Wednesday, December 10, 2003, 11:00 am

PowerLogix priming 'MDD' Power Mac upgrades

By Kasper Jade

PowerLogix may become the first third-party hardware developer to release a G5 upgrade for Apple's 'Mirror Drive Door' (MDD) Power Mac G4 models, anonymous sources told AppleInsider on Monday. According to the source, members of the company's research and development division have been analyzing the details of such an engineering effort.

Unlike traditional third-party upgrades, the PowerLogix G5 upgrade would most likely consist of a combined motherboard and microprocessor adaptation, sources said. If it were to deploy a stand-alone CPU upgrade card, PowerLogix would be forced to research the processes of binding the PowerPC G5 to an older 133MHz or 167MHz bus, only to be bottlenecked by its limitations.

PowerLogix confirmed that it is working on processor upgrades for the MDD, but noted that G5 upgrades would be preceded by other workings at the company. "I do know that G5 chips are still a way off, so I wouldn't assume our first upgrades for these machines would be G5's," said Mark Robinson, media spokesman at PowerLogix.

In the meantime, the company is wrapping up the development of a series of G4 upgrades for the MDD Power Macs, most of which will consist of dual processor format, Robinson said. The upgrades are expected to begin shipping sometime this Spring.