I took some time tonight to install the dual 500 G4 card in my Cube. Some hackery was involved, as a component on the card needed to be moved and as the heatsink required modification. I also mistakenly dislodged a cable and had to disassemble again once everything was together in order to troubleshoot. Murphy's law.
I can, however, now report on the test scores.
The Geekbench score went from 294 (1x450MHz processor) to 512 (2x500MHz processors). XBench score averages went similarly from 16.5 (1x450MHz) to 25.31 (2x500MHz). Geekbench claims the machine to be about 74% faster, and tXBench about 53%. This, of course, is piffle, but encouraging piffle all the same.
This is really the first dual G4 I have had experience of, apart from a quick tinker in shops. It is running a little hotter, and is currently climbing slowly towards 40ºC even with the fan, which was of course expected. We'll see where it peaks in the kind of usage I give it (I do not plan to play games on this machine, or do multimedia work, so it will live a quiet life.)
What surprises me is that the CPU usage in the Activity Monitor is showing both processors as roughly equivalent in activity on average, even in applications that are supposed to be incapable of using two processors (such as Word 2008). A complicated document in Word 2008 more or less maxes them out when doing previews and the like.
I will have to spend a bit of time with the machine before I can formulate any clearer impressions of the difference — but so far so good.
I can, however, now report on the test scores.
The Geekbench score went from 294 (1x450MHz processor) to 512 (2x500MHz processors). XBench score averages went similarly from 16.5 (1x450MHz) to 25.31 (2x500MHz). Geekbench claims the machine to be about 74% faster, and tXBench about 53%. This, of course, is piffle, but encouraging piffle all the same.
This is really the first dual G4 I have had experience of, apart from a quick tinker in shops. It is running a little hotter, and is currently climbing slowly towards 40ºC even with the fan, which was of course expected. We'll see where it peaks in the kind of usage I give it (I do not plan to play games on this machine, or do multimedia work, so it will live a quiet life.)
What surprises me is that the CPU usage in the Activity Monitor is showing both processors as roughly equivalent in activity on average, even in applications that are supposed to be incapable of using two processors (such as Word 2008). A complicated document in Word 2008 more or less maxes them out when doing previews and the like.
I will have to spend a bit of time with the machine before I can formulate any clearer impressions of the difference — but so far so good.