TodayI purchased a secondhand G4 Dual 500. Machine is great, works super. no problems what so ever. The only thing I have is that I thought that RAM in these G4 was 2-2-2 RAM. But when I looked in the system profiler and on the DIMM, it clearly said 3-2-2 RAM. So I gota darn fast machine with RAM in it that is slower than the RAM Apple suggests you put in? Anyone with similar stories?

PS. These DIMMS did take the firmware upgrade, cause when I tried to upgrade, the system said it was already done.

_________________
hoytt

proud Mac owner since 1993
now running:
B&W G3 350 DVD 448/66 GB
PowerBook G3 400 FireWire 192/6 GB
both on OS 9.1 and OS X 10.0.4

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hoytt on 2001-08-02 21:03 ]</font>

Hey Hoytt,

I don’t think the difference between 3-2-2 and 2-2-2 RAM is a speed issue, but rather a fault tolerance (or something that a gearhead would know better than me) issue.

Hopefully one of the gearheads here will pop in with something more techie.

The 3 in 3-2-2 refers to the number of clock cycles it takes to get an initial burst of data from your ram. (after the initial burst, both 322 and 222 deliver the same relative speed.)
For PC-100 ram, a clock cycle lasts about 10 nanoseconds.
You’ll never notice a speed difference.
-Dan

There is a MAX of 2% difference in 2D applications (word,email,excel) and 5% difference in 3D applications (lightwave, maya, 3D max).

You only need cl 2-2-2 if your a high-end 3D engineer Brat. Your money would be better spent on a better video card, scsi card upgrade, or a IDE raid solution (if your want cheap).
Always remember:
The hard drive of a new machine usually runs at 5% of the cpu speed, and the display at 20%. So any improvement in these areas will give you the best bang for your buck.
 

Always remember:
The hard drive of a new machine usually runs at 5% of the cpu speed, and the display at 20%. So any improvement in these areas will give you the best bang for your buck.
 

Not doubting your number but wondering what your source is?  I’ve not heard these difference quantified quite like this before, so I am curious as to where you got the numbers?  Sorry, it’s the scientist in me.

Benching systems for 15 years personally. I was a compusa GM, and testing I did in college. This is accually fairly common knowlege in the MIS world. You can take a p2/500 spend the $700 for a scsi 64bit uw with 10,000 rpm drive and buy a gforce3 card and your close to the speed of a new p3/1ghz with a factory oem card and 5400rpm ide HD.

if you got it secondhand, how do you know it still has the memory apple installed in it?