How much RAM is enough?

[|MP|Nomad]

Bucc and Jeb,

By far the best/most beautiful stang created was the '67 Hardtop.  Better looking than the Fastback or the Mach's or any other stang.  Agree?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Bucc and Jeb,

By far the best/most beautiful stang created was the '67 Hardtop.  Better looking than the Fastback or the Mach's or any other stang.  Agree?

I agree completely....and the new 2005 Mustang was built to resemble the 1967 model.....it's gonna be great!

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Disagree.  Convertible is much sexier than the hard top.

[|MP|Nomad]

Disagree.  Convertible is much sexier than the hard top.

Nah, I dont like convertibles, hardtop with mb a sunroof is just fine for me.  Except that the 67' stangs didnt come with sun roof...I don't even know if any cars at that time had sunroofs.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Only reason you don't like convertibles is because you could only have the top down 1 month out of the year up there in the great white north =P

2005 Mustang is hot.  They are even using some of the T-Bird interior in it =D

[BFG]

Plus and rather conveniently most of the last G4's could take a max of 1.5 gigs anyway...

[[OZ] Martin]

OK

I just ran benchmakrs using the latest version of Xbench. I tested with no other apps open, then with a lot of other apps open but hidden, then with other apps open but visible. Here are the results.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No other apps open:

Results   202.79   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.3.2 (7D24)
      Physical RAM      1536 MB
      Model      PowerMac7,2
      Processor      PowerPC 970x2 @ 2.00 GHz
         L1 Cache      64K (instruction), 32K (data)
         L2 Cache      512K @ 2.00 GHz
         Bus Frequency      1 GHz
      Video Card      ATY,RV350
      Drive Type      ST3160023AS
   CPU Test   194.29   
      GCD Loop   118.08   4.61 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   318.31   1.15 Gflop/sec
      AltiVec Basic   137.35   3.99 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   225.48   3.50 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   415.19   16.62 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   211.62   
      Computation   154.15   2.08 Mops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   337.41   4.24 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   341.40   
      System   379.21   
         Allocate   725.33   473.13 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   303.08   2412.50 MB/sec
         Copy   309.32   1546.59 MB/sec
      Stream   310.45   
         Copy   270.33   1976.14 MB/sec [G5]
         Scale   268.99   1985.12 MB/sec [G5]
         Add   354.08   2266.09 MB/sec [G5]
         Triad   378.29   2311.36 MB/sec [G5]
   Quartz Graphics Test   267.06   
      Line   259.16   6.60 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   246.83   17.36 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   254.11   5.86 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   229.41   2.49 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   397.10   6.47 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   179.14   
      Spinning Squares   179.14   125.36 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   338.43   
      Elements   338.43   108.86 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   105.98   
      Sequential   111.10   
         Uncached Write   133.09   55.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   114.44   46.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   88.04   13.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   119.14   48.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   101.31   
         Uncached Write   95.40   1.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   99.79   22.51 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   98.88   0.65 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   112.80   23.21 MB/sec [256K blocks]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of apps open but hidden:

Results   199.95   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.3.2 (7D24)
      Physical RAM      1536 MB
      Model      PowerMac7,2
      Processor      PowerPC 970x2 @ 2.00 GHz
         L1 Cache      64K (instruction), 32K (data)
         L2 Cache      512K @ 2.00 GHz
         Bus Frequency      1 GHz
      Video Card      ATY,RV350
      Drive Type      ST3160023AS
   CPU Test   193.90   
      GCD Loop   118.07   4.61 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   319.03   1.15 Gflop/sec
      AltiVec Basic   137.69   4.00 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   221.74   3.44 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   415.09   16.61 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   207.71   
      Computation   152.93   2.06 Mops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   323.62   4.06 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   342.01   
      System   379.17   
         Allocate   659.43   430.15 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   317.39   2526.43 MB/sec
         Copy   308.18   1540.92 MB/sec
      Stream   311.48   
         Copy   271.24   1982.77 MB/sec [G5]
         Scale   269.66   1990.06 MB/sec [G5]
         Add   355.16   2273.05 MB/sec [G5]
         Triad   380.09   2322.32 MB/sec [G5]
   Quartz Graphics Test   263.10   
      Line   254.17   6.47 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   241.75   17.01 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   250.04   5.76 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   227.62   2.47 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   393.59   6.42 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   178.48   
      Spinning Squares   178.48   124.90 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   328.08   
      Elements   328.08   105.52 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   103.50   
      Sequential   105.58   
         Uncached Write   132.10   55.06 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   114.94   47.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   75.67   11.98 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   119.02   48.09 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   101.51   
         Uncached Write   96.42   1.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   99.17   22.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   99.15   0.65 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   112.80   23.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other apps open and visible:

Results   202.22   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.3.2 (7D24)
      Physical RAM      1536 MB
      Model      PowerMac7,2
      Processor      PowerPC 970x2 @ 2.00 GHz
         L1 Cache      64K (instruction), 32K (data)
         L2 Cache      512K @ 2.00 GHz
         Bus Frequency      1 GHz
      Video Card      ATY,RV350
      Drive Type      ST3160023AS
   CPU Test   194.04   
      GCD Loop   118.09   4.61 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   319.28   1.15 Gflop/sec
      AltiVec Basic   137.70   4.00 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   222.42   3.45 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   415.06   16.61 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   206.65   
      Computation   151.11   2.04 Mops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   326.72   4.10 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   338.43   
      System   372.16   
         Allocate   641.02   418.14 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   304.24   2421.79 MB/sec
         Copy   311.11   1555.55 MB/sec
      Stream   310.31   
         Copy   270.66   1978.50 MB/sec [G5]
         Scale   268.37   1980.58 MB/sec [G5]
         Add   353.57   2262.86 MB/sec [G5]
         Triad   378.64   2313.46 MB/sec [G5]
   Quartz Graphics Test   272.37   
      Line   248.14   6.32 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   236.30   16.62 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   244.81   5.64 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   224.14   2.44 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   645.69   10.52 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   180.82   
      Spinning Squares   180.82   126.54 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   330.61   
      Elements   330.61   106.34 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   105.91   
      Sequential   110.97   
         Uncached Write   132.44   55.21 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   115.31   47.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   87.42   13.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   119.28   48.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   101.29   
         Uncached Write   95.46   1.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   100.11   22.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   98.93   0.65 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   112.15   23.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see the difference in results is so close it's not funny. It is easily in the error range of the benchmark program. Therefore I don't think we have to worry about closing other apps before doing things like games, etc. However obviously if you have apps doing stuff in the background (playing itunes or rendering) you may still see some slowdown.



--------------------------------------
BTW The open apps were
Safari
Appleworks
Mellel
Filemaker Pro
Xcode
Photoshop
iTunes
Quicktime player

[|MP|Buccaneer]

BFG:
Small corection.  The last G4's could run 2GB, but only since the MDD (Mirror Drive Doors).  The Quicksilvers were limited to 1.5GB.

Martin:

All nice except for your conclusion Martin.  Since the average gamer here, and the people I'm talking to are the ones that DON'T HAVE A DUAL 2GHz G5 WITH 1.5GB OF RAM!

The whole point of looking at it, and closing apps, etc, was to people having TROUBLE RUNNING THE GAME.

BTW, you also have the same amount of RAM that I use and recommend.  So I have no idea what you are basing your conclusions off of, other than maybe you didn't read the whole thing.  You have to take it in context.

[|MP|Nomad]

Only reason you don't like convertibles is because you could only have the top down 1 month out of the year up there in the great white north =P

Your in Detroit, your in the same boat, no?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Only reason you don't like convertibles is because you could only have the top down 1 month out of the year up there in the great white north =P

Your in Detroit, your in the same boat, no?

Hey, true convertible lovers will scream down the highway at 80mph with the top down in sub-zero weather.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Hey, true convertible lovers will scream down the highway at 80mph with the top down in sub-zero weather.

With the heat on full!

But only if I'm not on the motorcycle already.

[Cutter]

this my friends...is the ultimate mustang. the 1967 shelby gt 500 E "eleanor".  they start at $80,000+  

http://www.sandersonsales.com/

[.vooDoo.]

Thanks for that comparison Buc, you explained it to a "T" for me.

***Has his credit card ready for those speed bumped G5's***

[crypt]

My xbench results on a iMac 800 MHz 17" Flat Panel with 768 RAM...

Results   79.40   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.3.2 (7D24)
      Physical RAM      768 MB
      Model      PowerMac4,5
      Processor      PowerPC G4 @ 800 MHz
         Version      7450 (V'ger) v2.1
         L1 Cache      32K (instruction), 32K (data)
         L2 Cache      256K @ 800 MHz
         Bus Frequency      100 MHz
      Video Card      GeForce4 MX
      Drive Type      Maxtor 4D080H4
   CPU Test   91.91   
      GCD Loop   82.59   3.23 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   96.97   350.69 Mflop/sec
      AltiVec Basic   98.28   2.86 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   98.69   1.53 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   85.67   3.43 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   65.95   
      Computation   47.97   647.60 Kops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   105.50   1.32 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   65.69   
      System   56.89   
         Allocate   466.80   304.49 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   37.18   295.94 MB/sec
         Copy   42.21   211.03 MB/sec
      Stream   77.72   
         Copy   73.66   538.48 MB/sec [altivec]
         Scale   73.01   538.83 MB/sec [altivec]
         Add   78.68   503.57 MB/sec [altivec]
         Triad   87.08   532.06 MB/sec [altivec]
   Quartz Graphics Test   89.18   
      Line   84.12   2.14 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   88.56   6.23 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   95.79   2.21 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   86.10   935.51 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   92.31   1.50 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   84.21   
      Spinning Squares   84.21   58.93 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   93.85   
      Elements   93.85   30.19 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   76.03   
      Sequential   77.49   
         Uncached Write   84.51   35.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   62.63   25.65 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   104.42   16.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   70.22   28.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   74.62   
         Uncached Write   71.33   1.07 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   77.60   17.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   75.39   0.50 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   74.45   15.32 MB/sec [256K blocks]


Anyone else with an iMac similar to mine please do the test and submit your results, I know there are a lot of people with the same computer as me.

[BFG]

Cutter... If i was gonna buy one... id most definatly be up for buying that one! That is one very nice car. yes please!

Oh elenor... i bet she makes one hell of a noise when u start her up!

[[OZ] Martin]

Yeah I know Bucc.

I agree about my conclusion being not very useful :-). I seem to have lost track of the original topic starting points. (Though not as much as some others I believe)

If it was a linear extrapolation it could useful be but I doubt it is.

I'll repeat with my iBook however and see what that gets. I'll post them later

Martin

[.vooDoo.]

Hey Buc, the following is an xbench of my G4 sawtooth 1ghz. You will see that it beat out my powerbook 1ghz G4 in all test but the disk test. If you look the brand new PB kills the sawtooth in the disk test. Do you think if I go out and buy the fastest HD i can put in it that my fps in RvS will improve?


Results   95.43   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.3.2 (7D24)
      Physical RAM      1024 MB
      Model      PowerMac3,1
      Processor      PowerPC G4 @ 1.00 GHz
         Version      7455 (Apollo) v2.1
         L1 Cache      32K (instruction), 32K (data)
         L2 Cache      256K @ 500 MHz
         L3 Cache      2048K @ 286 MHz
         Bus Frequency      100 MHz
      Video Card      ATY,R200
      Drive Type      QUANTUM FIREBALLP KX20.5
   CPU Test   121.47   
      GCD Loop   117.52   4.59 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   121.21   438.35 Mflop/sec
      AltiVec Basic   122.68   3.56 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   125.76   1.95 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   120.49   4.82 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   88.35   
      Computation   63.89   862.55 Kops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   143.15   1.80 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   99.42   
      System   153.40   
         Allocate   653.72   426.42 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   194.55   1548.61 MB/sec
         Copy   77.60   388.00 MB/sec
      Stream   73.54   
         Copy   72.17   527.55 MB/sec [altivec]
         Scale   75.01   553.54 MB/sec [altivec]
         Add   73.65   471.37 MB/sec [altivec]
         Triad   73.40   448.48 MB/sec [altivec]
   Quartz Graphics Test   138.55   
      Line   111.77   2.85 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   122.04   8.59 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   129.99   3.00 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   138.28   1.50 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   248.63   4.05 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   100.60   
      Spinning Squares   100.60   70.40 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   209.11   
      Elements   209.11   67.26 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   45.86   
      Sequential   40.47   
         Uncached Write   34.42   14.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   33.94   13.90 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   87.30   13.82 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   34.64   14.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   52.91   
         Uncached Write   44.14   0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   45.68   10.30 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   87.69   0.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   50.89   10.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Let me know because ill go buy a new HD tomorrow. The only other that that hampers me is the 100mhz bus speed. Wish there was a way to upgrade that to 133mhz.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Voo,

All I can find on your current HD is that it's an ATA/66 drive (and probably one of the fastest of those @ 7200 RPM).  I could be wrong, but that's what I've seen.

If this is the case, unless you really want to spend money to extend the life of this Mac, I'd just save for your next Mac.

If you want to boost your HD performance, you'd have to drop in a PCI card to interface with faster HD's (ATA/100's or ATA/133's if you can use them - have to look it up).  Then I'd drop in two drives and set them up as a stripped RAID (using disk utilities), which will give you about as fast of performance as you can get on that machine without putting in a RAID card and SCSI drives (which would cost way too much).

You are talking between $100 and $200 for the PCI card and then add $200-$300 for some fast HD's, so $300 - $500 total if you want to bother.  I don't know how much of a difference it will make, especially with your 100MHz bus, but it's your money if you want to try it.

[BFG]

A sawtooth @ 1ghz.... what processor uprgrade card did you use voodoo? Ive put an 800mhz card into an early sawtooth 350mhz comp and i was seiously inpressed. Of course the limitations of the bus etc are still their but it genually feels like its kicked it higher that 800hz.

[*DAMN Elandrion]

And who beats this?

Results   15.07   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.1.3
      System Version      10.2.8 (6R73)
      Physical RAM      224 MB
      Model      Power Macintosh
      Processor      PowerPC 60? @ 384 MHz
         L1 Cache      16K (instruction), 16K (data)
         L2 Cache      512K
         Bus Frequency      48 MHz
      Drive Type      IBM DGHS09Z
   CPU Test   14.27   
      GCD Loop   25.08   979.41 Kops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   61.20   221.33 Mflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   4.88   75.81 Mflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   51.91   2.08 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   25.04   
      Computation   20.46   276.22 Kops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   32.26   404.93 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   7.15   
      System   6.47   
         Allocate   34.12   22.26 Kalloc/sec
         Fill   5.26   41.89 MB/sec
         Copy   4.10   20.48 MB/sec
      Stream   7.98   
         Copy   6.95   50.80 MB/sec
         Scale   6.88   50.80 MB/sec
         Add   9.22   59.02 MB/sec
         Triad   9.63   58.84 MB/sec
   Quartz Graphics Test   19.38   
      Line   12.55   319.41 lines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   19.53   1.37 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   41.90   965.74 circles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   22.90   248.81 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   16.79   273.62 chars/sec
   User Interface Test   19.47   
      Elements   19.47   6.26 refresh/sec
   Disk Test   22.14   
      Sequential   16.22   
         Uncached Write   13.78   5.75 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   20.23   8.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   15.85   2.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   16.26   6.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   34.84   
         Uncached Write   33.19   0.50 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   32.96   7.43 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   65.53   0.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   25.59   5.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]

No OpenGL test because it crashed upon testing - well, you could see the rendered image updating while dragging the mouse over the window...