James Rohde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >On 11/5/03 2:30 PM, Laurent Daudelin apparently wrote: > >>on 11/4/03 8:22 PM, Geoffrey Loeffler at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>> Back to G Books, who has used the upgrade proccessors in the pismo, >>> the 900 sounds good, the G4 I really will not see a speed bump as I >>> have a 500, except maybe in Panther >>> Geoff >> >>The last time I checked on Powerlogix site, the G4 upgrade was no longer >>available, as, according to Powerlogix, the 900MHz G3 was way too popular to >>continue offering the G4 upgrade. Unless you have another place that still >>has them in stock, of course. > >I wonder (anyone out there know?) if the upgrade would help as much with >Jaguar/Panther, since aren't the graphics chips on another board than the >'daughterboard' which has the CPU? If the graphics chipset is not >upgraded, I expect that will be some kind of slowdown factor (since the >graphics chipset affects the Quartz rendering (or lack of).
The graphics affects whether or not your system will utilize the Quartz Extreme optimizations, which involve offloading a lot more of the rendering work to the graphics chip. The graphics in a Pismo cannot support Quartz Extreme and no CPU upgrade--G3 or G4--will change that. Without Quartz Extreme there are only two options--either effects must be rendered in the CPU (basic Quartz) or else simply bypassed (the 'spinning cube' effect is an example of the later; if your system doesn't have Quartz Extreme then Panther doesn't even try to render it in the CPU--it simply skips it). Thus, for some types of graphics operations, CPU performance becomes relatively *more* important if you don't have Quartz Extreme. With respect to basic Quartz, some of the rendering has been optimized to utilize Altivec (G4 or higher) instructions *if available*. If Altivec is not available, then the CPU has to utilize non-Altivec instructions. With respect to CPU performance, the benchmarks I've seen show that a 900 MHz G3 beats a 500 MHz G4--even on codes that have been optimized to use Altivec instructions. So unless you really, *really* want to have a G4 (and all else being equal) you should probably go with the faster G3 (although of course either would be faster than the stock 500 MHz G3 and especially the stock 400 MHz G3). My two cents worth, -Jeff [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- "You can't brew a premium lager with a kool-aid mentality." --Harold Green in _The_Red_Green_Show_ -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
