...but I have a question. I saw you mentioned hacking a dual 500 card into your cube. You aren't thinking about putting a GHz chip in a cube, are you? If so, I really hope you plan on adding a bunch of cooling tech to keep it stable.
powerlogix just did a press release today mentioning that they're going to release a 1ghz card, specifically for the cube.
i already have the duet, but would sell it ASAP if the 1ghz would be faster.......
on xlr8 [or was it barefeats?] that the dual 500 sonnet outpaced the G4 933 [or was it the 733?]. But I don't think there's any tests against the 1ghz mpc7455 [?]......
trying to gather some other ideas before I decide on what I should do........
Yeah, I saw that PowerLogix bit just after I posted here. Very interesting.
xlr8 is down, but I would guess that the dual 500 would easily beat the 733 and maybe even the 933 since it's a different chip. I really doubt a dual 500 would match or beat a 1 Ghz, though, because there is an overhead in SMP that makes it so you never really get 100% out of both chips. I'm not an expert on the specifics there, though.
Regardless, apps that aren't threaded very well (like IE and Mozilla, but not OmniWeb) will perform much better on a single faster chip than two slower ones.
If it will fit and cool safely in the cube, I'd say go for the 1 GHz.
As a dual 800 user, I know that I will never, never go back to a single processor machine. That said, I think the 1 GHz would be the better buy. The dual machines run OS X much smoother, but the GHz will certainly run it faster. The OS just wont scale as well when you start opening lots of apps.
<strong>I run a lot of apps at the same time so I don't want single processor machine </strong><hr></blockquote>
Leonis, Leonis, Leonis. . . .
OK, you have two 500Mhz vs one 1GHz, all else equal. So in an ideal world, two instructions will get sent to both chips in the dual 500 system, and they will queue in the 1Ghz system, presuming they're not Altivec stuff that can be bundled and then drop-kicked all at once.
So this group of two instructions should be completed at the same time, on both systems. However, in the real world, there must be electronics to shuffle the instructions for use on both processors, and also electronics to recombine everything. So there is a multiprocessor loss of about 20% for a two processor system.
The single processor at twice the GHz will always be faster on an OS with smart multitasking and multithreading, such as OS X. Even if you run a lot of apps at once, the 1GHz will outperform the dual system. In a multitasking, multithreaded OS, running a lot of apps at once doesn't warrant a need for a second processor.
Having two processors is good for certain tasks where you want to allow a number of tasks (say two) an amount of headroom. Say you have a server that functions as a render box as well, and you want the render to consume the IO of one chip, while the server functionality has the entire bandwidth and power of the second chip, in case some spikes or heavy usage occur. While this doesn't even give you much in the way of a benefit, since Mac OS X will load balance, sometimes it's advantageous when you're dealing with unexpected spikes.
Again, go with the single proc. Less power consumption and dissipation, too.
Go with the dual. As a web developer I always have a large number of apps running and am switching back and forth and I can tell you that the dual mulitasks much smoother, and they will run close enough to the same speed, in key apps, that you wont notice and X happens to be a key app.
yeah but the powerlogix is based on Appolo processors which have 4 altivec units (1 in each 500 processor of the dual card) and a L3 cache (none in the dual)....Does that matter?
i'm thinking that since powerlogix doesn't have [yet] a dual processor upgrade, that i'll just go ahead & install my sonnet duet.....
& then [of course] the moment i here word that they have a dual coming out [anything higher than the dual 500's], i'll just put back in my stock [450mhz] processor & sell the duet & buy the dual upgrade........
Comments
There is no G6, either
now which one?
...but I have a question. I saw you mentioned hacking a dual 500 card into your cube. You aren't thinking about putting a GHz chip in a cube, are you? If so, I really hope you plan on adding a bunch of cooling tech to keep it stable.
powerlogix just did a press release today mentioning that they're going to release a 1ghz card, specifically for the cube.
i already have the duet, but would sell it ASAP if the 1ghz would be faster.......
on xlr8 [or was it barefeats?] that the dual 500 sonnet outpaced the G4 933 [or was it the 733?]. But I don't think there's any tests against the 1ghz mpc7455 [?]......
trying to gather some other ideas before I decide on what I should do........
[ 06-12-2002: Message edited by: Badtz ]</p>
xlr8 is down, but I would guess that the dual 500 would easily beat the 733 and maybe even the 933 since it's a different chip. I really doubt a dual 500 would match or beat a 1 Ghz, though, because there is an overhead in SMP that makes it so you never really get 100% out of both chips. I'm not an expert on the specifics there, though.
Regardless, apps that aren't threaded very well (like IE and Mozilla, but not OmniWeb) will perform much better on a single faster chip than two slower ones.
If it will fit and cool safely in the cube, I'd say go for the 1 GHz.
[ 06-12-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
since os x is multi-threaded, shouldn't it feel smoother using a dual setup than a single processor [even though it's higher]?
multiple open apps become slower with single processor?
i'm wondering if the big jump in processor speed can overtake a lower processor's dual-ness
<strong>I run a lot of apps at the same time so I don't want single processor machine </strong><hr></blockquote>
Leonis, Leonis, Leonis. . . .
OK, you have two 500Mhz vs one 1GHz, all else equal. So in an ideal world, two instructions will get sent to both chips in the dual 500 system, and they will queue in the 1Ghz system, presuming they're not Altivec stuff that can be bundled and then drop-kicked all at once.
So this group of two instructions should be completed at the same time, on both systems. However, in the real world, there must be electronics to shuffle the instructions for use on both processors, and also electronics to recombine everything. So there is a multiprocessor loss of about 20% for a two processor system.
The single processor at twice the GHz will always be faster on an OS with smart multitasking and multithreading, such as OS X. Even if you run a lot of apps at once, the 1GHz will outperform the dual system. In a multitasking, multithreaded OS, running a lot of apps at once doesn't warrant a need for a second processor.
Having two processors is good for certain tasks where you want to allow a number of tasks (say two) an amount of headroom. Say you have a server that functions as a render box as well, and you want the render to consume the IO of one chip, while the server functionality has the entire bandwidth and power of the second chip, in case some spikes or heavy usage occur. While this doesn't even give you much in the way of a benefit, since Mac OS X will load balance, sometimes it's advantageous when you're dealing with unexpected spikes.
Again, go with the single proc. Less power consumption and dissipation, too.
i'm thinking that since powerlogix doesn't have [yet] a dual processor upgrade, that i'll just go ahead & install my sonnet duet.....
& then [of course] the moment i here word that they have a dual coming out [anything higher than the dual 500's], i'll just put back in my stock [450mhz] processor & sell the duet & buy the dual upgrade........
*woo*
thats the master plan!