[G4] Single or Dual??

[Aaron]

> Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:48:19 -0500
>From: Mike Tweedie <mac at springerlabs.com>
>To: "A place to discuss Apple's G4 computers." <g4 at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
>Subject: [G4] Single or Dual??
>Reply-To: "A place to discuss Apple's G4 computers." <g4 at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
>
>Hi All....
>
>I just picked up a G4 Sawtooth 500Mhz, and added 1.5Gb of RAM and 160Gb if
>of disk and a Radeon.
>
>Interestingly enough it's been pretty cheap so far. Having said that it's
>time for a new processor.
>
>I've been looking at OWC and have seen a few that should do the trick. Now,
>for the big question...
>
>Single or Dual?
>
>Looks like I can get a dual for just a bit more than a single, see here;
>https://eshop.macsales.com/item/PowerLogix/PF47D1200DA/
>
>What are the groups thoughts? 1.2Ghz Dual or 1.8 Single?

Having observed CPU usage in my Dual 867 MDD using the CPU Monitor part of Activity Monitor, I would say that, presuming you're running OS X (Panther or Tiger, and probably even earlier versions), you'll get close to 100% usage of the dual processors, so that a 1.2 GHz Dual will be almost as fast as a 2.4 GHz single. But check to see whether the processors and caches in the Dual are the same as in the single. The Dual your link points to doesn't have L3 caches. A single that does have one, if such exists for your machine, would perhaps be better. However, I don't know enough to say how much difference the L3 cache makes.

 - Aaron

>
>I use this machine for image editing and I am plannig on doing some iDVD
>work now.
>
>TIA
>
>Mike