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akb825 wrote:

The processor itself is probably a bit faster because of Altivec. What video card do you have in the G4?

64MB Radeon 9200 I think... it's been ages since I've looked at the specs, I have it running as a server so that is all it's being used for, there is no monitor hooked up to it. I do everything remotely via VNC.

Video the G4 will be faster. If you got the GPU in that awhile ago then that is a 64MB R9000. Those iMacs had crappy Rage 128 GPUs. Also the G4 will have quartz support while the iMac won't.

As far as processor, the G4 will win in some tasks and the G3 may win in others. But if the G3 beats the G4 it will mostly be in non altivec tasks.

I'm not familiar with the tasks it would be doing. But if those are non altivec tasks then it will be a lil bit quicker. That G4 should be a 7400 and I think that is a 750CX G3 in the iMac. Those 7400s were just about even in non altivec tasks with the G3s back then when they were clocked the same speeds.

Well, OS X is optimised for the Altivec engine, and so the G4 500 would likely be faster.

BTW, it's an easy upclock to 550mhz, if you're interested.
Then the G4 smacks the iMac for sure

And, BTW, ColourClassic, that G4 won't use AE, either, only Airport, but I think he was going to connect to a base station via ethernet, anyhow, so it doesn't matter.

I think it would be great to use the iMac as the server, though, and put the G4 to some better use. Either would be plenty quick enough for such a task, but the G4, with its expandability and upgradeability could see more powerful uses, especially with the GPU under the hood. You could use it for web design, and the iMac as your server, to test and host or upload pages, if that's the sort of work you're doing.

I'll place my bets on the G4.

Yes, I feel that the G3 is the better of the two processor families in non-AltiVec tasks, but I feel that point is more arguable when comparing a 7450-era G4 to a G3. The 7400, the CPU in the G4/500 in question, is largely derived of the G3 design, 4-stage pipeline and all.

Now, taking AltiVec out of the picture entirely you have one major achilles heal for the 750CX: Cache. The 750CX only had 256K of on-die L2. Yes, it operated at 1:1 compared to the 7400/7410 which pretty much all ran their cache at 2:1. But that is moot. Faster cache or not, 256K is not enough.

ironhawk wrote:

akb825 wrote:

Everybody wrote:

GPU, AE, etc.

http://homepage.mac.com/oatmeal/MAF/maxes/AHHH3.gif
You guys DO notice that he's trying to use this as a server, right? You DO know that a GPU and AE are COMPLETELY USELESS in a server, right? You DO know that he's not cruising around MacOS X, playing games, using photoshop, or anything, right? Cyberpawz probably has a much faster computer as his main one. This is just based on a few things: processor, memory, HDD, and network connection. So in this case it matters if the httpd software (I'm assuming Apache) is altivec optimized. I don't think it is, so the iMac may be faster for that task.

And you realise he mentioned using AE for connectivity, right?
And you actually read my post thoroughly, to understand my point, right?

No. Read again, then add something of value, instead of throwing a fit, when it's obvious you haven't a damn clue what "Everybody" is saying.

And my point was ( to make it clear and redundant ) that the iMac would be better suited for the task, because running a server doesn't require the horsepower of a G4 with a Radeon.

Well, he did say that he was going to plug it in to his base station, not necessarily hook it up wirelessly, however I was referring more to ColourClassic's post than yours.
Cyberpawz said the PowerMac was running basically as a dedicated server, which means he's already gotten all of his other computer needs worked out, and solely needs to figure out which is better for the server itself. And I did contribute, if you read the rest of my post:

I wrote:

This is just based on a few things: processor, memory, HDD, and network connection. So in this case it matters if the httpd software (I'm assuming Apache) is altivec optimized. I don't think it is, so the iMac may be faster for that task.

I can admit that I did overreact, and I'm sorry if that offended you, but it's annoying seeing people comment on the GPU several times, along with other aspects, when he said that it was fore a server only.

SchmoBurger wrote:

PowerMacMan wrote:

I'll place my bets on the G4.

Yes, I feel that the G3 is the better of the two processor families in non-AltiVec tasks, but I feel that point is more arguable when comparing a 7450-era G4 to a G3. The 7400, the CPU in the G4/500 in question, is largely derived of the G3 design, 4-stage pipeline and all.

Now, taking AltiVec out of the picture entirely you have one major achilles heal for the 750CX: Cache. The 750CX only had 256K of on-die L2. Yes, it operated at 1:1 compared to the 7400/7410 which pretty much all ran their cache at 2:1. But that is moot. Faster cache or not, 256K is not enough.

Finally, somebody mentioned the povo cache

To be honest, I think the iMac 600 just plain sucks. Apple cut corners with it to the max...

Even compared to my rather lowly G3/450, the iMac 600 that I've used for photo and video work at my school feels like a dog. And it's not just demanding tasks that are slow, it seems to labour with everything it does...even finder response seems sluggish in comparison to the tower.

The G3 has only has the stock Rage 128 in it and a slow 10Gb HDD on the built in 33mhz IDE bus, but it still seems to grossly outperform the iMac, which feels more like my Lombard!

So I'd imagine the G4/500 with it's full 1Mb of cache will blow the iMac out of the water, and as ironhawk mentioned, It's got all that potential for upgrade, you know, 2Gb of RAM, 1Gig processor, lots of hard disks...

Has anyone even read what I am going to do with this computer?  I said a server, a file server, a web server.... that is it. Not a game server, not a photoshop or video computer etc... just a www server....

The other reason I'm asking is because my editor needs a new computer, and I'm willing to give him the G4/500 for a stable machine. If people think the G3/600 is good ONLY for a web server.

Thar is the point I was also trying to enforce.
Either way, you have a machine left over, so why not be left with the good one that you can do something cool with, ie. the G4

OK, thanks.
And sorry, it had become a bit dificult to tell

Xbench comparison.

Last edited by MuckSavage (2005-06-02 10:22 pm)

Cyberpawz wrote:

Seems to me the G3 does better than the G4 in many cases....

G4 - http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc2=25503
G3 - http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=45137

In both the overall and the CPU scores, the G4 beats the G3 hands-down.

As for the OpenGL scores, Xbench can't be trusted.
Anything that says a Rage128 outperforms an NVidia GeForce4ti with 128mb of DDR VRAM is high on crack.
Anything that says a Rage128 outperforms a Radeon 9200 with 64mb of DDR VRAM is still high on crack.

I don't think we need to compare GPU clockspeeds ...
We all know a Radeon is faster than a Rage128.

As for the memory, having more in the G4 will, of course, lower that score, as it has more to move.

As for the CPU subtests; that is strange...

Nonetheless, the overall score is higher for the G4, which I think is more indicative of overall real-world performance, as a more robust overall system will generally make for a better workhorse.

Last edited by ironhawk (2005-06-03 12:50 am)

Plus, it skews heavily in favour of big caches. Some of the benchmarks can be run entirely from the cache.

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