Question on a G4 800

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Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I just bought a refurbished G4 pm 800mhz from Small Dog. Picked it up for $1,300.00. It will be replacing my B/W G3 400mhz and will hopefully hold me over until the G5, Power 4 or whatever comes forth whenever. My question is how the new box will compare performance-wise with the old. My G3 has 1mb of L2 cache- the G4 has 256 on chip L2 cache and no L3 cache like the 933 & dual 1-ghz. Is that a major thing? I use my mac mainly for buisness record keeping,WP and spreadsheet stuff but I do like to play the latest games and play with Photoshop when I have a chance and that is where I push it and need the performance.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    You'll be fine. Is that a single or dual processor 800? Dual is better than single obviously, especially in terms of OS X and Photoshop. In any case I'm sure it will suit your needs very well.
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  • Reply 2 of 5
    [quote]Originally posted by Xaqtly:

    <strong>You'll be fine. Is that a single or dual processor 800? Dual is better than single obviously, especially in terms of OS X and Photoshop. In any case I'm sure it will suit your needs very well.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    It's a single processor. I was just a little concerned about the lack of the L3 cache. Like I said, my g3 has a much larger L2 cache than the g4. But maybe the speedier proc., increased throuhgput etc. more than make up for that. Can an L3 cache be added? Probably not.
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  • Reply 3 of 5
    I wouldn't worry about it. the 800 MHz G4 will be more than just a little bit faster than your G3 is.
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  • Reply 4 of 5
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    the l2 cache on the G4 is backside cache which runs faster then the regular L2 cache on the G3 so having 256 wont make a difference as it can be accessed much faster then the 1MB of L2 on the G3
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  • Reply 5 of 5
    What is the L1 cache really used for? Is it really needed. If so, how come it's such a small amount.
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