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Just for my info (I have a non-upgraded QS 867), how much difference do you see with that Sonnet under the hood?

Tallgeese: I saw a HUGE improvement in startup, application launches, photoshop filters and gaming FPS since the upgrade, but since I no longer have the old processor, I cant really post any benchmarks....

mrreet2001 wrote:

if you have a 1.2 why would you even look at the 1.4?

DP

Well heres the problem recommending a 47 for me. If you have a 1.2, you really won't see much improvement with a 47 no matter what the speed. The smaller L2 cache is part of the problem here. I'm not saying you won't see any improvement but it probably won't be eye opening. Dualies are also pricey and if you don't use dual CPU apps or your daughter doesn't, then you are just dumping extra $$$ on something that you won't need. But if you need a dualie, i'd look more at the 7455s or 48s over 47s in terms of performance. But for price, and if you intend to overclock it, 47 would work there even if they aren't as fast.

Hellabalotta Photoshop work. Scanning, Colour correcting, retouching etc. etc.

I do professional photo editing/retouching on the side, and would like to wait as little as possible as my machine applies each filter or transformation.

I can use my machine as is, but the "preparing to apply filter" dialogue would just drive me NUTS, so that's why im looking forward to something that would at least make it a bit more bearable by speeding things up a bit...

Wow. Thanx Cougar. Never thought about looking there.

This thread is reminiscent of when I was on my upgrade hunt.  Not that I do any serious work that would require a huge upgrade, but I just wanted to learn as much as I could about the G4 processors available before I bought one.

I ended up with a dual 1.8ghz Sonnet from eBay for $360.  It was a nice bump from the stock dual 500mhz.  I WAS looking for a 1.2-1.4 ghz 7455 dual, but I couldn't find any, as the 7455 isn't quite as common anymore from what I remember.  Sonnet uses a 7447 (right?).  So, no L3 cache for me, and only 512kb of L2. 

The 2.0ghz 7448 would be an awesome upgrade, and probably pretty noticeable of a performance increase over what you have...if it was a dualie (is your's a single or dual right now?).  If you are doing a lot of Photoshop, I would recommend getting a dual processor that has a slower clock speed than a super fast clock on a single processor.  The 1.4ghz 7455 and 1.7ghz 7447 duals are going to perform about the same.  If it's between them, I would go with whichever you can get for cheaper.

To give you somewhat of an idea of how the dual 1.7 ghz 7447 would perform, my Sonnet card (1.8ghz) loads Photoshop in 19 seconds and illustrator in 21 seconds (by "load" I mean the splash screen comes up and it does it's thing and is ready to work).  My old processor did it in 32 seconds....