Last Beige G3 gossamer Mobo?

Hello Sabrina,

The most current motherboard for a beige G3? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? (kidding!)

The Rev D motherboard has a part number (stamped on the board itself) of 820-0991-B, and it has the ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo chip.

I might even have a spare one.

Regards ..... Jon

Hello Sabrina,

Believe it's $77D.45F2, or Rev C.

Regards ..... Jon

Hello Sabrina,

Update on motherboards: So far I have found four 820-0991-B motherboards; one has the graphics chip silk-screened Rage Pro Turbo PCI and three have the chip silk-screened simply Rage Pro PCI. Further, I remember faintly that this issue has come up before and somebody opined that the chip is the same - only the labelling is different. Further still, I believe I saw that Apple has had the policy of introducing minor changes without changing the part number; only major changes get a new designation.

Hope this confuses you properly.

Regards ..... Jon

Is there really any significant difference in the different G3 motherboard versions? Epecially compared to alternative PCI video/ATA expansion cards.

Isn't the max VRAM still just 6MB, and do any of them support DVD playback very well, or at all? A PCI video card can range from 32/64/128MB VRAM and add dual independent display support, DVD playback, and 3D OpenGL.

And if you can have Master/Slave drives on the built-in ATA port (rev A can't), why would you want two drives on that really slow <13 MB/sec port anyway? A PCI ATA card can give you closer to 40-60MB/sec read/write performance for up to 4 drives (only 2 will fit easily).

If you were considering expanding the capability with PCI cards, what does the mobo version matter?

There is an Audio/Video/DVD card that fits in the perch (sound card) slot that should support DVD playback. But they must have been really expensive, and they are rare.

The Rev A motherboard has an earlier and somewhat different display chip on it, which must have some programming differences. If you get a Rev A ROM card paired with a later display chip, the chip does not seem to get initialized properly, especially in Mac OS X.

Hello Glen and Grant,

There are differences in the later motherboards, though I'd be hard put to tell you just what they are. I think the 'C' and 'D' were more compatible with OS9.2.2, maybe with iTunes, and probably with OSX. I always used the ATA controller cards, so I never discovered the master/slave thing until someone else pointed it out. The Rev A board had another glaring problem, but I forget what it was. My memory's going fast.

Did have one of the DVD cards, which came with a B&W Rev 2, I think. As I recall, it worked - but none too well. I think the hardware kept tripping over the software or something. The cards were rare, but not too expensive on eBay.

Regards ..... Jon

Someone here (can't remember who) figured out that the existence of a Rage Pro and Rage Turbo was only a name change on the part of ATI, not a performance or spec change. Yet another goodie to research!

<a href=http://cgi.ebay.com/Logic-Board-Apple-PowerMac-G3-Beige-233-266-300-MHz-NE WW0QQitemZ190158490540QQihZ009QQcategoryZ25439QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItemhope it's helpful

oh that didn work very well at all

here is a link to an eBay page selling Rev C logic boards for $10 NIB
hope this is helpful

Hey Allan, that would be me... and quite a while ago now, possibly 2.5-3 years! Good memory you've got =) The "Turbo" denoted new drivers.. on the PC side... that ATI had produced. They came with a boost of up to 40% in performance! Truly astounding. Except that they, quite mysteriously, only showed up in benchmarks.. in real world tests, they really added almost no performance gains at all. And, of course, on the Mac, it was completely 100% meaningless, since they didn't write new drivers for the Mac OS... I believe they may have even been DirectX specific. So needless to say, the Turbo was a joke in all respects.

Whelp, thanks to this thread, I now know myself to be the proud owner of a Rev D. Beige MoBo, with, as I knew, a Rev. C ROM. Must be why it runs so well (haha)