my Performa 6115 along with a 1 MB L2 cache card. They were shipped to me overnight via Federal Express on December 23rd.

Sonnet's new Crescendo comes with a cooling fan and a diskette containing a Metronome utility to confirm that one is running at 60 MHz (30 MHz bus), not 66/33 which is the Power Mac 6100/66 and takes a different version of the same card. The diskette also contains a Crescendo extension (22 K) dated December 22nd so this equipment is as new as possible.

Installation

I installed the card December 27th along with the 1 MB Sonnet L2 cache card. The Crescendo ships with a well-illustrated two-page set of Installation Instructions. The physical installation was no problem (after I managed to uninstall the 256K L2 cache card I only put in place a couple of months ago without damaging it - no easy task). The cooling fan plugs into the power supply for the CD-ROM drive and drops on top of the black heatsink on the motherboard. The Crescendo plugs into the PDS slot on the motherboard. It has a silver heatsink mounted at right angles to the card which, when installed, is parallel to the mother board. It is supported by the card and a nylon post.

The installation of the Crescendo software extension on the diskette proved to be a bit more problematic. The Read Me says there are no known conflicts. But when I installed it, it repeatedly crashed the machine during loading. I put a space before the title "Crescendo" and, voile, it loads with no problem right after Disinfectant and before any other extension. I did not explore the cause of the conflict any further for the time being. After testing (read "playing") with it for awhile, everything seems to be working fine.

Performance

MacBench 4.0 reports a processor speed score of 235 with the Crescendo 604 card and the 1MB Sonnet L2 cache card installed. The original 601 chip with a 256K L2 cache card scored 124. (The MacBench 4.0 reference point is a Power Mac 6100/60 with no L2 cache card = 100.) My Performa 6115 does seem faster although not incredibly so. For example, I went to a news page that has many links and used to take about two minutes (!) to load with my old setup of a 601 chip and the L2 256 cache card. (It was like watching paint dry and one wondered if Communicator had crashed in the meantime - and indeed, sometimes it had, especially prior version of Communicator.) This page now loads in about half the time, which seems logical given the MacBench 4.0 test results.

Table 1. MacBench 4.0 Processor Scores for a Performa 6115.
Configuration Processor Score* Performance Increase

Performa 6115 w 256K L2 Cache
124

Original Configuration

Performa 6115 w 1 MB L2 Cache
147

+19 %

Performa 6115 w 1 MB & Crescendo
235

+90 %

*Reference computer is a PowerMac 6100/60 with no L2 cache = 100. Performa 6115 running Mac OS 8 with Virtual Memory on, 1,536K disk cache and 40 MB RAM.

**Table 1. MacBench 4.0 Processor Scores for a Performa 6115.**
Configuration	Processor Score*	Performance Increase
Performa 6115 w 256K L2 Cache	124	Original Configuration
Performa 6115 w 1 MB L2 Cache	147	+19 %
Performa 6115 w 1 MB & Crescendo	235	+90 %

My experience with Sonnet's 1 MB L2 cache card alone (i.e. without the Crescendo 604 CPU card and running the original 60 MHz PowerPC 601 chip) is a modest speed boost. The 1 MB L2 cache card yields a MacBench 4.0 processor score of 147 versus 124 with the 256K L2 cache card, nearly a 19% increase. The Crescendo 604 CPU card with the 1 MB L2 cache gives a MacBench 4.0 score of 235 thus providing an overall 90% increase.

Problems

There have been three problems so far. The first being the Crescendo extension conflict at start up that was resolved by forcing the Crescendo extension to load first (placing a space in front of the extension's name). The second problem is a freeze that occurs at shutdown. If before shutting down I use the Crescendo extension to switch from the Crescendo 604 card in the PDS slot back to the original 601 CPU on the motherboard, then shutdown proceeds normally.

However, what has nearly pushed me over the edge is that after writing a simple letter in ClarisWorks 4.0, it wouldn't print properly to my Color StyleWriter 2400 using the 604 CPU. When I turned the Crescendo extension off and rebooted, the letter printed flawlessly using the original 601 CPU. I simply can't afford to spend $400 on a product that does not fully function out of the box. Frankly, I am nervous that I will discover more problems - will it handle MacInTax?

Conclusions

The Crescendo accelerator card cost $399. The 1 MB L2 cache card cost $149. FedEx shipping for both was $6. Sonnet provides a "One year limited warranty on all products." Overall, for now I'd say the jury is still out. I'm working with Sonnet's technical support to resolve the latter two of the three problems. I'll provide an update when either of the problems are resolved or I've sent the Crescendo back.

[Ed. Note: The problems that Dana encountered with Sonnet's Crescendo are very disappointing. Based on the increase in Macs Only!'s traffic, there appears to be a huge market for souping up older NuBus PowerPC Performas and PowerMacs. Let's hope that Sonnet gets the bugs out of Crescendo!]

[Back to top of page]

. . [Macs Only!]