Powermac G4 Server advice

[macintosh tech]

Hello. I have been working on a server project for sometime now and I am at a crossroads. The original Powermac G4 cases are too small to do what I want, so I am migrating to a PC case (Lian-li ). Anyhow, I have the choice between a digital audio and a gigabit ethernet.

I have plenty of parts for both, spare logic boards, etc etc. It is coming down to this one thing:

In the digital audio I can have 1.5GB at PC133 and an extra PCI slot (4). Whereas in the Gigabit model I can have 2GB of RAM at PC100 and 3 PCI slots.

My question is, will the 512MB give me a big boost? The 33mhz on the RAM I am guessing won't be a ton. The OS will be raided across two ATA drives. The extra PCI slot is handy since I will have a USB 2.0, RAID, and WiFi (internet for package downloading and push). That leaves with an extra slot in case I want to RAID my OS drives.

Another thing in favor of the Digital Audio is the 4x AGP slot, allowing for more graphics cards to be put in, although I won't be gaming on the thing.

I am really only concerned with the drop in RAM. But the others are important as well. So, will the 512MB cause me to lose a significant amount of performance in OS X Server? Thanks!

 

[MacsRgr8]

Well, that really depends on what you are doing....!

RAM on Mac OS X Sever usually IS an issue... you can never have enough.

AFP eats RAM.
So, if you're going to do FileSharing for a couple of clients, then more RAM is more important than the extra 33 MHz.
AGP 4x is absolutely a non-issue. The early Xserve G4's had only PCI-based grfx while the "equivalent" Desktop MDD G4's were boasting Radeon 9800 Pro's using AGP 4x.
For the "normal" Server tasks grfx is useless.

If I were looking for a cheap G4 to do basic 10.4.x Server services, I would get max-amount RAM, and preferrably a Dual CPU model.
A G4 Gigabit model Dual 450 Mhz with 2 GB RAM is better than a G4 Digital Audio Single 733 MHz with 1.5 GB RAM.