G3 vs G4 Interface performance in Tiger

S

Sapharage

Registered
Ok. I know this has been asked before but I can't find any info on it. I've just recently made the switch from PC to MAC. My notebook is a G3 600 - 384mb of ram - 30gb HD etc....The interface of OS X Tiger seems a little sluggish at times especially when compard to OS 9.2. Now, I don't mind this on my notebook but I'm wanting a better desktop but I don't plan on spending over $400 for it. I don't play any computers games I just check my e-mail, surf the web, chat on MSN, and unload pics from my digital camera. So in this scenario would i see a faster interface by using say a G4 450-500mhz or a G3 600-900? I've also heard that the amount of VRAM on your video card has an impact on the interface of OS X. Any thoughts/suggestions are welcome. Like I said I just recently made the "switch" so I really don't know much about the processors and such. Thanks very much for all the help. BytheWay I'm VERY glad that I made the switch to MAC. :)
 
If you ever want speed mark tests done on all Macs in different situations (and the things that connect to Macs) then most always search BareFeats first.

Now the problem you have is you are using a Mac with a processor that is three Mac generations back so you have to think about the time difference. The G3 processor dates back to the late to mid 90's, it will not be a speed demon with todays programs. Also OS X is very RAM hungry, especially with older Macs. If you want OS x speed get one of the new Mac minis. You will be totally blown away compared to that tired old G3.
 
There is a number of things that can effect the interface of Mac OS X.

As has been pointed out, RAM always helps (on any system). If you are using an iBook G3/600 with 10.4 I would highly suggest upgrading to the max for that system (640 MB).

As for the desktop system and what effects Mac OS X's interface... it comes down to a combination of factors. Apple hands off much of the interface processing to video cards to free up main processor usage for other tasks. On systems with slower, older video cards some of this gets passed back to the main processor. In those cases (strictly on interface performance) a G4 450-500 MHz would be better than a G3 600-900 MHz because Quartz makes use of Altivec on the G4.

Still, as we are talking about a desktop, a good video card can really make a big difference.

I have an old Beige G3 (originally with a G3 at 266 MHz) which I installed 10.3.9 on. I had an ATI Radeon 7000 (with 32 MB of VRAM) in it and Mac OS X ran very nicely... :rolleyes: nothing else did, but Mac OS X was fine from an interface stand point.

When I was finishing off the upgrades to this system, I picked a G4 at 533 MHz over a G3 at 1.0 GHz because I knew that I would be making use of the Altivec processing a lot. If I was going to use my system like you are planning on using yours, I would have gone with a G3 at 1.0 or 1.1 GHz because it doesn't sound like you would get that much from Altivec but would benefit more from the higher clock speed (for non-Altivec tasks, the G3 and G4 are about the same speed at the same clock rate... and the current G3 upgrades are actually faster than most the G4 upgrades because the L2 cache is on the chip running at the processor speed).
 
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