g4 600 upgrade vs used 1.0ghz g4 upgrade

I think either way, you'll see a difference in speed. I think the 1ghz g4 will slightly outperform the 600mhz on processor intensive tasks, but with that 66mhz bus, memory intensive tasks may be dog slow.

Out of curiosity, what do you have in your b&w right now? The stock 300mhz g3?

i put in a copper 400 mhz version (i'm pretty sure) and overclocked it to 450... it flies through classic but is just a bit slow in 10.4 . I don't want to go to an earlier version of OS X and 10.4 will take care of me for years to come. I use 10.5 on my core 2 duo mac mini and it's doing well for me, but I think 10.4 is going to be the best compromise between features and speed.

edit: another odd question... If I could score a 400mhz g4 zif from a yikes-based g4 (for less than $10), how much of a performance boost would I see under os X?

The 1GHZ G4 is the old Sonnet G4 made for the Beige G3, I assume? You definitely want to go with the 600mhz. Who makes the 600mhz? OWC? Daystar? From what I've read, those 1Ghz ZIF's are just plain silly--filling a ignorant consumer demand not based on a real understanding of the old hardware potential. 600mhz is about the limit of a B&W's genuine capability. Anything more is just money thrown at a mirage, not to mention added problems with heat. For that extra money, you could just get an 867mhz Quicksilver. Even for the price of the 600mhz, you might find a Quicksilver.

i know it, I was going to get the 1ghz upgrade for $120 and was trying to see if getting the slightly more expensive 600mhz was the way to go.

I have exactly that in my B&W, and it did make a "noticeable" difference under OS X compared to the stock 400Mhz G3. Moving windows, dock animations, iTunes visualizations, etc, were quite a bit quicker. It's not going to do much for your game framerates or anything, though.

It's probably worth $10. Any $100+ upgrade isn't. Get an AGP tower instead. Among other things the memory controller is substantially quicker. (Even at the same FSB)

--Peace

Seconded. G4 upgrades have their place, but tend to be overpriced for what you're getting. If you could score a 733 MHz Digital Audio, with its 133 MHz bus you'd be faster than the 1 GHz on the reduced 66 MHz bus. (133 x 733 = 97489; 1000 x 66 = 66000)

4x AGP, too.

that's what I was thinking. I'm actually bidding on a machine that will do me well I think out on the bay and it's the same price as that used g4 upgrade. will keep everyone posted... and if anyone has a yikes 400 mhz g4 zif they'd like to sell me for no more than $20-25 shipped I'd like to take it off your hands. I like this blue & white machine and I think my younger brother would be grateful to have an okay os x rig for his room.

here is the machine I've got. Most of the innards (except for ram) will transfer over to a quicksilver when they come down in price in about a year or two.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEBTOX:IT&item=110237470914

It's a 500mhz gigabit ethernet with a dvd-ram drive. I think I'll be happy with it, otherwise I can source components from my B&W.