Would the CPU be bottle necked, yes and no. Obviously, the limiting factor will be the 50 Mhz bus which can only move 45-50 MBytes/Sec, per Guage Pro. If you look at G4 800 Mhz Memory moves on Accelerate You Max <http://xlr8yourmac.com> you'll see reports of 200-250 MBytes/Sec performance. However, with it's 3 level cache, the CPU will get a higher percentage of cache hits for instructions than current upgrades. How big of a difference between a G4/450 and a G4/800 in a 9600 - I'd guess for processor bound tasks you can expect a 20-35% improvement. You aren't going to get 50% and if the rest of your system is stock, you aren't going to notice the 20%. If you do photo or video work, if you are running OS X, if you have lots of memory (>512MB), and moderately fast drives (UW SCSI or ATA-100), then you should see some improvements. If you have the rest, and can push the CPU with your tasks, then it is probably worth the money, but so would be a real G4 system, for it's stability and support, if you are using the computer to earn money.
If you can find it, try and find someone who has Photoshop and G4 upgraded 9600 and run the same comparisons that are done by Accelerate Your Mac and see what the results are. You could probably use them to extrapolate how well the G4 800 would perform. Of course my final thought would be that you would get to claim to own the fastest beige Macintosh! Dave PM 9600/G3/500 w/960MB memory, 50GB of IDE HD's, etc, etc >Hi. > >I like my 9600, more so if it could really run at (and feel) 800Mhz, but >$400 is a lot of money to sink into an upgrade for an almost >five-year-old computer. According to Sonnet's website, the card has an >on-chip 256k L2 cache and 1Mb L3 cache running at 200Mhz. It is six slot >compatable. > >Will this card actually make a system faster or is it just a megahertz >number game to sell upgrades? I couldn't find any benchmarks at their >site. It seems like anything over a certain point would be bottlenecked >behind a 50Mhz system bus speed. -- Mr. PopMan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - "Does anybody want to play a game of pinball?" In the end, life lived to its fullest is its own Ultimate Gift. Jim Stovall-The Ultimate Gift -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
