Dual G4 867 vs the new Powerbook

[springscansing]

On applications that use a single processor, how does the Dual 867 stand up to the base powerbook speedwise? I need a new mac for audio work and I'm not sure which way to go.

[evildead]

really porability verus speed...

audio files are huge... the PowerBooks HD is not that big. You can shove 4 HD's in the tower. But FireWire enternal drives are always a good option... you can work on a project one place.. and take it all to a studio on a portable drive... instant 120GB floppy!

are you going to be doing long mix down and recording sessions... the powerfbook gets hot fast

Do you need more than one display... lots of Audio people do

The Tower will probably give you better proformace over all and more and more Audio apps are comming out for OS X and they are multi threaded (use 2 CPUs). But .. the powerbook is a very impressive presintation tool... are you going to be talking with clients? Showing off your work?

Do you need any spechal cards or interfaces? Like MOTU? You will probably have to have several Dongles hanging off the back of it as well if you use things like Logic, Protools, Cubase, Reason, or Peak... you will run out of USB ports on a pwerbook fast... you will have to get a hub just for your dongles... you would have to do the same for you Tower.. but you can put in a PCI card to make things simpler. Many audio guys fill their PCI slots very quickly... you dont have any PCI slots on a pwerbook.

Audio Software and Hardware chage very fast... if you want to run a mini sudio.. I would go with the Tower... you have more room to grow. Then get the powerbook when you make a few $

[springscansing]

really porability verus speed...

audio files are huge... the PowerBooks HD is not that big. You can shove 4 HD's in the tower. But FireWire enternal drives are always a good option... you can work on a project one place.. and take it all to a studio on a portable drive... instant 120GB floppy!

-- I have an 80GB firewire Lacie D2

are you going to be doing long mix down and recording sessions... the powerfbook gets hot fast

-- Yep

Do you need more than one display... lots of Audio people do

-- Nope

The Tower will probably give you better proformace over all and more and more Audio apps are comming out for OS X and they are multi threaded (use 2 CPUs). But .. the powerbook is a very impressive presintation tool... are you going to be talking with clients? Showing off your work?

-- Not much

Do you need any spechal cards or interfaces? Like MOTU?

-- Yes, but it's USB

You will probably have to have several Dongles hanging off the back of it as well if you use things like Logic, Protools, Cubase, Reason, or Peak...

-- Only Logic uses a dongle out of that list

you will run out of USB ports on a pwerbook fast...

-- there's only 2 on the powermac... 2 on the powerbook ??

you will have to get a hub just for your dongles... you would have to do the same for you Tower.. but you can put in a PCI card to make things simpler. Many audio guys fill their PCI slots very quickly... you dont have any PCI slots on a pwerbook.

-- No need for pci with MOTU firewire interfaces

Audio Software and Hardware chage very fast... if you want to run a mini sudio.. I would go with the Tower... you have more room to grow. Then get the powerbook when you make a few $

-- Thanks... I guess.

[Over Achiever]

If you're looking at pure speed, I'd say the 1 GHz G4 in the computer will do better than the 867 MHz chips if the programs are not dual optimized. However, the HD and the RAM are slower in the powerbook, so overall the speed may very well be similar to the Dual 867 MHz, IMO