On Sep 8, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:
> > > On Sep 8, 2009, at 1:41 PM, Falstaff46 wrote: > >> >> My sister has a dual 1ghz Quicksilver and would like to upgrade the >> processor. I have a Sonnet 1.4ghz card that will fit but am wondering >> if it would really be any faster (if not slower) than the current >> dual >> processor she has. Any thoughts? > > Mostly, it will be a little faster. > > Applications that really push multiple-cpu architecture (video > compressors, 3D rendering, heavy Photoshop, etc etc) will run (very > roughly speaking) in the neighborhood of how fast a single 1.7-1.8 > Ghz processor would run on the dual 1G, but that will only affect > those specific functions. ANything that only taxes one CPU will run > faster on the 1.4. > > OS X does take some advantage of multi-processor architecture, but if > her main use doesn't push multiple CPU's a lot, the 1.4 will be the > better choice. > I have to disagree with you, Bruce. I went from a single 933 to a dual 1.2 and it was a huge improvement. While I have a lot of apps open, normally I am only doing one or two things at a time (torrent in the background, Firefox running in the foreground and a lot of idle apps). Most of what I have open really does not take advantage of the 2 processors. Offloading the finder, screen redraws, disk indexing and other system stuff to one of the processors will leave a lot of horsepower for your working app on the other. According to the geekbench results in MacTracker, a dual 1GHz scores 833, while a single 1.25GHz MDD (faster bus and memory) scores a 705. Since the 1.25 MDD has a level 3 cache and many 1.4Ghz processors don't, my guess is that the Sonnet 1.4 will measure out around 700 w/ o a L3 and maybe 800 with it. Is she close? It is only a 5 minute swap if you really take your time. Swap it out and let her play with it. Len --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
