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What
Is The Best OS X Platform: the G4/867 or the
G4/800MP? Originally
posted October 10th, 2001 With the release
of version 10.1 of OS X, for the first time I feel
confident that it will succeed as a viable
replacement for OS 9 and keep Apple alive in a
ruthless industry. However, OS X does sap the CPU
power more than OS 9. So which is the ultimate OS X
platform, the G4/867 or G4/800MP? Or should I go
for the closeout G4/533MP since it's selling at
Small
Dog for
the same price as a stripped 867? LEGEND: PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS The three types
of OS X applications above illustrate the
complexity of choosing one Power Mac model over the
other. Cinema 4D is MP aware. Quake 3 is G4 and MP
aware. Bryce is neither G4 nor MP aware. Whenever someone
asks me which one to buy, I always begin my answer
with, "It depends..." It depends on what you use
your computer to do most of the time. If you press me,
I'd say go with multiple processors for two
reasons: WHAT ABOUT
MULTITASKING? HAVE YOU TRIED RUNNING TWO OR MORE
APPLICATIONS AT ONCE ON BOTH THE 800MP AND THE
867? The
above is an interesting graph. In the case of these
two MP aware applications, the total elapsed time
for concurrent and sequential operation was nearly
identical. Maybe it's because they are both using
the dual CPU's already. However,
when I run two non-MP aware tasks on the 800MP
(like FileMaker Pro and Bryce 5), Mac OS X appears
to use both processors, therefore, the total time
to complete the task is cut almost in half (as you
see below). SO WHY AREN'T
FINAL CUT PRO & PHOTOSHOP OS X VERSIONS
OUT? I've heard all
the excuses... I mean reasons. Hopefully we will
see them by January 2002. I'm praying that the
delay has to do with learning from Graeme Devine
how he got Quake
3 Arena 1.30 beta
to go screamingly fast on OS X. ARE OS X
VERSIONS OF SOFTWARE FASTER THAN OS 9
VERSIONS So far, only a
few: Quake 3 and AppleWorks. The rest run slower.
I'm sure that will change eventually as the Carbon
or Cocoa code matures. WHERE TO
BUY Visit the
Apple
Online Store
to pricing on the new Power Mac G4's. If you want
the GeForce3, it can be added as a BTO
option. Small
Dog also
does "build-to-order" on new Power Macs and doesn't
charge you state sales tax. You can get a stripped
G4/800MP for as little as $2699. They have G4/867's
for as little as $1999 and G4/533MP's for
$1949. Need big, fast,
second drive? I like the new 80G 7200 rpm Seagate
Barracuda ATA IV. It clocked 41MB/sec sustained
read and write on the 800MP. Check newegg.com
for very low pricing. SPEED
TEST RESULTS
from Bare Feats (by CATEGORY) LINKS
to SPEED tests on other web sites HOT
SPEED DEALS DOWNLOADS
that add more SPEED SPEED
UPGRADE
guide ©
2001 Rob
Art Morgan.
Updated October 12th to include concurrent
task test.
by rob
ART morgan,
Bare Feats Mad Scientist
GeF2 = GeForce2 MX
GeF3 = GeForce3
1. Applications like Bryce (and MS Office, MS
Exploder, FileMaker Pro) that are neither G4 nor MP
aware may run faster on the 867 but not that much
faster.
2. The really power hungry applications (like
Cinema 4D, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Quake 3 OX)
that include AltiVec and MP code go like a scalded
dog on dual G4 machines.
3. When running multiple non-MP aware tasks under
OS X, the dual CPU's really shine (see
below).
Gotta Question? Comment?
Email rob-art@barefeats.com