Best dual processor G4???

Howdy all...
I'm looking to buy a used G4, and I'm wondering which variation(s) to look for, or if there are any to avoid.
I'm upgrading on a budget, from a Biege 333mhz G3MT. I'll be photo processing in Photoshop, doing graphic work in Illustrator, and all the usual e-mail/web stuff too. I see a number of ebay auctions that look reasonable...but I'm not to familiar with the G4 models. I'd love to snag a new G5...but the budget says no way.
Thanks for any advice.
Kenn
Biege 333mh G3 MT, PB3400 Mac OS 9.1.x

The Adobe products are fine with Panther. That is what I use.
For quite a while in 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and part of 10.3 I was using Illustrator 8 and Photoshop 5.5 in Classic. Last spring I upgraded to the Creative Suite which is X only. They all worked fine. If you work with fonts then you are going to be in for some education so please read Kurt Lang's masterpiece about fonts with X.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=122011&tstart=0
It is very easy to get yourself messed up with fonts. For me the transition was fairly painless since I had been using Font Reserve in 9 and they were very good about updating for X. Faster than Extensis(Suitcase) who bought them. They are both owned by Extensis now.
When I was migrating to X I frequently booted into 9 because it was familiar. This last year I booted into 9 one time. I still keep a few old macs for running peripherals that don't play well with X but my daily work mac is the one on my profile below.
In general, the AGP macs are the most upgradeable macs out there. While Apple was in it's funk with new products not many changes were made and it was easy for cpu upgrades to address a lot of macs. Starting with the mirror doors motherboards were frequently changed and as an engineer at Giga Design told me, they were pretty fast to begin with. So to answer your question, yes, in general single processor macs should be able to take a dual processor upgrade. If you purchase one of the older cpu upgrades it may be that they were intended for Quicksilvers that were dual to start with but most of the newer upgrades have overcome that issue.
But, and I'm going to make an assumption here, you don't impress me as a tinkerer on computers. By that I mean, getting a medium speed upgrade, use it for a few months, sell it for a faster card for a few months, sell that one, get a dual, etc.. I would get a fairly fast upgrade (say 1gz. or so) get used to X and save your money for a newer mac. It will have built in everything, faster bus (which you can't upgrade), faster memory, etc.
I started out using X on an old 9600 with a single g4 450 upgrade card. It worked fine through 10.2. The gui of X is a processor hog so resizing windows, opening a folder, and new windows was slow but it did Photoshop filters was just as fast in X as it was in 9. It just felt slow. I have had my dual 867 for 2 years and could sell it for 2/3 of what I paid for it.
Go middle of the road on the upgrades (which is cheaper), and when it is unbearably slow, get a newer mac. That's what I would do.

Similar Messages

Dual Processor Multi Core Parrell Processing Question

Hey Guys
I'm looking for a little clarification on an issue with parrell
processing in LabView. If I have a Dual Processor machine with two 4 core CPU's
will be able to access all 8 cores in the LabView environment. I'm presuming it
can use any cores the operating system can see?
Thanks for the help,
Tom
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Norbert B wrote:
it is the job of the OS that applications can use all cores if necessarry. So for the application itself, it should make no difference if the system (in hardware) is MultiCPU, MultiCore or even simply HyperThread.....
Norbert
Its true, but I would like to add my 5 cents here.
Lets say, if you have single loop like
while (true){
//do something
then OS will get no chance to run it in multiple threads. So, you will get max 12,5% CPU load at 8 cores PC or 50% max on dual core PC.
I have dual core PC right now, and lets check it:
So, as we can see - 50% CPU load reached (one core loaded more, but its another story).
Well, if we will use two while loops, then we will get 100 % load:
Of course, if you will need to load all 8 cores, then you should have 8 parallel loops.
Compare BD above with the following:
We have two Array minmax functions, and they independend, but we have 50% only.
Well, you can get also 100% CPU utulization withing single while loop. In th example below you have two SubVI, which called in the same loop:
We have here 100 %. Important, that these VIs should be reenterant!
See what happened if they not reeenterant:
Now a little bit about Vision. Behing of most of the Vision SubVIs are DLL calls. Some Vision functions already optimized for multicore execution. For example, convolution:
On the BD above we have single loop with one SubVI, but both cores are used (because convolute itself already optimized for multi core).
Remember, that not all Vision functions optimized yet. For, example, LowPass still single-threaded (compare this BD with BD above):
Sure, we can utilize multi cores - just perform parallel execution (you have to split image to two parts, then join together and so on):
Remember, that SubVIs should be reeentrant, and all DLL calls should be thred safe (not in UI thread). Also good idea to turn off debugging in such experiments for eliminate additional CPU load.
Another point about 8 cores. As far as I know, LabVIEW (and LabVIEW-based application) will support only 4 cores within one execution system by default (at least prior to LabVIEW 2009). If you need to utulize all 8 cores, then you should add some lines into LabVIEW.ini. Refer to the following thread where you can found more details:
Interpolate 1d slow on 8 core machine
Hope all written above was correct.
Thank for reading and best regards,
Andrey.
Message Edited by Andrey Dmitriev on 11-27-2009 02:50 PM

POwerMac G5 Dual Core vs Dual Processor

Am thinking about upgrading my G4 computers and going to the G5 Powermac. More than likely a dual processor or dual core. What is the difference between the dual processor and dual core? Is there any difference between these re: efficiency and how they work overall?

A "dual processor" refers to two physically distinct and separate chips. A "dual-core" refers to 2 processors on a single chip, often sharing certain resources (eg cache, memory, etc).
As far as I know, the only dual processor G5 Apple currently offers, is the Quad, or 2 dual-cores. The 2 GHz & 2.3 GHz machines, have only a single chip with dual-cores (2 processors on each chip), to the best of my knowledge.
To the best of my knowledge, having separate chips is better whenever possible, than multiple-cores (processors) on a single chip, because multiple cores have to share resources.
However, if you can only have a single chip, multiple-cores (2 processors) are advantages. It won't double your productivity, but should give it least a 40-60% boost. This assumes that the specific software you are running, takes advantage of multiple cores. A lot of software does not take advantage of multiple cores, and having a multiple-core machine is a waste.

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card)

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card).
Things to note:
I have been unable to update firmware on this computer for about a year now. Im not sure why.
I am running a bootleg copy of Windows XP on this computer, I would not like to spend $149 to get Windows 7 if possible.
any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Why don't you take your 'old' MBP into your local Apple Store and have them check out everything that's wrong with it - and I mean everything? Then, when you get an estimate about how much it would cost to get the machine completely repaired, ask about the Apple flat-rate repair pricing?
It's worth a shot - and with what you may save, you can put in the bank for a new MBP.
Clinton

What is causing a PowerMac G5/2.3GHz Dual Processor sudden abrupt shutdowns

Hi all
I am posting in hope that someone out there can help me solve this very puzzling problem.
The machine: A PowerMac dual processor G5/2.3GHz (early 2005). 1.5G RAM. 250G HD. SuperDrive. Radeon 9650.
The problem: When under some load, this machine will suddenly and abruptly shutdown as though someone pulled the power cord. There is no warning. Just a soft click, and it powers off. The machine can be manually restarted after the sudden shutdown with no problems.
This problem is very replicable. (eg go to a particular website, play an embedded video, and boom, the machine shutsdown. Each and every time.) It was replicated at an Apple Store and at two Apple Authorized Service Providers.
System.log said "PMU forced shutdown, cause = -122"
Before the sudden shutdown, the machine seemed to be operating normally. The fans did not noticeably speed up. Activity Monitor showed no more than 50% CPU activity for each CPU. Temperature on both CPU was around at 70C before the sudden shutdown. Temperature and activity on both CPU goes up and down in tendem.
If I use the Energy Saver system preference to change "Processor performance" to "Reduced", the problem goes away. (As measured by going to the same website and playing the same video. Even playing 5 videos simultaneously did not cause a sudden shutdown.)
What have I done #1: I have reformat the hard drive with a 7-pass security wipe, followed by a clean-install of Tiger which was then brought up-to-date using Software Update. I then installed Safari 4.0.3. No other software is on the machine except Tiger and Safari. (Later installed Hardware Monitor to get me a handle on the temperatures.) The problem persisted.
What have I done #2: I then installed a new PRAM battery and reset PMU using the switch on the motherboard. Resetting the PMU also resetted the PRAM. The problem persisted.
What have I done #3: I then took the machine to an Apple Store. They found that they can replicate the problem easily. But, after 3 days of running the Apple Service Diagnostic, the diagnostic software didn't find any problem. They also did a thermal re-calibration. That didn't help either. Without an error code from the diagnostic software, the only "solution" the Apple Genius offered was to start swapping CPU, power supply and mother board at my expense. And even then, he has no idea which component to start swapping first. (Two independent Apple Authorized Service Providers offered the same non-diagnosis and roughly the same "solution".)
Has anyone encountered such a problem before? What was the solution?
How about an educated guess as to what's wrong?
I want to, if possible, and if reasonable, repair this machine.
Thanks in advance.
Lara

This sounds almost exactly like the problem I have. My G5 is also an Early 05 2.3G. I tried every tip I found on the forums from UPS vs. wall socket to stock RAM vs. 3rd party to booting from external HDs, etc.. I currently have 10.5.8 on it and it's running using the "Reduced" processor setting in Energy Saver prefs.
I have also made a trip to The Apple Store where the AS folks ran their diagnostics but were usable to replicate my problem. I understand they "can't fix it if it ain't broke".
Aside from the "Reduced" setting work-around has ANYONE actually solved this problem definitively? Although I have no interest in spending $1000 to fix this, I can't imagine disposing of it on Ebay.
Assuming this is a hardware issue, this would mark the first insurmountable failure of any of the 10 or so Macs I have owned.
Anyone? Anyone?

Why can't I download 10.4 for my G4 Dual Processor?

I have an older G4 500 mHz Dual Processor Mac and two other macs (iMac & new MacBook Pro). I just purchased Adobe CreativeSuites3 and realized I can't install on my oldest Mac without upgrading the System software. I want to have the same version of CS on all Macs. I looked into upgrading to Leopard and discovered it won't work with my G4. So I went to upgrade from 10.3.9 to 10.4 and it appears that Apple will no longer sell a new version of 10.4! Am I looking in the wrong place? Will my G4 successfully run 10.4? How do I purchase a copy of it?

Tiger is available at many online retailers. Price Grabber has several listed. Make sure to get the full retail version.
Personally, I would stay away from E-Bay. A lot of machine specific versions get sold there, and unless you know what you are looking for, you'll end up with a disk that doesn't even work on your Mac.
Cheers! DALE

CHUD on a dual processor MDD running Leopard (10.5.8)

I finally got around to installing CHUD today and am wondering if some of you folks who have used it for a while might have some easy answers to a few questions.
I first tried version 3.5.2. It installed, but I couldn't adjust any of the settings. I then read on japamac's site that some MDD's could use 4.4.4. I installed that version and it does work (In fact, I'm posting this with one processor tied behind my back). However, there does not seem to be an option for nap mode.
Also, after I toggle between single an dual processor mode a few times, performance in dual mode seems to take a big hit. A restart solves the problem, but I'm wondering if this is normal.
Is there any way to get nap mode to work in a dual cpu MDD running 10.5.8?
Is there any way to get it to stay in single CPU mode when it wakes from sleep?
I read through the discussions at xlr8yourmac before posting this. It appears that some people have been able to get nap mode to work under Leopard, but they are not always careful to mention exactly which version of Leopard and CHUD they are using.

Hi-
When installing CHUD, it is also necessary to run CHUD remover to deinstall previous installations.
If not deinstalled, odd stuff happens.
3.5.2 is the one for dual processors.
Other versions have mixed dual processor support.
This is one of the claims that 4.4.4 works, but I have lingering doubts
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5974655&#5974655
I may need to edit my blog page.....
It takes a script for automatic Nap enabling in a dual processor machine with 3.5.2.
See this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9030378&#9030378

Dual processor not showing up in Activity Monitor

I have a dual processor G5 PowerPC at work and when I look at the CPU Activity Monitor it shows me the activity on both processors. My Mac Pro at home is also a dual processor but when I look at the activity monitor it only shows one processor thread. Is this normal or is there something wrong with my Mac Pro? Anyone else notice this as well?

Hi KSStudio. A few questions to clarify.
1. Is this a dual or single cpu machine?
2. How many cores per machine?
Check it out...
Assuming you have a dual cpu (8 core) 2009 mac pro, when you use activity monitor choose > Window > CPU Usage. You should see a floating window with 16 panes. (8 panes if you have a single processor/4 core model) Under normal loads using 10.5 you should see some activity in all 16 panes. Under normal loads using 10.6 you should see activity in odd numbered panes. You will see activity in even numbered panes when the load is high. This is normal and due to Snow Leopard's improved utilization of processor technology.
Hope this helps.
--Jesse

What is the best word processor for mac? Closest to office?

What is the best word processor for mac? Closest to office?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
On OS X, you have some good word processors:
- Microsoft Word for Mac. Included in Office for Mac, it's the best option if you are going to use Word documents with your Mac > http://www.microsoft.com/mac
- Pages. This iWork app is similar to Microsoft Word because both are word processors. This is a good app, too, that you can get from the Mac App Store > http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/
- LibreOffice. This free suite allows you to do everything that you can do with paid suites but with a free one. It's also open-source > http://www.libreoffice.org
You can read reviews of all of them in the Internet, but I personally prefer Pages. If you want something closest to Microsoft Word for PC, obviously the best option is Microsoft Word for your Mac

Mac Mini Dual Processor?

I was told by a salesman at the guitar center that I could hook my mac mini G4 to a powermac G5 to boost the speed a bit. I don't really know how I'd do that, but my question is, if that's possible could I hook up a Mac MIni G4 to another one of the same speed and make that a dual processor set up...??
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.3.9)

To my knowledge, there is (unfortunately) nothing as simple as that.
Still It should be "doable" to connect two macs to share their capabilities, but, due to the power used to run the process, you certainly won't end up with the power and ease of use of a dual processor machine...

What's the deal with dual processors???

The whole dual processor thing has been bugging me for some time now. If I have a dual 500mhz processor, is it the same as a 1.0ghz processor, worse than one, better than one?! Are there other factors at play? In my limited scope, if you had a dual 500, 533, whatever, it would be the same as a single 1.0ghz - and yet these dual processors are priced much cheaper. I really am at a loss as to how computers do their processing, and how to compare single processor G4's and dual processor G4's when making a purchase.
Insight would be greatly appreciated!

And you shouldn't forget, the future is multiprocessors. There is a limit to miniturization, and the solution seems to be multiplication. So operating systems and applications are increasingly going to be multiprocessor-aware. Maybe a perfect example is the upcoming MacOS release, Snowleopard. Apparently, there will be almost no cosmetic changes. The changes will essentially be 'under-the-hood'. And you can bet, that some of those changes will be increased efficiency with respect to multiple processors.
So what's the deal with airplane peanu...err, dual processors?
The advantage, theoretically is, having more workers to do the work. Your 1ghz processor is like a worker who can lift 100kg, and your 500mhz are like workers who can lift 50kg each.
So where's the advantage? If you have a farm with 40 kg hay bales in the field that you need to pick up, your better off with two workers than one right? Or 8 workers in the case of a 8-core MacPro. So an multiprocessor-aware operating system, doles out the work much more efficiently, spreading the tasks around, or spreading a single task around in pieces (if the app is so written).
You've heard of render farms? The multiple computers used to render the frames of animated movies? Its the same principle. Having computer 1 render the first 1000 frames and computer 2 the next, the project gets done within a lifetime. If they had had only one computer, ToyStory would still not be finished.
Its the future. Just wait till the end of this year for example. Nehalem chips will be sporting even more processors.
Try these;
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1619399&tstart=0
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070605-intel-updates-compilers-for-multic ore-era.html
Nehalem; http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12130

Dual core 2.3 or dual processor 2.5 for FCP Studio 5?

I'm on the fence whether to buy a dual core 2.3 with a 7800GT card or a refurbished dual processor 2.5 with a x800 card. The saleman today was pushing the 2.5 b/c he said it was faster, though he said the x800 would run around 20% slower than the 7800GT. I had actually read that if anything the dual core 2.3 was faster. I've been looking all around (including barefeats.com) but can't seem to find much to confirm the graphics card statement. Thought I had read in a post here that they were also about the same speed. Is he right about this?
Untimately, I'm looking for something to run FCP 5 Studio and things like Boris Red and Combustion with. With the price difference being about $380 b/t the two options, which one would be faster and the better bet?
Thanks ahead of time for any help!

FCP doesn't care about your card. Much. Not now anyway, we have no idea what will happen in the next rev but the trend is toward offloading much of the work to the OS and GPU.
Buy what you can afford and buy what you think you need to make money now. You can always upgrade in 18 months when the second generation of the Intel machines are likely to be shipping.
Are you using Motion or Aperture? Different criteria. Dunno 'bout no Combustion, never been using it.
bogiesan

Is it manitory to have an airport antenna or can you use it without the antenna (powermac g5 dual processor 10.4.11)

Is it manitory to have an airport antenna or can you use it without the antenna (powermac g5 dual processor 10.4.11)

On the PowerMac G4 I had it had to be connected, but not sure about the model you have. My guess would be yes due to shielding in the case, but would rather wait and hear from someone else.

How to be sure g5 is dual processor

How can I be sure my G5 is a dual processor 2.7 or 2.8ghz? That's how it was advertised when I bought it, but in about this mac this is what shows:
powermac G5, 9.1
power pc G5 3.0
cpus 1
cpu speed 1.8ghz
l2 cache per cpu 512mb
memory 3gb
bus speed 600mgz
boot rom version 5.2.2f2
help!
thanks

You are probably not going to be pleased by the true specs on the machine, but here are two sources:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP67
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/stats/powermac_g5_1.8_2.html
That machine would be considerably slower than either the 2.3 or 2.7 dual processor models in many tasks.
You can also check out the configuration label which is located inside the side panel directly below the air deflector.
Representing the machine as the any dual processor model is clearly misrepresentation.

How can you tell? dual core or dual processor

I recently purchased a G-5.... SUPER!!!!
How do I know if my new machine comes with a dual core processor
or is it a dual processor?

The easiest way is to go to the Apple support site and put in your serial number where it says "About your Apple Product". If it states Power Mac G5 (Late 2005), then it is a dual core model.

Best dual processor G4???

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for