will tiger make my g5 dually 2.0 faster?

[Keebler]

hi there,

my main HD died so i had it replaced (ya for applecare :)

as i was leaving, the techie asked what OS I was using. told him it was the panther...said i should be using tigers as it gets more out of my machine.

i had my 2 kids with me so couldn't get into more detail with him...wondering if anyone can shed some light or point me in the right direction with this?

cheers,
Keebler

[apple_iBoy]

If you've gotten along this far and have been satisfied, might as well wait a few months until Leopard comes out, right?

[mkrishnan]

Keebler, I would say that if you have a G5 Dual, almost certainly yes.

In general, benchmarks showed that most systems are subtly -- like 8-10% -- faster in Tiger than in Panther. The limiting factors are free RAM and hard drive space. So I'm assuming that, since you have a relatively high-firepower Mac, it has a good amount of both (e.g. >1 gig of RAM and a healthy amount of free HD space now that you've got your HD running again). So it should be slightly faster in Tiger.

Also, unless you're using Quicksilver now, Spotlight is soooo amazing. ;)

To Apple iBoy's point... I'd expect the same thing -- that Leopard will be very slightly faster on comparable (but not underspec'ed) hardware than Tiger. So that's definitely a fair point. Also Leopard may have 64-bit operation support for some APIs within the OS itself that the G5 can take advantage of, and if it does, this may also be very slightly beneficial....

[Keebler]

If you've gotten along this far and have been satisfied, might as well wait a few months until Leopard comes out, right?

i agree iboy. i'm just debating whether or not it could help me and also, maybe less wear and tear on my machine. i'll play it by ear. time to install panther again and get things up and running as they say.

thanks for the feedback guys..much appreciated.
cheers,
keebler

[Eraserhead]

Tiger seemed to make my Dad's iMac G5 significantly quicker (like 30% maybe), so I'd imagine the same would hold for a G5 Tower. But like the others have suggested at this stage I'd wait for Leopard.

[mkrishnan]

You might go hunting for Tiger install DVDs on eBay and see what they run. If you can get them for a minimal price -- $30 or $40, why not? It really is a lovely update. And you can always sell your Tiger discs to someone who has Jaguar :D when Leopard comes out. :)

[Queso]

Tiger is most definitely faster than Panther on dual-processor systems, due to a kernel redesign and a rewrite of the way the system handles I/O requests between the two versions. You will notice a big difference when plugging things in, printing, using FireWire or USB devices etc., but also if you're heavily multitasking Tiger will use the two processors much more efficiently, meaning your system will be much more responsive under heavy load.

However, as another poster has noted, you're probably better off waiting a couple of months longer and getting Leopard now.

[fivetoadsloth]

Though it would make it ALOT faster Id hold out for lepaord.