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Dual G4@ 540 or single G4 1GHz?
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2004
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I'm primarily going to be using my system for Garageband and I was wondering what CPU setup will give the best performance: a Dual 450 OCed to 540 (already using) or a Powerlogix 1GHz single w/ 2meg L3 cache (can get cheap).
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: LV
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I'm not sure if Garageband is multiple processor aware, but if so, 2 540 Mhz CPUs is goign to be pretty close to a single 1 Ghz with 2 MB L3 cache. Your original CPUs have 1 MB of L2 cache, so I would think the CPU upgrade would only be beneficial if you wanted to run applications that can't utilize two processors.
But regardless of 2x 540 Mhz, or one 1 Ghz G4 CPU, you might still be disappointed with Garageband. You won't be able to do much in real-time.
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Macbook 1.83 Ghz CD, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB HD, OS 10.6.2
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Downtown Austin, TX
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I would stick with what you have. It wouldn't make sense sinking any more money into a G4 at the moment, especially if it isn't much better than what you've got.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Yeah, I've been looking around for the last few days and can't seem to get any real info if Garageband is dual capable or not. But the OS seems to load things pretty evenly on its own. I haven't really gotten a chance to play around with GB yet (I'm still trying to get my video card flashed properly to just use the system normally) to see if it does load both CPUs.
In any case, my recordings would be pretty basic stuff normally 6 tracks at most.
I should also mention, the system is maxed with 2gigs of RAM and a 120gig 7200RPM 8meg cache HD, so right now, the CPU would be the biggest bottleneck.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sydney, Australia
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It isn't up to the app, under OSX, the processes that make up the app (and everything else going on) are spread out across the CPUs.
Check out activity monitor to see what is going on.
But a 1GHz single CPU will be faster for nearly everything. Benchmarks and experience bear this out. 
You could also add a second HDD (for a scratch drive), and maybe get a core graphics video card (to speed up the GUI).
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Power Mac G4 Digital Audio 533MHz 1.5GiB RAM, 2x 80Gb ATA HDDs, 320Gb SATA HDD, Radeon 9650 256MiB, Airport Extreme compatible PCI card, Zip 250, Pioneer 110, Firewire DVD burner, 21" CRT, Harmon Kardon Apple Pro Speakers, OS X 10.4.6
Powerbook Pismo G3 400MHz, 768MiB RAM, 80Gb HDD, AirPort Extreme PC Card, Bluetooth 1.1, DVD-ROM, OS X 10.4.6, Ubuntu 5.10, MacOS 9.2.2
To buy: RAM for Pismo, CPU upgrades
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Originally Posted by ShazamItsDavish2
...
You could also add a second HDD (for a scratch drive), and maybe get a core graphics video card (to speed up the GUI).
Yeah, I already took care of these two. I put in a second 120gig HD and a flashed ATI 9800 pro.
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