Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Processor Confusion

ppcg4mac

ppcg4mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 13, 2012
372
1
Northwest Kansas
i have a G4 (gigabit) with the original, dual450 processor, an eMac with a single 800 and another G4 that i was given for free (still gigabit) with a single 1GHz. All of them have 512MB of RAM installed. How come the dual 450 is WAY faster in general than all the others? in my mind the 1GHz one should rule, yet it is really laggy and slow.


Sorry if this is a bad question.
 
The G4 800MHz in that eMac is a 7450 with only 256k L2 and no L3. The dual 7400 450MHz has 1MB L2 per CPU. Pro tower vs. underpowered consumer machine.

The other single 1GHz is in a gigabit ethernet tower? It doesn't make sense that it would be slower as it would be a 7455 with 2MB L3 if it's a 1GHz in a G4 tower. It should be a bit faster in most ways and even faster in code with no dual CPU optimizations.

Could be other factors but the eMac at least should be a good amount slower.
 
Jethryn Freyman said:
A single CPU can still multitask..
Click to expand...

Well, yes, through allocating different CPU cycles, but a dual-processor machine can actually do two tasks at once. One on each CPU, while still allocating the cycles like a single-proc machine would.
 
r.j.s said:
Well, yes, through allocating different CPU cycles, but a dual-processor machine can actually do two tasks at once. One on each CPU, while still allocating the cycles like a single-proc machine would.
Click to expand...
Ah yes I guess you'd be right there, only trouble is when you come across something that's only single threaded, so when you're playing with such low clock speeds I'd probably go with the double-MHz single.
 
ppcg4mac said:
i have a G4 (gigabit) with the original, dual450 processor, an eMac with a single 800 and another G4 that i was given for free (still gigabit) with a single 1GHz. All of them have 512MB of RAM installed. How come the dual 450 is WAY faster in general than all the others? in my mind the 1GHz one should rule, yet it is really laggy and slow.


Sorry if this is a bad question.
Click to expand...

Glad you mentioned that. My PowerMac G4 450MHz DP beats my MacMini G4 1.42GHz in many things. Here is a startup showdown, on Mac OS X 10.5; you will be impressed!

http://youtu.be/x5Bz-gM9gMg
 
Last edited:
Have you also considered the speed of the hard drive in these machines.
i.e. Do they all have a 7200 rpm hard drive or a 5400 one?

I think 512 MB is 'on the lowish side' for Mac OS X 10.4 and I wonder if a (virtual memory) swap disk is being created?

That would really slow the machine down.
 
Both of the G4s use a Seagate barracuda 80GB 7200. the eMacs still have the original "Fireball 3" Maxtors, no idea on the rpm there.
 
ppcg4mac said:
Both of the G4s use a Seagate barracuda 80GB 7200. the eMacs still have the original "Fireball 3" Maxtors, no idea on the rpm there.
Click to expand...

I think the Fireball 3 were 5400 rpm.

I find the drive does slow down your machine on the cusp of the OS relying on its swap disk.

Similarly I found that to be the problem with the Mac Mini if you don't give it lots of RAM, I've always been tempted to insert an SSD in one of these to see how well they would run! :)
 
Do not forget two things:

1. The megahertz myth (related to CPU speed, frequency is not the only factor)

2. In those chips, in order to increase frequency, IBM also increased pipeline stages.

So, this means a 900 MHz chip is not necessarily twice as fast as a 450MHz chip if they doubled the pipeline stages.

Just my opinion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back