[rescue] OS X and dual CPU machines?

[N.Miller]

On Sunday, June 8, 2003, at 08:02 AM, Michael Schiller wrote:

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>
> Hi All.
>
> I've been wondering, would OS X run better on a dual G4 500mhz machine 
> with 1mb cache per CPU, than on an 800mhz iMac with a single G4 CPU 
> with only 256k cache?

IIRC, any "Aqua" application has to use the Cocoa libraries to take 
advantage of the multiple CPUs (which was why everyone was waiting 
w/baited breath for the "native" version of Photoshop, etc).

I can't honestly tell you if the BSD sub-system is set up to take 
advantage of the multi-cpu facility or not, but I would expect so 
(seems kind of dumb if it isn't, but hell, that isn't beyond Apple).

As to the example comments about running single-threaded game someone 
mentioned--just make sure that you have a good graphics card.  My G4 
400(1MB cache)/512MB/IDE (toughing it out, Dave, on a meager budget ;-) 
that I just got is a lot snappier than the G3 550(1MB 
cache)/512MB/UWSCSI that I used at my last job--I think mostly due to 
the beefier video card.

I would not consider the iMac--definitely go with the dual.  With the 
dual proc, you can do much more by way of upgrades if you decide you 
like it (like get faster processors! :-).  The iMac is very restrictive 
as to potential upgrades.  The nice thing about Mac desktops is that 
they are very upgradeable.  I had a 7600 (at least an 8 yo computer) 
running OS 9 very happily.  G3 daughter card + Voodoo 3 PCI.  Maybe 
$300 in it (two years ago).

Make sure you have at least 256MB RAM for which ever Mac you get--the 
dang thing will swap horribly on anything less.  Here's a memory 
summary from top, with Netscape, Mail, and terminal (two windows) 
running:   223M used,  289M free

Ugly, huh?  Netscape (7.02) has 118MB footprint with one window open.  
Terminal takes up 113MB or so with the default scroll back of 10K 
lines. :-p

=Nadine=