DP Machines and OS X

[wsteineker]

Hey guys, quick question. It's time to upgrade my Cube (G4 450) and I was wondering what your takes are on the two possible upgrades. I can get a 550 upgrade from XLR8 for $299 plus my current CPU or a dual 500 upgrade from Sonnet for $699. Which of these would be better for X? I know that X is DP aware, but how is the performance increase? Does it multithread or just multitask? Is it worth the extra money to install dual cpus? Save some recreational Photoshop work I don't use any MP aware apps (that I know of).

 

[Falleron]

Even if the Applications is not DP aware OSX will balance the load of all programs over both CPU's. I have a Dual 1GHz tower and it is great in OSX.

 

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Falleron
Even if the Applications is not DP aware OSX will balance the load of all programs over both CPU's. I have a Dual 1GHz tower and it is great in OSX.

You took the words right out of my mouth, I also have the dual 1Ghz and this thing flies!!!
I would allways recomend dual CPU's over single if you can afford it, it should make your machine have a longer lifespan and save you further upgrade costs (for a while atleast )

 

[wsteineker]

So from what you're saying the Finder multitasks (divides apps up between different processors), but does it multithread (dividing actual processes up among the two processors)? This is as rough an understanding as I have of the difference between the two. Is it of such a greater value to DP as to justify the cost? If I go with the single 550 I can also afford to add a GeForce3 to replace my Radeon. Does that change things in light of Jaguar?

 

[wsteineker]

I hate to bump this, but doesn't anyone have anymore input? Something from the tech guys maybe? Alpha, are you there? How about you, Duke? You seem to know a lot about this sort of stuff. Anyone?

 

[menoinjun]

Well, im not a tech guy, but I do know that the difference between my dual 533 and the dual 1 gig isn't all that noticeable.

There is one...but not huge.

I would suggest going with the GeForce3 AND the singe processor upgrade. I have the radeon, and I am getting very frustrated with it's limitations with my 19" crt Trinitron.

Just wondering, why upgrade for $299 at all? Do you think that the 550 is that much faster than your 450? I would guess that you would see a slight difference, but is it worth three hundred dollars to you?

-Pete

 

[wsteineker]

To answer your question, ptrauber, the 550 boosts overall system performance 20-22% (according to xlr8yourmac). The GeForce3 isn't so much for driving a larger monitor, as I am quite happy with my 15" TFT Studio Display. I'm really more interested in the Quartz Extreme potential. My math says that, if this technology pans out like it should, hte Geforce3 will take a huge load off of the CPU, freeing up that lone 550 to do a bit more of the grunt work. Does that seem reasonable, or would I be better off with the Dualies? Anyone else??? Please???