Would a 400Mhz G3 upgrade be faster than the Dual 200Mhz 604e in my 9600? With the G3 I would only be able to put 384MB of ram in, instead of the 640 I'll have if i just keep the Dual. Haven't purchased ram yet.
From a technical standpoint, the G3 would be faster...
... but not a lot.
I doubt you would be able to see much difference ....
Opinion: ... why not just go out and buy a used newer machine ? It shouldn't cost muchmore than an upgrade card to get your hands on an old G3 tower or even a slow G4 tower ! ... either of these approaches would give you a NOTICEABLE speed bump and still let you use more RAM if you need that.
Then again.... I guarantee you'd see an improvement if you got a G5 !!!
It would be way faster as the second CPU is not used by anything.
I upgraded a 7600/200 (with 512K L2) and a G3/350 is much faster and having a fast graphical card like you have will make it even better
384 MB is plenty for OS 9 and it works well with OS X as well. Just the cheapest G4/400/512 for 96 dollars is plenty. Spending 4 times that on a G4/800 will not give that much speed as the 50 MHz bus is a limitation. Go for the G3!
So 9 doesn't support multi processors? I guess I don't need alot of speed, this computer is going to be used for Music Mastering (paper and notes, sheet music writing). Mass printing. Typing, and probably a few old games for when I have nothing else to do. I guess a proc upgrade isn't really worth it. I have a MDD downstairs with a couple of other macs and a pc. I might put X on this machine. Depends how fast it's going to run...
9 never really took advantage of multiple CPUs. Back in the day, we had a few MP 9500s in at Turner for the sole purpose of using as After Effects workstations. AE supported MP, but really, that was about it.
The g3 is plenty faster than a 604e. The difference between a 400MHz G3 and a 200MHz 604e is terribly noticeable. Even assuming the OS supported multiple CPUs, you would be happier with the G3.
If I use the hack to use OS X on the older 604e processors, which X take advantage of both? I'm thinking of upgrading to a G4 700. I know the small 50Mhz bus is just slowing everything up, but when I try to sell it, it looks better... I wish they had dual upgrades for the 9600.
Comments
... but not a lot.
I doubt you would be able to see much difference ....
Opinion: ... why not just go out and buy a used newer machine ? It shouldn't cost muchmore than an upgrade card to get your hands on an old G3 tower or even a slow G4 tower ! ... either of these approaches would give you a NOTICEABLE speed bump and still let you use more RAM if you need that.
Then again.... I guarantee you'd see an improvement if you got a G5 !!!
I upgraded a 7600/200 (with 512K L2) and a G3/350 is much faster and having a fast graphical card like you have will make it even better
384 MB is plenty for OS 9 and it works well with OS X as well. Just the cheapest G4/400/512 for 96 dollars is plenty. Spending 4 times that on a G4/800 will not give that much speed as the 50 MHz bus is a limitation. Go for the G3!
The g3 is plenty faster than a 604e. The difference between a 400MHz G3 and a 200MHz 604e is terribly noticeable. Even assuming the OS supported multiple CPUs, you would be happier with the G3.
There are plenty of tests at xlr8yourmac.com and barefeats.com to look thorugh.
If you upgrade to X that will not support dual 604 CPUs. I do not know if there are any Linux distributions that support dual 604s?
Go for a chep G3 and be happy
No there is nothing to make OS 9 support dual CPUs. That would require a more or less total rewrite of the OS, and that will never happen.
Are there even any companies still in the business of cpu upgrades?
Giga Design
PowerLogix
Sonnet
OWC
Mostly G4 stuff but there are older ones all the way back to a 33 MHz 68040 upgrade for the LC or IIsi