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If your computer were a car, then the CPU would be analogous to the engine, the hard disk space would be the fuel tank, the bus would be the transmission, and the keyboard would be the steering wheel. Moreover, if your car were a computer, and you ran out of gas after a 300 mile journey, you would find yourself instantly back inside your garage. So much for analogies.
The truth is that comparing a computer and a car is a bad idea, because the two work very differently. The same thing goes for comparing individual computer components inside two different computers. Processor speed, all too often used the same way horsepower is used to describe a car engine, is not a benchmark comparison, except for processors within the same family. For example, a 400 MHz G3 is twice as fast as a 200 MHz G3. But the same comparison is not valid when comparing a G3 to a G4.
As computer processor speed continues to increase, at least in the Pentium world (here in MacLand we are still slogging along at about 500 MHz), processor speed is becoming a less accurate a description of how fast a particular computer operates. Several articles have appeared in tech journals suggesting that the Pentium 4 is overall about ten percent slower than a Pentium III at the same clock rate.
What does all this mean to you, especially when confronted with an endless array of choices and marketing messages when you go into the computer store? First off, it should signal the end of Processor Envy, as in "my G3/400 is not as fast as his G4/500." The truth is, so much of a computer's perceived performance is dependent upon such disparate elements as bus speed, available memory, hard disk speed, and so on, that a simple processor match-up is about is helpful as comparing a G4 to a Chevy.
If your Mac is feeling a little pokey these days, instead of focusing on processor speed, think random access memory. RAM prices are as low as they have ever been. And adding RAM is the single best thing you can do to both speed up everyday computing tasks and to increase overall system stability. Applications love more RAM, and they will usually thank you for increasing their respective memory partitions by crashing less often.
The Mac OS loves RAM too. Mac OS X is expected to gobble RAM up faster than a SUV gulps unleaded premium.
If you are a PowerBook owner, the story is even better. For the first time I can recall, PowerBook RAM is priced about the same as desktop memory: It is even less at some suppliers. Besides speed, additional RAM pays other benefits to PowerBook users. For example, setting up a RAM disk is a good way to configure the system so that the hard drive spins up less frequently, which extends battery life considerably.
Over the last ten years, RAM prices have soared and dipped regularly, and the smart user has been the one lucky enough to buy on the dip. Today the RAM market is more favored to buyers than at any time in recent memory. So get more out of your existing processor, and get ready for Mac OS X early next year, and boost your Mac's performance by adding more
RAM.
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"RAM: Mac Octane Booster"
