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dual 867mhz or single 1.25ghz?

Z

zodiac

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 15, 2004
39
0
Canadia States of America
Soon I will be getting a mac and I need to know how these systems compare to eachother. For the same price of 1500, i am being offered each of these macs. Which would perform better than the other?Both have all the same(brand new) OS and software(ilife4,halo etc)

MDD G4

dual 867mhz
1gb ram
60gb harddrive
80gb harddrive

MDD 2003 G4

single 1.25
512mb ram
160gb harddrive

Which of these will be faster?
 
there is nothing like a clock cycle, so faster cpu's are allways better except in a few applications that know what to do with the 2nd cpu. anyways they are both G4 so that means they both suck! look for a refurb G5 or wait for a G5 Imac is my advice. G4 is nothing more then G3s with altivec tacked on. overated,overpriced and underperforming.
 
867 Dual vs 1.25 Single

I just bought a single 1.25 and love it. I do not use any apps that are designed to take advantage of dual processors such as Photoshop. Some things would benefit from two processors, such as doing simultaneous tasks like downloading while listening to music while surfing. OS X is designed to split the load between both processors. The dual 867 has a 133 mhz system bus, while the single 1.25 bus is faster at 167 mhz. I believe the RAM used in the single 1.25 is a little faster, but not sure. I would bet the 1.25 has a better (faster) video card. Ian Page has created a nice program called Mactracker that you can download and compare Mac models. I has this same question before I bought my new Mac. The only Macs out there with dual processors are the Power Macs. The iMac, Powerbooks, iBooks and eMac all function very well with just one processor. Resexcellence has an excellent user forum and I've gotten good help there many times. Doing an internet search may turn up some good tidbits. So... keep asking questions and enjoy the journey.
 
Dont Hurt Me said:
there is nothing like a clock cycle, so faster cpu's are allways better except in a few applications that know what to do with the 2nd cpu. anyways they are both G4 so that means they both suck! look for a refurb G5 or wait for a G5 Imac is my advice. G4 is nothing more then G3s with altivec tacked on. overated,overpriced and underperforming.
Click to expand...

All I can say is that you are very steadfast in your opinions on G4s, and I'd have to agree. If new G5s come out in a few weeks, the 1.6 G5 will be the same price as the 1.25 you are looking at.
 
More info on the systems. They both include radeon 9600 pro graphics cards.
And why do G4's suddenly SUCK because something newer is out.It doesnt mean they suck. They seem to both be very snappy systems and even run halo fairly smoothly, so there. Plus I really can't afford a G5 rufurb or new.I do agree on the refurb on the current models pricing when the new models are released. But for reasons with my dad, I do HAVE to choose one of these systems.
 
zodiac said:
More info on the systems. They both include radeon 9600 pro graphics cards.
And why do G4's suddenly SUCK because something newer is out.It doesnt mean they suck. They seem to both be very snappy systems and even run halo fairly smoothly, so there. Plus I really can't afford a G5 rufurb or new.I do agree on the refurb on the current models pricing when the new models are released. But for reasons with my dad, I do HAVE to choose one of these systems.
Click to expand...
you pretty much have said it. A G4 is never fast its allways snappy or responsive or it will do. Like I said a G4 is a G3 with altivec added. so you have a very old cpu that has a restricted FSB that never clocked up. so what you are buying is a P4 at 2.0 or less. now ask yourself how much is it and then go see those new $600 PCs that have P4s at 2.6 that will give a single G5 a run for its money. If you want a G4 get one. Mac OS is great and is the only reason i would make do with such outdated hardware. As long as you dont want to game a G4 will do what you want. A computer is a big investment, determine what you want from it and go shopping.
 
Don't Hurt Me - why do G4s suck? For the vast, vast majority of users, high end G4s are more than sufficient. People are way too tied up in CPU performance. For all but a few users (high end gamers, graphics, video pros, and a few others) the CPU is rarely even fully taxed. Yes, even with a G4. Most people who want/ think they need G5s are kidding themselves. They wouldn't know what to do with that power, and those nice expensive processors would sit there, using about 10% of their power.

G4 performance, clock for clock, is actually very close to that of a G5. Compare the dual 1.42 G4 and the dual 2.0 Ghz G5. Most of the difference in performance can be accounted for by the difference in Ghz (i.e. a dual 2.0 Ghz G4 would be quite close in performance to a dual 2.0 Ghz G5). The flaw of the G4 is not that it's a bad chip; not at all. It's flaw is that it either can't be pushed as high as the G5, or that Moto simply wasn't willing to spend the money to do it (I don't know which was the case).

Zodiac, don't listen to this nonsense. Unless you are planning to encode a whole lot of video, either system will be more than adequate. It will be quite fast, in fact. IMO, you should go for the 1.25 single and add more RAM later.
 
forgot to mention the price of 1500 is in canadian fundings

edit: Also, a studio display comes with these macs and they both have radeon 9600 pro cards but i am only mentioning this because this seems to have become value and get a G5 thread. The real issue is which machine will run better.My mind is made up. My dad wont let me choose anything else anyways because the seller is his best friend.
 
G4 will be fine as long as you dont want to game on it, it still is a 5 year old cpu that never clocked up, has a restricted FSB and a poor gaming machine. It would be a good chip if it clocked up, if moto was interested, if it could use DDR, etc etc. you pay bigger money for a Mac then a PC it should at least have hardware that matches the otherside. G4 dont come close. anyways Imac and Emac are EOL so maybe we will get G5 machines or we will get another moto Bump :rolleyes:
 
I wouldn't suggest getting a single processor machine at all.

Sure, for pure processor speed, a single processor with a faster clock speed will normally provide more. However, I run many applications on my dual G4/800 which are not aware of multiple processors and each application is moved to whichever processor has less load at that time. Mac OS X is also going to spread portions of itself across both processors.

The advantage of the 1.25 GHz machine's 167 MHz bus over 133 MHz in the other machine is negligible. There is the point that there will be contention between the processors for the bus but it is less of an issue than the extra processing power.
 
My new Mac replaced a 1997 604e StarMax Clone that I upgraded to a whopping 320mhg G3 and maxed out the memory @160megs.

So now with my new 1.25, I'm SMOKIN!


For Comparison:

Mine is a Factory refurb 1.25, 80gig hd, 768 megs memory, Radeon 9000 Pro and included free Panther upgrade packge. $1250 US

:D
 
zodiac said:
Ok Dont Hurt Me, if you think G4's suck so bad, why are you using a Quicksilver? :eek:
Click to expand...
at the time I bought it 3 years ago it was cool. 3 years later we have a 1.25 G4 not much progress for 3 years, in that 3 years Intel went to over 3 gigs and we are stuck with a no progress chip. In the past year what advancement has been made by G4? NONE thats why Apple gave it the boot out of powermac.its a stagnating bunch of slow obsolete crap when compared to Intel or AMD yet Apple is charging a arm and leg for it still. Yes iam about to buy a new machine but it wont have a G4, either a 2.0 G5 minimum or a AMD athlon in a Aurora. waiting to see what stingy Apple will do. I would love a 2.0 G5 Imac if it had a good video system but Apple history is allways give the consumer crap,cripple it in some fashion and then charge twice what its worth.
 
I game on my dual 1.25 MDD G4
my brother on his single 867 Quicksilver G4
my friend on his 800 iMac G4
my other friend on his dual 450 Sawtooth G4

no problems keeping up with anyone on these

do whatever is best for you, but i would go with
the newer G4 or hold out for the G5 if you have
the cash, but only if you need that much power

the current G5's will 'suck' in a month or so when
the faster 'better' less 'outdated' ones come out
anyway
 
zodiac said:
Soon I will be getting a mac and I need to know how these systems compare to eachother. For the same price of 1500, i am being offered each of these macs. Which would perform better than the other?Both have all the same(brand new) OS and software(ilife4,halo etc)

MDD G4

dual 867mhz
1gb ram
60gb harddrive
80gb harddrive

MDD 2003 G4

single 1.25
512mb ram
160gb harddrive

Which of these will be faster?
Click to expand...

I'd go for the dual 867, given that you have to choose one of them, unless the 1.25 has additional featues not listed (I'm not sure of the Firewire/USB/etc. options of each).

The dual has twice the RAM (yeah, it's not expensive, but I'm assuming you're not getting to buy more for the system for a while...) and two drives, which, though they have less total space, provide easy backup redundancy. Drives are also relatively cheap, but, again, I'm assuming you won't be buying new parts for a while.

The twin processors, though slower, will help enormously as soon as you do more than one thing at once. Yes, gaming might be a bit better on the 1.25, but only marginally. The twin processors will be helpful all day, every day if you, say, use iTunes and do anything else. No, it isn't necessary to have two processors. But, given the choice, that's what I'd get.
 
zodiac said:
Soon I will be getting a mac and I need to know how these systems compare to eachother. For the same price of 1500, i am being offered each of these macs. Which would perform better than the other?Both have all the same(brand new) OS and software(ilife4,halo etc)

MDD G4

dual 867mhz
1gb ram
60gb harddrive
80gb harddrive

MDD 2003 G4

single 1.25
512mb ram
160gb harddrive

Which of these will be faster?
Click to expand...
This link may help, there is no single 1.25 though...
http://macspeedzone.com/html/hardware/machine/comparison/all/master_list_9.html
I could not say which is faster...I would lean towards the dual...either way, with a healthy amount of RAM, you should be happy...I hope that you do not get a REALLY loud one though (aka "windtunnel" :D )
*edit* If you are getting an Apple Display and either of these computers for CA$1500, that seems like a great deal...however,if you were unsatisfied w/performance after the fact/or naturally devious, you could turn around and sell it online/ebay and buy a refurbished G5 with the cash (plus a little)
 
dont hurt me look at yourself you are turning into a troll if you hate apple so much go get a pc and game to your hearts content. I have a 450MHz G4 cube it runs osx snapily I don't wait for much in photoshop it dose everything it says on the tin it's nearly 4 years old. yes apple should have moved to ibm faster but those old g4's are pretty good. This person would like to know something and you have pooped on his thread, for shame.

back OT i would recommend the dual as having two HD's is usefull for back up and there's something inherantly cool about having twin prosesors + having that ram will increase proformence
 
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