Speed comparison

I am loking for a speed comparison. I am planning on upgrading my lowly Quicksilver 2002 (Specs:

G4 @ 800Mhz
512MB RAM
Radeon 9600 Pro (64 MB VRAM)
120 GB, 40 GB, 30 GB (7200 RPMs, ATA133s on a ATA66 bus) HDs)

and have been having a hard time getting good info on some upgrade cards. I have done a search on this site and found unhelpful info, mostly people saying to save up for a new machine, very impracticle for me as I am still paying this one off, kind of, and I only can spend maybe $450 (+/-) in the next year (give or take).

I am looking at either:

G4 @ 1.4 Ghz (really a 1.25 clocked to 1.4, I think)
256K L2 Cache
2MB L3 Cache (6:1)

or

G4 @ 1.8 Ghz (really a 1.4 clocked to 1.8)
512K L2 Cache
NO L3 Cache.

This computer is used by three people, with itunes, web, and email taking the brunt of the use. Some photoshop, garageband, WP, coding, and games are played on it (Games played the most are: some type of web based game system, don't ask as I don't know, card, EV: Nova, Neverwinter nights, diablo II, Warcraft III, not in that order)

Moslty I would like the basic run down on the performance that each chip can perform. And what experience I may get based on the apps I am using (i.e. Will the higher clock and L2 cache affect me more or will the L3 cache win out?)

I do plan on getting more ram, another 512Mb to be exact, and hope to get tiger (I have run all versions of X except 10.0 varient on this system so far, and hoping this upgrade will get me throuhg the next year or two).

Thanks for any help.

PS there is about a $100 difference in price between the two. If you want to comment on price/performace ratio as well, I would like that as well.

brap said:

It really sounds as if you need to cut down on bottlenecks, rather than add more strangled horsepower.

The video card and the CPU are, really, pretty damn handy. You definitely need more memory, though - perhaps upgrade that as a start point, and see how different it feels. Dunno how many slots it has, but if you've only one spare you should be looking at 1gb at least. If you have 4 total, fill 'em all with 512s.

You would probably also benefit from a faster ATA interface... ATA66 is, well, massively outdated. These, plus (if you must) a slightly less impressive CPU upgrade, would help across the board.

Click to expand...

I may upgrade each of those as noted, but those upgrades are each under $100 and I can probablly sneak them through the finances (and the "co-acountant, hehe) in spits and spats. Although i have been thinking about the ATA upgrade, it would probably be my last one as I have heard that the sustain rate is not that much higher (correct me if I am wrong).

I have three RAM slots (in the quicksilvers, one slot was removed and a forth PCI slot was included). I do plan on adding a stick of RAM (512) in the near future to give me 1GB. from there I would really need to consider the cost/gain ratio as the max is 1.5GB.

What this system really needs is a nice new FSB 🙂 but unless I can learn how to reengineer this motherboard somehow, I think that will need to wait till a new comp is attainable.

I am allowing (or is it allowed 🙂 ) to make one "large purchase," depending on the size of mybonus at work. I should be able to afford between $350-maybe $500 on one item.

Does anyone now of hard facts about the speed of these two chips?

Thanks for the recomendations, so far.

I am unfortunately still on the fence, I think the 1.4 now has the best price/performance ratio (at least going with the model I am considering) at around $300. But to be able to say I have a 1.8Ghz computer would be nice.

Also, it seems strange that if,in fact, the 1.4 holds its own (or is faster than) the 1.8, then what about a game like Doom III. I don't forsee myself playing this game (maybe a game based on the engine) but given the 1.5Ghz requirement, the 1.8 will play it and the 1.4 will not.

Any ideas? It stuff like this that proves you can't use Mhz (or Ghz) for true speed indications, but it does help. 😉

Found something that might help

OWC

It allows you to compare upgrades over a large number of tests. Using this comparison, it would seem that the 1.8Ghz upgrade is not worth the upgrade at all. It has a couple scores that are higher than others (mostly by small margines) but the 1.4s held up (some faster than others) pretty well.

I think I wiil either go with a 1.4 from either Gigadesigns (from the Factory store for $300) or OWC (wich is slightly faster, for $339).

Reasons for going with the OWC:
Faster (if only slightly)
Supposedly runs a little cooler
May have a better overall warrany
I have confidence in OWC (No personal knowlegde of Giga, have heared some desturbing info about tem)
No response from Giga to a email request, always hear back from OWC

Reasons for going with the Giga:
Cheaper, may be able to get both card and RAM at the same time.

Well, I'm just thinking out loud at the moment. Thanks for any comments. I'd like to hear your thoughts as well.

[EDIT: Added for further info] I just found out that I attached my start up drive (a 120GB drive) to the ATA3 connection (didn't know this system had to seperate speeds of ATA, learn something new everyday), so I may want to go and move my drives around to put it on the ATA4 at least for now.

I ended up buying the GigaDesigns 1.4Ghz card for 299 plus 19 for 2nd day shipping and just received it. I probably won't be installing for a while as I am moving this weekend. Maybe I can sneak it in (took friday off 🙂 ).