>You have a 400mhz G3, and this would be a 500mhz G4. That is a 25% clock
>rate increase. You can expect (because you are plugging it into an older
>architecture) around a 20% speed increase across the board when you factor
>in the limitations of your drive/bus speeds and video card.
Hmm... mostly true. However, comparative benchmarks of G3 systems versus
G4
systems show that the G4 is about 10% fast when both are the same clock
speed.
The G4 doesn't just have Alitivec added to it, it has different floating
point
processors and slightly different integer processors.
As for the other parts, your 400 MHz G3 can saturate the graphics
subsystem just
as easily as the G4 so that cancels out. That's part of the reason Apple
is
beefing up their graphics sub-systems in newer machines.
Bus speed is also constant but not the bottleneck compared to hard disk
throughput.
So, I'd say bus speed cancels out as well. Same for RAM speed. With a
slow hard
drive, bus speed is just not worth considering.
The biggest bottleneck in _any_ computer system is hard disk _throughput_
and this
can be improved greatly by getting a faster hard drive (but that is not
the only
factor).
So for you, I would say that you'll notice about a 25-30% speed boost
across the
board (even considering the points stated above). Everything will just
"seem"
snappier. This is not a trivial boost in performance.
But I'd also consider getting one of those higher density 5400 RPM drives
(about
$300) if you don't already have one.
And, assuming your Pismo is stable, not too hot, and battery life is not
a main
concern, a $600 combined upgrade add another year or two to the useful
life of your
Pismo, not to mention the immediate benefits of things running faster.
And OS X will
continue to be further optimized for the G4.
I have a 500 MHz Pismo with a 5400 RPM drive. And, yes, I am seriously
considering
this upgrade, mostly for Altivec, esp. w.r.t. OS X. I love the new
TiBooks but this
machine is only 2 years old and I love its features. Until the TiBooks
get a G5 --
which is not likely anythime soon because of power and heat constraints,
I'm planning
on squeezing every last bit of performance out of my beloved Pismo. I
only wish there
was a way to upgrade the graphics subsystem.
Jeff Sz.
Iron rusts from disuse,
stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen,
even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist
(1452-1519)
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