[chatam]

Being the proud owner of a 733 G4 Quicksilver, the cheap one, with no Level 3 cache at all, and tempted to increase the RAM from the actual 768 Mb to 1536 Mb to get some extra speed under X, I'm wandering whether the exercise may turn out as pointless, given the above cache limitations.

Opinions and suggestions very welcome.

[Luca Rescigno]

I don't think they have a whole lot to do with each other as far as performance is concerned. If you are using programs that use a lot of memory, then increasing the RAM will help, whether you have L3 cache or not. If you are just using iChat, web browsing, checking email, listening to music, etc, I don't think increasing your RAM past 768 MB will help a whole lot.

[BrunoBruin]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
I don't think increasing your RAM past 768 MB will help a whole lot.

I agree, once you get past 768, there is a law of diminishing returns with RAM, unless you're working with huge files or data sets. You might consider a new hard drive. I think those 733MHz Quicksilvers shipped with a 5400rpm drive. A faster drive with some cache might speed things up, especially startup and application launching.

A processor upgrade (say, 1.2GHz with 2MB of L3 cache) would breathe some life into your Mac, but you're talking about a bigger investment.

[chatam]

My idea is to obtain a boost in using applications such as Cleaner for movie processing and Indesign for desktop publishing.
But also with Garage Band and its frequent warning messages.