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PowerMac G4 1.42Ghz DP versus PowerMac G5 1.6Ghz SP

princealfie

princealfie

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 7, 2006
2,517
1
Salt Lake City UT
Okay, which would be better bargain without upgrades... the PowerMac (Mirrored Door) G4 1.42Ghz double processor versus the PowerMac G5 1.6Ghz single processor?

Yeah, I know that the G5 has PCI express slots but I'm just talking about brute processing speed. Would the G5 single beat the G4 double processor?

Stuff to run like Aperture, Call of Duty 2, Doom 3, Final Cut Express, etc.
 
G4 For Multi-Threaded Work Is Faster

For multi-tasking and 2 core aware apps the G4 is faster. I'd rather have 2 cores thn one even if they are a little slower each. Plus you can run OS 9 natively on the G4 I think. Not that you would ever want to. That's the fastest G4 ever sold — apart from the single 167GHz PBs. So it's kind of a collectors item. A Classic.
 
Multimedia said:
Plus you can run OS 9 natively on the G4 I think. Not that you would ever want to.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you can't. If I recall correctly the DP 1.42 GHz have FW800 and therefore can't boot OS 9.

I would probably go with the Dual G4 anyway. I've used a few 1.6 GHz G5s and they never felt as fast as the last gen G4s.
 
I run even Quake 4 flawless...

The answer is cristal clear, the dual G4 1,42 is way faster.
I have this amazing baby and you can beat a single G5 1,8 with it easy. If you can get the G4 with the nvidia 4600ti you would make a super deal.
However, this card was build-to-order at this time, so you will need to look around.
Otherwise you would need to have the Radeon 9800/256MB to have a turbo machine, but it is fast already. The reason for that is the fast Level 3 cache on the processor, which is highend xserve technology. Also this last MDD is not noisy any more.
 
princealfie said:
Yeah, I know that the G5 has PCI express slots...
Click to expand...

the first generation g5 powermacs, the 1.6 single processor included, did not come with pci express slots. instead, they came with pci-x, which lasted until being replaced with pci express in the revision c model (i think).
 
Re: Dual 1.42 G4 vs. Single 1.6 G5

I have the Dual 1.42 as well and can vouch that's it's a better deal. My best friend bought the 1.6 G5 so I've had experience with them as well.

The G5 may be quieter, but the Dual G4 has the speed, room for 4 hard drives, 2 opticals, and is the only G4 PowerMac to have the option for FW800 and Airport Extreme.

IMHO, the first G5 was a step down. The next machine in the line that would be better is an early dual 1.8 or any dual 2.0.
 
thecreativ1 said:
I have the Dual 1.42 as well and can vouch that's it's a better deal. My best friend bought the 1.6 G5 so I've had experience with them as well.

The G5 may be quieter, but the Dual G4 has the speed, room for 4 hard drives, 2 opticals, and is the only G4 PowerMac to have the option for FW800 and Airport Extreme.

IMHO, the first G5 was a step down. The next machine in the line that would be better is an early dual 1.8 or any dual 2.0.
Click to expand...

I picked up a used PM G4 1.42DP yesterday I was shocked at the speed. The 1.42DP makes my PM G5 1.6Ghz signle look like a toy! the difference is night and day if you are in the market for an older tower try to find the G4 1.42DP and stay away from the early model signle processor G5's plus you can add up to 3 hard drives total 4!
 
Don't be fooled by the low bus speed, this machine will amaze you...passes up every Mac except the dual G5s. I had a SP G5 1.6 and now the dual 1.42, and it smashes it IMO. I can process way more audio tracks, plugins and synths, and plus it looks far better next to the desk...the G5 is HUGE. I also had a Core Duo iMac, and this thing believe it or not almost keeps up with that! So the dual G4 1.42 is certainly value for the money these days...and its pretty darn quiet too!
 
I just wanna point out that the mirror drive G4 is the LAST Mac that could boot into OS 9. So that is not false information.
 
TheSpaz said:
I just wanna point out that the mirror drive G4 is the LAST Mac that could boot into OS 9. So that is not false information.
Click to expand...

Quicksilver's were the last G4s to run OS 9. You might be able to run classic mode, but I'm nearly positive you can't actually boot into OS 9.
 
To be exact, every MDD - except FW800 models (1.0 single, 1.25 DP and 1.42 DP) was able to run OS 9 natively. Last OS 9 bootable Mac was MDD 2003 - "resurrected" 1.25 model. http://support.apple.com/kb/SP106
I got 1.42 DP overclocked to 1.67 GHz and had G5 1.6 GHz. I can confirm from my personal experience that G4 is faster even without OC. Some "little" mods (like better graphics card, max RAM and RAID - even software) makes it very decent machine.
 
666sheep said:
To be exact, every MDD - except FW800 models (1.0 single, 1.25 DP and 1.42 DP) was able to run OS 9 natively. Last OS 9 bootable Mac was MDD 2003 - "resurrected" 1.25 model. http://support.apple.com/kb/SP106
I got 1.42 DP overclocked to 1.67 GHz and had G5 1.6 GHz. I can confirm from my personal experience that G4 is faster even without OC. Some "little" mods (like better graphics card, max RAM and RAID - even software) makes it very decent machine.
Click to expand...

How did you do about the overclocking? I have dual 1.42 as well.
 
Yup, every dual G4 beat every single G5 I ever had when it came to Video encoding and multiple simultaneous application launching. Even my old pimped out Dual G4 cube could clobber my single 2ghz G5 imac, and that was with 100Mhz bus/memory, and PATA drive. Can only imagine what it would of been capable of if MOTO had invested some R&D into it instead of letting it languish for the last 5 years of production.

A, 4 or 7, stage hyper threading G4 would have been awesome!
 
G4beatsG5 said:
Yup, every dual G4 beat every single G5 I ever had when it came to Video encoding and multiple simultaneous application launching. Even my old pimped out Dual G4 cube could clobber my single 2ghz G5 imac, and that was with 100Mhz bus/memory, and PATA drive. Can only imagine what it would of been capable of if MOTO had invested some R&D into it instead of letting it languish for the last 5 years of production.

A, 4 or 7, stage hyper threading G4 would have been awesome!
Click to expand...

they did but apple did want a processor for their laptops and to get their iMac's slim slimmer slimmest , so they did need a cool processor rather then a more powerful one , and they did need it immediately and below the price motorola /freescale could have ever produced them, and that was the main reason as apple did want to see higher profits rather then happier customers ...think different is gone since intel ,

my quicksilver with dual 1.6ghz 7447a from motorola /freescale easy and happy keeps up with my intel core duo , and the 7448 from freescale with 1.8 /2ghz would certainly outperform my intel iMac 1.83
 
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