Apple Mac Upgrades - RAM, SSD Flash, External Drives and More

Convert AIFF to MP4 (AAC 128 bit) - iTunes 4	L2 Cache	L3 Cache	Time, Sec.

Reference Apple Systems

PM G4/400 Gigabit Ethernet	1MB SPB SRAM	0MB	766
PM 2x G4/450 Gigabit Ethernet	1MB SPB SRAM x2	0MB	623
Apple eMac G4/700	256k On Chip	0MB	703
Apple iMac G4/700 15"	256k On Chip	0MB	705
iMac 1GHz (167MHz Bus, 768MB RAM, GF4MX 32MB)	256k	0MB	473
PB G4 17" 1.33GHz (167MHz Bus, 512MB RAM, R9600 64MB)	512k On Chip	0MB	305
PM G5/1.6GHz (800MHz Frontside Bus)	512k On Chip	0MB	228
PM G5/1.8GHz (900MHz Frontside Bus)	512k On Chip	0MB	195
PM G5/2x 2.0GHz (1GHz Frontside Bus)	512k On Chip	0MB	158

Acceleration Cards

OWC Mercury Extreme G4/700MHz	256k	2MB SPB SRAM	505
OWC Mercury Extreme G4/800MHz	256k	2MB SPB SRAM	467
Sonnet Encore/ST G4/800MHz	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	411
OWC Mercury Extreme G4/1GHz	256k	2MB SPB SRAM	389
Sonnet Encore/ST G4/1GHz	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	371
GigaDesigns G-Celerator G4/1.25GHz (@ 1.2GHz)	256k	2MB SPB SRAM	339
OWC Mercury Extreme G4/1.25GHz (@ 1.2GHz)	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	323
Sonnet Encore/ST G4/1.2GHz	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	344
OWC Mercury Extreme G4/1.33GHz (@ 1.3GHz)	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	298
GigaDesigns G-Celerator G4/1.25GHz (@ 1.4GHz)	256k	2MB SPB SRAM	298
OWC Mercury Extreme G4/1.467GHz (@ 1.4GHz)	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	287
Sonnet Encore/ST G4/1.4GHz	256k	2MB DDR SRAM	287
GigaDesigns G-Celerator Dual G4/1.0GHz @ 1.2GHz	256k x 2	2MB SPB SRAM x2	300
GigaDesigns G-Celerator Dual G4/1.2GHz @ 1.3GHz	256k x 2	2MB SPB SRAM x2	278
GigaDesigns G-Celerator Dual G4/1.2GHz @ 1.4GHz	256k x 2	2MB SPB SRAM x2	260

Time to convert standard CD Audio AIFF files to MP4 AAC 128 bit - Shorter bars are better Total 11 songs 1.2 Hours 758.1MB of music converted. In previous testing I had been converting one track ripped directly off of a CD. It became apparent that the testing was not exactly fair enough in the respect that the CD drive played a big part in the test results. While a CD drive can spin up quite quickly, I eliminated that variable by copying the raw AIFF files to the internal hard drive and converting from there. These results certainly are impressive for any of the G5 systems, that's for sure!