[gioele]

I have a G3/700 iBook and I use it 90% of the time to compile (gcc and g++).
Every app takes ages (from linux kernel to KDE) to compile
Now I am thinking of replacing it with a G4/800 (bloody Apple, make it 1GHz!).

How much speed would I gain?
Can somebody do some benchmark???

[Rickster]

I don't have any actual benchmarks, but I'm pretty sure you'll see a marked improvement on a G4 compared to a G3 of similar clock speed. Up until this summer, my two main machines were a G4/DP500 and an iBook G3/500... with gcc running on only one processor of the dual G4, OmniWeb compiled from clean in about 2/3 to 3/4 the time it takes on the iBook. Of rouce, that also accounts for system bus differences and the like, but I image you'd see a similar improvement between a G3/700 iBook and a G4/800 iBook.

[khufuu]

I'm in that boat right now myself. G3 700 and am thinking of a G4 800.

I haven't done any development yet on my current machine but have been thinking about getting into it.

So far, from the xbench ratings I've been seeing, it would seem that a 20-30% increase should be expected.

I've been hoping to catch someone who has had direct experience with the new vs old machines however.

[Arkham_c]

Since compilation is not going to take advantage of altivec, I suspect the performance advantage would be minimal.

Instead, get a fast desktop (Dual processor G4 or G5) and use XCode's distributed build process to build on both machines in parallel automatically.

[CharlesS]

I'll bet you're using Jaguar currently. While gcc 3.1 was originally available for Jaguar, Apple at one point released the August gcc 3.3 update which updated gcc to version 3.3. However, Project Builder doesn't work with gcc 3.3, so it fell back to gcc 2.95.2.

Gcc 2.95.2 is dog slow.

If you upgrade to Panther and Xcode, you will find that you are suddenly able to use gcc 3.3. And the speed difference is phenomenal.

[gioele]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
I'll bet you're using Jaguar currently.

Lost I use Linux 2.4 and GCC 3.2.

BTW are there improvements on the PowerPC side of GCC from Apple?

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by gioele:
Lost I use Linux 2.4 and GCC 3.2.

BTW are there improvements on the PowerPC side of GCC from Apple?

Yup, check out the changelog for 3.4