G3's vs G4's vs G5's

aussie_geek · Jun 3, 2005

I am happy to say I only use Macintosh in my line of work and play. I have 2 beige G3 towers and a Mac Mini at work used for medical image processing and internet. My PowerBook goes to work also for general surfing.

When I come home, I use the G5 for the rest.

Has anyone else noticed the difference in the increase in speed of the Macintosh through each iteration of the Macintosh platform?

The G3's on 8.1 are real workhorses - I can get a coffee in between processing stages whilst the infamous clock has turned into a minute timer . G4's let you have a gulp of your coffee. G5's - peh!!

- don't even let you think about coffee!!

It is really amazing how far Apple has come in the last 5 years. Can anyone else relate to this?

aussie_geek

eXan · Jun 3, 2005

The only major jump on CPUs for me was from G3 400 to G4 700. The difference was pretty big, I say

mad jew · Jun 3, 2005

I went from a 160MHz 603e to a 800MHz G4 and the difference was massive. I just got a 1.8GHz G5 and the difference is smaller, but it's still quite noticeable. It is pretty amazing how far the industry has come and we can complain all day about the lack of 3.0GHz G5s but to be honest, I'm very impressed with what they've been doing.

aussie_geek · Jun 3, 2005

mad jew said:
I went from a 160MHz 603e to a 800MHz G4 and the difference was massive. I just got a 1.8GHz G5 and the difference is smaller, but it's still quite noticeable. It is pretty amazing how far the industry has come and we can complain all day about the lack of 3.0GHz G5s but to be honest, I'm very impressed with what they've been doing.

I agree. For those for rate the speed of a system by the feel of the UI - potential switchers here too

, Have a drive of a G5. Blink and it's there.....

aussie_geek

~Shard~ · Jun 3, 2005

The G5 is an amazing chip, and more powerful than the G4 of course, however that doesn't discount the G4 as still a great chip. My 1.25 GHz G4 iMac is still blazingly fast for everything I need it to do, and my friend still uses his 4 year old 400 MHz G4 PowerBook without any problems - and he's running the latest OS and the latest apps! Yes, there's something to be said for the longevity of Macs.

5300cs · Jun 3, 2005

I'm a big fan of the G3 chip still. I can't get over the fact that they don't have a fan, just a heat sync

I have a PB Kanga, 2 clamshell iBooks, 2 white iBooks a Pismo & B&W tower, all G3s

I was also pretty excited when I heard about the 1Ghz G3s, but then again, time must move on (G4, G5.)

~Shard~ · Jun 3, 2005

5300cs said:
I'm a big fan of the G3 chip still. I can't get over the fact that they don't have a fan, just a heat sync I have a PB Kanga, 2 clamshell iBooks, 2 white iBooks a Pismo & B&W tower, all G3s

I was also pretty excited when I heard about the 1Ghz G3s, but then again, time must move on (G4, G5.)

Yep, nothing wrong with the G3 either of course. My brother has a G3 iBook and it still works like a dream!

Sirus The Virus · Jun 3, 2005

I remember when my mom got a G3 iMac, I thought that was fast. Then I used a G4 iMac for the first time and I was like this is flipping fast! But then when my uncle got his G5 I was like: "This must be a gift from God or something! Because this is amazing!". I'm most impressed with the G5's, even tough the G3 from G4 was a big deal.

rareflares · Jun 3, 2005

iMac DV G3 400 Mhz still works perfectly fine under Jaguar. A little on the slow side but you can still do basic things like surf the internet, check mail, listen to music, watch movies, etc. (though not all at once lol).

On my Powerbook, i NEED desperately to upgrade the RAM from 256 MB (been using it for almost 9 months and it is really testing my patience). but even still I can do things decently fast.

~Shard~ · Jun 3, 2005

rareflares said:
iMac DV G3 400 Mhz still works perfectly fine under Jaguar. A little on the slow side but you can still do basic things like surf the internet, check mail, listen to music, watch movies, etc. (though not all at once lol).

On my Powerbook, i NEED desperately to upgrade the RAM from 256 MB (been using it for almost 9 months and it is really testing my patience). but even still I can do things decently fast.

That says a lot about Apple software design right there, doesn't it?

rickvanr · Jun 3, 2005

mad jew said:
I went from a 160MHz 603e to a 800MHz G4 and the difference was massive.

You've just made the biggest understatement of all time. I went from a Performa 6400 (603 @ 200MHz) to a B&W G3 @ 400MHz and that was a massive difference. Surprisingly going from the G3 to a Titanium PB G4 @ 1GHz, the difference wasn't massive, it was big, but not massive. I'll be going back to a tower in the next year sometime, and I'm just hoping it's a massive jump once again.

katie ta achoo · Jun 3, 2005

I went from a G3 900 to a G4 1.5GHz.

WOOOWWWW!!
When it only took about 1 minute to import 10 minutes of movie, I was STUNNED!
MAN, I love processors!

(OK, I'm a dweeb... shhhh)

yippy · Jun 3, 2005

I went from a 604e @225Mhz to a 1Ghz G4, that was like night to day. Now I am on a 1.5Ghz G4, not much of an improvement. I have yet to use a G5, although I suspect that I won't notice much difference in the UI since a G4 is plenty for that. In processor intensive tasks however, I can't imagine how fast that would be.

aussie_geek · Jun 3, 2005

katie ta achoo said:
I went from a G3 900 to a G4 1.5GHz.

WOOOWWWW!!
When it only took about 1 minute to import 10 minutes of movie, I was STUNNED!
MAN, I love processors!

(OK, I'm a dweeb... shhhh)

hehehe me too. Hence the name..

aussie_geek

chv400 · Jun 3, 2005

My biggest jump was from an 8500 to a B&W G3 and that was significant especialy after i put in a G4 from having it for like 2 months. What used to take hours to save an episode of stargate to mpeg 4 then only took about 30 minutes.

joepunk · Jun 3, 2005

Just look at my sig

What a jump in speed for me.

When I started using a G4 for the first time it was at Community College Graphic's Labs. We used 466 G4's and it did not feel that much different from the iMac (sig) in basic tasks. When we got G5's it was a huge leap.

Macinbest · Jun 4, 2005

My biggest upgrade was from a 25mhz Quadra 700 to a 200mhz 604e PowerMac 7300 I'd say.

Mudbug · Jun 4, 2005

I enjoyed the monumental step up from a G3 300 beige box to a Rev B dual 1.8 G5. Talk about a speed increase... The difference can't be put into words.

Phat_Pat · Jun 4, 2005

eMac (G4 700 MHz) to this badboy

zap2 · Jun 4, 2005

macs last so much longer then pc it makes me happy

carlos700 · Jun 4, 2005

I went from a Power Macintosh 8500 with a 300MHz PowerPC G3 processor card to an iBook G4 with a 1.2GHz PowerPC G4. There is a huge difference due to the 2MB graphics card in the 8500 and the slow 50MHz bus in the 8500 as well.

~Shard~ · Jun 4, 2005

Mudbug said:
I enjoyed the monumental step up from a G3 300 beige box to a Rev B dual 1.8 G5. Talk about a speed increase... The difference can't be put into words.

Sorry, I know this is off-topic, but I just noticed your status Mudbug - when did this happen? Or has it been a while, and that's simply how observant I am?

At any rate, congrats on being a MR God - are you and Arn the only ones?

Platform · Jun 4, 2005

~Shard~ said:
Sorry, I know this is off-topic, but I just noticed your status Mudbug - when did this happen? Or has it been a while, at that's simply how observant I am? At any rate, congrats on being a MR God - are you and Arn the only ones?

Hmmm...I missed that too, congratulations

UTB_Avid · Jun 4, 2005

Pretty big leap from my imac G3 500 to my PB G4 1.67, but I was still pretty happy with my imac right up until the end. As for my PB 185c, maybe someday I will be able to resurect it when I have time and extra money to throw away. (I am sure it will be blazingly fast though

)

Maedus · Jun 4, 2005

I just went from a 266 MHz G3 Beige to a 2.0 GHz iMac G5 and I can't believe how much different it is. Now I when I start iTunes, I don't think of what song I want to listen to as the program is loading up, but instead I'm stuck going

.

Oh, and this iMac feels a lot faster then the HP Pavillion with a 3200+ AMD Athlon XP processor and sometimes the G3 felt just as snappy. Makes me hope that Apple is moving to x86 like rumored.

G3's vs G4's vs G5's

macrumors 65816

macrumors 601

Moderator emeritus

macrumors 65816

macrumors P6

macrumors 68000

macrumors P6

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors P6

macrumors 68040

Blogger emeritus

macrumors 68020

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68030

macrumors newbie

Administrator emeritus

macrumors 68000

macrumors 604

macrumors 6502

macrumors P6

macrumors 68030

macrumors member

macrumors regular

Our Staff