Granted, the processor is only one hardware part of many that enables a Mac to perform faster. Other system bottlenecks include; hard drive (one that many overlook), memory, and graphics card. Then there is the speed of add-on hardware such as the CD-RW or DVD drive and speed of connection ports. Even after all that, you can have the fastest hardware, but if your software is not configured well - performance will elude you. Lets go through this one by one.
Hard drive. Many have stuck with their stock (and usually noisy) 5400rpm drive and wonder why their computer is so slow. A faster 7200rpm drive certainly does wonders. Keep in mind that the ATA interface on Quicksilver's is ATA/66 - roughly meaning 66MB/sec. Given that most 7200rpm drives max out between 35-45MB/sec sustained transfer rate - the ATA/66 is fast enough. You may have an ATA/100 (or above) drive, but connecting it to a PCI ATA/133 card isn't going to make that drive transfer faster. If you want better hard drive IO performance you are going to have to go ATA serial or SCSI. I personally got a Adaptec 39160 64 bit SCSI card and connected up two 10Krpm (quiet and cool) SCSI drives. I'm happy to report that I'm getting a transfer rate of between 115-130MB/sec from a boot-able RAID - nice.
Memory (RAM). Depending on how you use your computer, more memory can certainly speed things up. 512MB is considered the absolute minimum for running Mac OS X - sure, you can run it on less but you will definitely suffer a performance hit. If you like to have many applications open at the same time and switch between them - more than 512MB is desirable. Having between 1GB and 1.5GB of RAM is very healthy - and many have been surprised at how having "enough" RAM increases performance. Using CL2 (over the more standard CL3) RAM can yield a 5-8% increase in RAM performance. It's small, but you'd be surprised at how you notice little things like that. When I switched from 1GB of CL3 RAM to 1.5GB of CL2 RAM my computer was suddenly noticeably "snapper". And programs like Photoshop really started to fly.
Graphics card. These days we are starting to consider the graphics card as a second processor. Think about it, there is an enormous amount of processing work that has to occur in order to display the visual material of modern interfaces and GUI rich operating systems such as Mac OS X. Now, with the introduction of "Quartz" - this is even more so. A fast, powerful graphics card slotted into that AGP slot can do wonders. I replaced the stock nVIDIA Geforce 2 with an ATI 8500 Radeon 64MB. With double the VRAM and the graphics processor and memory operating at nearly twice the speed (mine clocked at 300/300) - it makes using my Quicksilver much more of a pleasure. Everything loads a lot quicker and graphic intensive applications don't choke...
After those hardware items have been attended to, adding a faster optical drive and adding connection PCI cards such as USB 2.0 can be of benefit. Both of what I have done. As you can see from a hardware perspective there isn't much left to tinker with besides the CPU. (I"m planning to eventually pop in a dual CPU upgrade - but unfortunately I'm not made of money!) I love my Quicksilver and over this last weekend have performed cooling enhancements/mods including a opening up air holes, installing a fan controller, and more efficient fans. I'm happy to report that my Quicksilver is much quieter and the temperature inside the case never gets over 30C anymore.
In terms of keeping Mac OS X in order - I back up all of my working files on to another drive and re-install Mac OS X on the boot-able RAID every 4-6 months. This ensures that the operating system never gets buggy and keeps it mean and lean. Over time you learn not to install everything (except what you need) which keeps the system performing faster and more effortlessly. I routinely run cleaning utilities such as Disk Utility, Mac-Janitor, Panther Cache Cleaner (yes, haven't got to Tiger just yet...), and TechTool Pro. Regardless of whether your hardware is up to scratch or not, a poorly segmented hard drive and bloated operating system will severely impact on performance. Furthermore, it has become a well known fact that OS X gets faster with each 'major' release, but gets slower with every 'minor' (point) update. Keeping your operating system clean and functional has always been part and parcel of the Macintosh experience. Even with older OS systems such as mac OS 9 - if you didn't keep things clean it wouldn't just get slower, it would "crash". Thankfully we are better off now.
I'm very happy to help people get the most out of their Mac's, however I did originally create this thread to obtain information specific to overclocking a G4 867mhz - and I'm thinking that we might have got a little bit off topic. Yes, as discussed above, many factors influence a machine's performance. And in my case there is nothing else hindering the Quicksilver other than the CPU. The moral of this story is that if other hardware or your software configuration is not operating as well as it could - NO overclock is a substitute.
> I want to know if anybody out there has successfully overclocked their G4 867mhz to 1ghz?
> Also, is there a utility to downclock the L3 cache in Mac OS X?
(See original post as to why I would want to do this...)
