mklos said:
Did you set the iMac G5 at highest for the CPU, or was it set to Automatic. It makes a huge difference. And, BTW, an iMac G5 will run circles around a PowerBook hands down. The iMac has almost a FSB thats 6x faster, a faster CPU, faster HD w/ a faster connection (SATA), 8X AGP Pro graphics (nevermind the card), and yet it slower? Thats like saying that a VW Rabbit is faster than a Dodge Viper because the Rabbit has a turbo on it. Better do some real tests, or check your system settings, maybe even re-install your OS.
Yes, the moment I got it, I had the iMac on "highest" because the automatic setting doesn't seem to work very well on it; on the Powerbook, that seems to work properly, and kicks in when it's needed to.
3D Graphics/Gaming is slower on the iMac due to the FX5200 and the higher resolution on the iMac; World of Warcraft is pretty much unplayable on the 20" iMac, but runs very nicely on the Powerbook. Even the GUI doesn't run as well on the iMac, five or six big windows causes exposé to start dropping frames on it. I've yet to see exposé drop frames on the Powerbook.
Of course the Powerbook is running at a lower native resolution, but that's beside the point; the fact is that for anything relating to graphics, the Powerbook is faster.
The hard drive is a lot faster in the iMac, there's no denying it, but from my experience it's only made the difference between waiting a couple of seconds more when starting up applications, or opening huge files; other than that you don't really notice it. (I've also got my Powerbook drive set to spin down, so that will add to it I'm sure) Once the app is open, I usually hide/minmize them, so you don't have that wait again, and with the Powerbook, I generally just sleep it.
Infact that's something else where the Powerbook does better; the iMac takes 15-20 seconds to wake up from sleep, the Powerbook is almost instant.
Just because the iMac has a higher clockspeed and fsb doesn't necessarily mean it's that much faster than the Powerbook. I do a fair bit of Photoshop work, and I've only noticed the difference in really intensive filters etc, and even then it's only a second or two different. I'm sure that I've read that in many cases, the G4 processor beats a similarly clocked, or even a higher clocked G5 processor, just like the Pentium III vs the Pentium IV, or the AMD vs Intel chips.
Most of my cpu intensive stuff is done in Photoshop, and here's the results from Barefeats comparing a 1.5GHz Powerbook and the 1.8GHz iMac. Remember, the 1.67GHz is about 10-12% faster than the 1.5
Like I said, I haven't benchmarked the machines, and don't plan to; all I know is that the Powerbook
feels almost as fast as the iMac in most cases, which is all that really matters.
Something that also makes a difference to me is just how much quieter and cooler the Powerbook is than the iMac. Sure, it may not be a big deal to some people, but I would say it's a pretty big plus in my book. I use open-back headphones for their better sound quality, and when listening to music at a reasonable level, I could still hear the iMac quite clearly, I can barely hear the Powerbook it at all with them at the same volume.
