[jchen]

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...WCME4121400L2S

Just like the title says, I was wondering whether such an upgrade would be noticeable and worth it. I've tried to convince my dad to buy a G5 (the G4/500 is becoming rather hoggish) but this will have to be the 2nd best option. So what say you? He primarily uses Word, IE, Photoshop, etc. How important is having a dual processor in OS X and if so, will going to a single processor hurt in despite having such a higher clock speed?

[Axo1ot1]

just wait 'till ya pops wants to buy a G5

[Luca Rescigno]

Moving to a G5 would probably be better overall - it's a lot more expensive, but the dual G4 could be sold for about $600, and you'd be getting all new components, all good by today's standards. An older G4 would require multiple upgrades to bring up to reasonable levels. A faster processor, a better graphics card, more RAM, a larger hard drive, and a faster and more versatile optical drive. Those things add up.

However, if you want to go with the processor upgrade, it will show a significant performance boost. I have a dual 450 and it's a bit slower than my brother's single 867. Dual processors certainly help, but they're outweighed by such a great jump in clock speed. If you're pressed for cash, go for the processor upgrade.

First, though, check the graphics card. Is it the original Rage 128? If so, ditch it and get a Radeon Mac Edition ($50 on eBay). That card is still old and fairly slow, but it's Quartz Extreme supported and it'll show a huge performance boost over the Rage 128, for far less money than the processor upgrade. Also, if you don't have at least 512 MB of RAM, buy more RAM to raise it up to that level.

[Macola]

If you do go with the upgrade, send me a PM...I may be interested in taking the dual 500 off your hands

[King Chung Huang]

I upgraded my Dual G4/450 to a Single G4/1300 last month. Overall "snappiness" didn't feel much different, but I can definitely see the difference in processor intensive tasks like rendering in FCP and compressing in Cleaner.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
Moving to a G5 would probably be better overall

Thats nice and all, but after the trade in value of $135 that OWC would give him for his CPU, the cost for him on that 1.4 would be $295.

There is quite a bit more money involved with going out and grabbing a G5. And considering that the 1.6 G5 is a dog, and slower than the Dual 1.25 G4, and most likely not a whole lot faster than a 1.4 single processor G4...

I just think it is funny that so many people on this site are anti-upgrade, almost as if keeping your machine for a while, customizing it to your likeing and veering from the stock configuration is blasphemous or something.

There is nothing wrong with a G4 upgrade, and I would recommend it. In fact, I will probably be buying that 1.467GHz upgrade myself for my QuickSilver. It may be a lot of money for a jump from a 933, but once the $200+ I could get for my card on eBay is taken into account, it certainly seems like an appealing way to allow my QuickSilver to kick around those Single 1.25 MDD G4s...

[Lateralus]

Oh, and to answer your question: You will see a substantial jump in performance over your Duals with the 1.4, especially in tasks that are not optomized for dual processing.

Also, in addition to the massive raw clock speed jump you would get by going with the upgrade, remember that you would also be gaining 2MBs of L3 cache, which is a very significant gain in and of itself. More over, the upgrade is based around the 7455B variant of the G4, which offers substantial arcitectural improvements over 7400 G4 (which your current 450s are).

[mac freak]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
More over, the upgrade is based around the 7455B variant of the G4, which offers substantial arcitectural improvements over 7400 G4 (which your current 450s are).

Though IIRC, the 7400s are faster per-MHz than later G4s (with their extended pipelines).

[Eriamjh]

If you have a ton of money invested in RAM, airport, and HDs, get an upgrade.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Though IIRC, the 7400s are faster per-MHz than later G4s (with their extended pipelines).

Any pipeline advantage that the 7400 and 7410 may have had (though I do not recall them having one) are overshadowed by the fact that the 7450 brought the following advantages to the table.

1) Four AltiVec units, vs two in the 7400 and 7410.
2) Four Integer Units, vs two in the 7400 and 7410
3) 36bit addressing capability (Capable of addressing upwards of 64GBs of RAM)
4) On-die L2 cache using a 256bit bus to communicate with the CPU, which is far faster than the previous L2 implemintation.

There is a reason that many call the 7450 and all versions produced thereafter the G4e, G4+ or even the G4.5.