Are you happy with PPC? [Archive]

Jschultz

Sep 23, 2006, 04:10 PM

Are you happy with your PPC iMac/eMacs?

I'm pretty happy with mine, but still sometimes I wish I'd waited the extra ten days and gotten the Intel iMac. Of course the PPC can't run the XP games I wanted, so that's a negative. But overall, it's good, just need to add in some more ram and an external HD.

Are you still happy with PPC?

All I run is Safari, iTunes, and MS office. So yeah, I'm perfectly fine with the "tired old G4" as some people may refer to it as. The truth is, a G3 would probably work for me, as the web browsing I do is pretty light too.

Then again, last year and earlier this year I *was* using an old 400 mhz TiBook, so go figure.

calculus

Sep 23, 2006, 04:12 PM

I'm more than happy with my PPC iMac (G5). My G3 iMac is also still proving it's worth. I do not have any interest in running Windows so the Intel thing has no meaning for me.

timnosenzo

Sep 23, 2006, 04:25 PM

I love my 1.25ghz eMac, although I wish it was as fast as my 2.16ghz MBP... :o

Sawtoothdude

Sep 23, 2006, 04:28 PM

I prefer the PPC because i have heard many complaints about the new intels. Why couldn't There be a G6?

Yannick

Sep 23, 2006, 04:53 PM

PCMacUser

Sep 23, 2006, 05:04 PM

I prefer the PPC because i have heard many complaints about the new intels. Why couldn't There be a G6?
Those complaints had nothing to do with the Intel processors, but more with the build quality of the computers themselves.

PCMacUser

Sep 23, 2006, 05:07 PM

I really can't tell I am unhappy with my PPC laptop, but I wish sometimes that I could play on it some games only available on windows (like the new star wars lego, original trilogy) :D Bootcamp is definitely a interesting option for those who want/need it.
Yeah for my Office apps and browsing, my G4 iBook is 100% adequate for my needs. But those games... those games... :)

Yannick

Sep 23, 2006, 05:20 PM

Yeah for my Office apps and browsing, my G4 iBook is 100% adequate for my needs. But those games... those games... :)

and some bonus on some DVDs who require windows :( Though I don't think I ever felt that I missed something really interesting…

risc

Sep 23, 2006, 05:28 PM

I have no issues with the PPC Macs, but I've moved to Intel and I'm glad I have. The idea of a notebook which is as about the same speed as a dual G5 desktop is fantastic.

BoA*

Sep 23, 2006, 06:43 PM

On the subject of G3 and G4,
those things are AMAZING!

I have an iBook G3 and it's just as fast as my iMac when I'm browsing the net in Camino or Safari, or using word to work on my writing. Those things are like tanks!! I still want an iMac G4 one day, I MUST HAVE THAT MACHINE!!!

Lord Blackadder

Sep 23, 2006, 07:00 PM

BoA*

Sep 23, 2006, 07:12 PM

The PPC iMacs/eMacs were usually great computers. I was happy with my iMac G3 Rev. C, It got me through college (and has since passed the torch to my current G4-powered dynamic duo PowerBook/PowerMac).
I remember my elementary school used iMac G3s, and then one year they switched all the teachers computers to Dell or Gateway, the teachers were pis... lol, those Dells they wholesale never work right...

wyatt23

Sep 23, 2006, 07:18 PM

i had a P4 3.2GHZ laptop, and it was replaced by a 700mhz eMac. it's trucking, and i love it. [now if i could only over clock it to 950]

BoA*

Sep 23, 2006, 07:29 PM

i had a P4 3.2GHZ laptop, and it was replaced by a 700mhz eMac. it's trucking, and i love it. [now if i could only over clock it to 950]
Those look nice, the eMacs did. Too bad they were only for Education for most of the time :(.

iSaint

Sep 23, 2006, 09:23 PM

I have a last gen 1.67ghz Powerbook. I love it. It's all I need / will need for the next several years! At least that's what I tell my wife.;)

pknz

Sep 23, 2006, 09:24 PM

No, I have had problems with my iMac G5. They have not been resolved. Yet.

Warbrain

Sep 23, 2006, 09:52 PM

Those look nice, the eMacs did. Too bad they were only for Education for most of the time :(.

Most of the time? You could buy an eMac for your home for a very long time.

I love the PPC. I still think it's superior to the x86 in many ways. I plan on never getting rid of one of my PPC computers since they're just so great.

srf4real

Sep 23, 2006, 10:11 PM

I'll be using my g3 and g4 apples until they break, which may be never.:eek:
I'll buy a dual g5 if my others ever wear out; by then I can probably get one super cheap and it will always be more of a machine than I'll ever need:D

amin

Sep 23, 2006, 10:46 PM

I have not had a PPC desktop computer. My G4 Powerbook does all that I need in a laptop, and aside from the poor wireless range, it does it all well. In the desktop space, I have now replaced my Windows machines with Intel Macs, and that has been a change for the better.

nagromme

Sep 23, 2006, 11:10 PM

Happy with PPC, yes :)

My G4 PowerBook may not have the speed of recent Intel laptops, but it's nice and thin and runs great.

I'm even HAPPIER with Intel, though :)

plinkoman

Sep 23, 2006, 11:16 PM

twoodcc

Sep 24, 2006, 01:20 AM

i must say that i've sold my ppc mini and powerbook, and am now using intel imac and macbook, and they are much faster. but if only i'd have saved for a mac pro.........

itgoesbuzz

Sep 24, 2006, 01:41 AM

happy with my powerbook, but still want a macbook pro just 'cause

dogbone

Sep 24, 2006, 01:55 AM

I'm very happy with my 1.42ghz emac with 2 gig of ram.

I love the accuracy of the crt. I have had no issues with having 20 full res digital files open in photoshop as I never do stuff that takes long to process like a huge radial blur. It is virtually instantaneous in Illy and Indesigh. It's not too shabby with a 2 milion poly mesh in Zbrush and it does a pretty decent rendering in X-plane.

I feel no need to upgrade.

jamesmcd

Sep 24, 2006, 01:55 AM

Couldn't care less about the speed increase, it's the fact that I can run XP, Vista and Tiger on one machine. :D

Nermal

Sep 24, 2006, 02:22 AM

My G3 and my Intel are both loved :)

PCMacUser

Sep 24, 2006, 07:49 AM

yes, I am perfectly happy with PPC; why wouldn't I be? I don't care what benchmarks you want to show me, the truth is my PowerBook is not that much slower than a core duo. for everyday tasks it is unnoticeable, and for photoshop, mine is still faster. ;)
I even find that my 12" iBook isn't much slower than the 1.67GHz Powerbook I owned and cost less than half the price! :) I think it just comes down to what you're using it for.

PCMacUser

Sep 24, 2006, 08:00 AM

Couldn't care less about the speed increase, it's the fact that I can run XP, Vista and Tiger on one machine. :D
Yeah, that's what I want too...
BTW, strange sig!

mdntcallr

Sep 24, 2006, 08:02 AM

I voted yes. Why wouldnt i be happy with the G4 tech that powers my powerbook 1.25.

But I am looking to upgrade soon to the new macbook pro with Core 2 Duo.

Why? because there is more power to do things, and do things with windows if god forbid i need to. to be honest, that would likely only come if there is a game i want to use isnt on the mac yet.

but for most work items, it works great.

it isnt that im unhappy with my powerbook, it is just getting a bit beat up.

Dagless

Sep 24, 2006, 08:52 AM

hell no.

It was good, but seeing that the intel Macs can now replace 2 machines in one fell swoop then BAM. save power, save money, save desk space.
It's a shame I still have to use Windows but I do. And I can't bloody wait to get rid of my horrible laptop.

freebooter

Sep 24, 2006, 09:07 AM

For most things my G4 mac mini 1.42 is fast enough, but:
1) it has trouble playing h.264 movies sometimes
2) too slow in P.S. CS2, especially if iTunes is playing (sometimes I shut it off and plug the iPod into the speakers)

I'm switching to Intel, soon. Just waiting for the new MBPs to come out and then I'll decide between them and an iMac.

Dont Hurt Me

Sep 24, 2006, 10:06 AM

Grouping G3,G4 & G5 all under the label of PPC isnt fair. G3/G4 are pretty rock solid and I would vote yes but G5 is another ball game and would vote No.

BoA*

Sep 24, 2006, 11:44 AM

What's wrong with G5? lol

I have a G3 and a G5, no complaints...

nagromme

Sep 24, 2006, 12:34 PM

Why is G5 worse than G3/G4? G5 is the fastest of them all, in the same league as Pentium 4 and only recently outclassed by the latest Core chips.

Not to mention, G5 is the family living on in console games :)

mjstew33

Sep 24, 2006, 12:36 PM

Yeah, I'm happy.. but..

I just ran a test in Handbrake and my Macbook kicked it's fricken ass. I guess that's expected w/ dual core but:

iMac: Full DVD Rip Backup; Full Quality; 30 FPS; 1.5 Hours
MacBook: Full DVD Rip Backup; Full Quality; 70 FPS; 35 minutes.

:eek:

:D I love me some macbook

oh yeah, specs:
iMac:
1.9GHz PPC G5
1.5GB RAM

MacBook
2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB RAM

joepunk

Sep 24, 2006, 01:04 PM

I'm happy with my Rev. D iMac and Powerbook. PB does the job quite well in the Adobe CS area except for the lack of much ram. But I survive. Been meaning to take it in to have the screen looked at (white spots).

APPLENEWBIE

Sep 24, 2006, 01:05 PM

I have two G4 machines, a mini 1.42 and 12" Powerbook 1.33. Both are very stable and capable machines. I also have a G3 PM 400 with 640 mb ram, which is good for what it does, a transcription station. It too is stable and the extra ram keeps things like scrolling through lists over the network smooth. I did upgrade the G3 to itunes 7, which was interesting. it works fine, but in the cd case view mode (or whatever it's called) even with that much ram it is slow and staggers/stutters. Maybe 7 was a bad idea. But it is rarely used for music anyway.

I always think that I should get an intel racehorse mac. But, for what I use them for, there is no good reason. Mostly word processing, surfing, and some iphoto/itunes. The G4's are reasonably good at iMovie, good enough for most users probably. I bought an intel macbook for my son, which is definitely faster and seems stable, too. No problems at all, as far as I know. I rarely get to use it unless he brings it home from college.... "dad, how do I....."

PCMacUser

Sep 24, 2006, 09:11 PM

Happy but not content.

California

Sep 28, 2006, 03:15 AM

I am going out of my way to stay PPC. Just bought a new with full warranty PPC 1.5ghz silent upgrade mini with BT/APX/Superdrive; just bought a new 12" Powerbook 1.5ghz w/Superdrive - dropping the same 100gb 7200rpm Travelstar hard drive in each machine and maxing out ram on both.

Just not interested in the Intels until they lose that Rosetta thing. ALso, Microsoft Word doesn't run any faster on any machine I've used from G3s to G5s and I have owned the gamut of PPCs in the past seventeen years.

People NEVER talk about Word for the Mac, and yet I need this app more than any other.

I will never forget my biggest Apple jump from a 1993 LCIII and a 1994 Powerbook 145b to a 2001 400mhz Titanium Powerbook G4

and guess what? In those seven or eight years, Word on the Mac was the SAME SPEED.

And it STILL IS.

I'll bet that Word on the Intel Macs runs the same speed as my year 1994 Powerbook 145b!!!

Anyone got any benchmarks? How come no one talks about this?

0010101

Sep 29, 2006, 10:14 AM

Anybody remember when Apple switched from the 68K chips to the PowerPC chips?

The PPC was smokin' fast, so long as you were running PPC native apps.. the problem was, everybody had thousands of dollars worth of 68K software and it had to run in 'emulation' mode to work on the PPC boxes.. and they were slow, slow, slow.

From what I understand, the transition to Intel chips has been smoother, but not all 'top tier' applications have been ported to 'native' Intel code, meaning you have to use 'Rosetta' which seems, at least in my mind, a 21st century way of saying 'emulation' mode.

Since i'm not a gamer, and after using OS X for the last year now, the thought of going back to XP makes me physically ill.. i'm perfectly happy with my little G4.

Maybe in a couple years, when everything is native, and they've worked the kinks out of the Intel transition i'll look into it.. but my next 'upgrade' will be either a faster G4 or G5.

For my purposes, I find two plus year old Mac technology is plenty fast.. and way cheaper.

sunfast

Sep 29, 2006, 10:41 AM

I have both - a G4 iMac and a MacBook.

The MacBook is the main machine of course but the G4 is still great, an exceedingly robust system.

twdawson

Sep 29, 2006, 10:56 AM

The only reason i upgraded to Intel was because my Imac G5 was scrapped by my insurance company when i sent it in for repair.
I wish i still had it, because it was a great machine.

displaced

Sep 29, 2006, 11:29 AM

From what I understand, the transition to Intel chips has been smoother, but not all 'top tier' applications have been ported to 'native' Intel code, meaning you have to use 'Rosetta' which seems, at least in my mind, a 21st century way of saying 'emulation' mode.

It seems like it, but it isn't ;)

Rosetta performs translation, not emulation. Sounds like a meaningless distinction, but it's incredibly important. Emulation would involve software running on the Intel processor which mimicing the behaviour of a PowerPC processor. Then, the PPC software runs atop this emulated processor. This is s..l..o..w! Rosetta does not work like this. It looks at the problem from the other side. It looks at what the PowerPC software is doing, and dynamically translates that into Intel instructions. The whole PowerPC architecture isn't emulated. Since all OS X apps are built upon OS X libraries, we already know how that code works, so Rosetta can very rapidly translate those PowerPC binaries to call OS X's Intel-based libraries.

Rosetta is simply astonishing considering the apparent complexity of the problem it solves. If I remember the benchmarks off the top of my head, PowerPC apps will run at least as fast on Intel machines as they would on current top-end PowerPC systems. Of course, the native versions would thrash the PowerPC equivalents. The one caveat regarding Rosetta is that it adds a RAM overhead to PowerPC apps, since it keeps a dynamic cache of each PPC app's translated instructions to optimise speed.

Regarding the topic of the poll, my MacBook Pro is absolutely perfect. Simply the best computer I've ever owned. My G4 Mac Mini is still every bit as capable as it was the day I bought it (well, moreso actually, since I fitted a replacement internal DVD drive that's a dual-layer burner). It's now found a home as a media centre machine in the living room.

tristan

Sep 29, 2006, 12:00 PM

The five most evil words ever written: "It runs fine in Rosetta". If anybody says that to me, I'll toss them off my balcony.

No, I'm not particularly happy with the stone-age architecture that is the PBG4, but I'd have to be crazier than son of sam to buy new hardware to run old software in emulation.

Office and Adobe are the major missing pieces, so when those get new Universal versions, that's when I will consider the Intel platform.

displaced

Sep 29, 2006, 12:12 PM

The five most evil words ever written: "It runs fine in Rosetta". If anybody says that to me, I'll toss them off my balcony.

Wheeeeeeeee! *splat*

No, I'm not particularly happy with the stone-age architecture that is the PBG4, but I'd have to be crazier than son of sam to buy new hardware to run old software in emulation.

As I said, it's not emulation, it's translation. This is a very important distinction, which puts the PPC-to-Intel switch in an entirely different world to the 68k-to-PPC switch. The only noticeable sign that it's running as a translated process is above-usual memory use and an increased startup time (this startup delay is not reflected in normal use of the applications - responses once using the program are instantaneous.)

Office and Adobe are the major missing pieces, so when those get new Universal versions, that's when I will consider the Intel platform.

This might make you want to scrape up my remains and throw me from your balcony once more (just to make sure), but I'm a heavy user of Office and it honestly does run fine in Rosetta. The Adobe apps I have no direct experience with and so I won't comment.

tristan

Sep 29, 2006, 02:26 PM

This is no laughing matter, my friend. Emulation is pure evil. I will walk you through the philosophical underpinnings. When I'm finished, you will see that Rosetta is nothing less than a crime against humanity.

First, Rosetta *is* an emulator, even if Apple marketing doesn't like the word. I'm not even going to debate this, just go to Wikipedia and read up on Rosetta, dynamic binary translation, etc. Like every emulator, you pay a performance hit when you run an non-native app. This performance hit is about 50%. I won't debate this either, just go look at any of the benchmarks, like the Boot Camp vs OSX Photoshop benchmarks for example.

When you buy hardware that's two or three times as fast as your old computer, you don't expect it to run software at the same speed! But that's exactly what the situation is now, thanks to Rosetta.

Sure, an MBP probably runs software acceptably. But so does my PBG4 1.67ghz. In fact, a PBG4 1.67ghz will run MS Office *faster* than an 1.83ghz MBP! (See the MacTech benchmarks.) And a Mac Mini G4 will *smoke* any Intel machine in Photoshop.

The Core 2 Duo is an engineering miracle. There's no reason that someone who owns one should put up with performance on the level of a G4, thanks to a crippling emulator.

Well, at least Rosetta lets you run those old apps, even with degraded performance, right? WRONG! What if Rosetta was never released? What if Apple had just told their developers last year "Make your app universal or it won't run in six months." Everyone would have updated their app by now and the Intel machines would be the best performing systems ever made, rather than still getting owned by G4s.

thejadedmonkey

Sep 29, 2006, 02:34 PM

Are you still happy with PPC?
Even though it's over a year old, my mini still performs just as well as it did the day I got it. Even if I had an intel mini, it would still be doing the same exact stuff, just with 10.4 instead of 10.3.

ziwi

Sep 29, 2006, 02:50 PM

Absolutely - it does all I ask it to do and more - just hope they don't drop support for them now that the intel's are all the rage...

asphalt-proof

Sep 29, 2006, 03:16 PM

I have a G4 iMac and up till recently, have never wanted another Mac. But with the 'switch to intel, the opportunity to run windows games, dual boot XP, AND a 24" iMac, I am in serious lust. The posterwho was looking to buy a G4... I will sell you mine.:p

p0intblank

Sep 29, 2006, 03:43 PM

My PowerBook G4 17-inch has been great to me. I run it on my Dell 20.1" widescreen display and it's awesome. The only problem I had is that my original hard drive died. Thankfully I had all my important data backed up. Also I went from a 4200 RPM drive to a 7200 RPM one. The performance boost was great. :)

Now of course I would love a Mac Pro, but a) can't afford one right now and b) not enough Universal apps are available (Adobe CS3 namely)

eyemacg5

Sep 29, 2006, 03:48 PM

I'm fine with my imac g5 last gen, runs things really fast and good for my needs, sometimes it lags a little but i'm sure thats not a processor problem, i doubt it will do it when i upgrade my ram, in the next few weeks.

Oh yeah and i would love a mac pro, with 2 30"s and 2 3ghz dual xeons and 16gb ram etc but that will neverhappen.

-jake

twdawson

Sep 29, 2006, 05:40 PM

My Intel Mac Mini has XP installed on it until i can get universal versions of the programs i use.
I use Photoshop quite a bit so therefore spend most of my time in xp because i just do not like rosetta at all, it is far to slow for my needs.
As soon as these universals are out i will ditch xp from my system.

JHipp

Sep 29, 2006, 07:23 PM

I'm plenty happy with it, the computer in my sig is still with stock RAM and it's fast enough for me, I really need to get some more RAM just so I can get a WOW THIS THING IS FAST! when I'm editing.

0010101

Sep 30, 2006, 10:42 PM

When you buy hardware that's two or three times as fast as your old computer, you don't expect it to run software at the same speed! But that's exactly what the situation is now, thanks to Rosetta.

That's what i'm talking about. While technically, Rosetta may not be 'emulation', the end result is simular to the situation Apple had when they made the transition to the PowerPC chip.

Not sure if you've priced software lately, but i'm not sure i'd be real eager to 'upgrade' my hardware to the tune of a few grand, just to have the year old software I just paid a grand or more for run the same speed.. or worse yet, spend ANOTHER grand or so for the 'new versions'.

4JNA

Oct 1, 2006, 12:48 AM

very happy. PPCs are some of the best computers i have ever owned. i've owned a LOT. finally moving into intel stuff because of 'want', not 'need'.

can't imagine a better everyday/work system than my dual 1.8 g5. for a portable i prefer and use a g4 ibook for the kitchen/backporch/couch computer. dead silent, not hot, easy to clean, and tough as nails.

good stuff!

iBookG4user

Oct 1, 2006, 01:11 AM

I'm not happy at all with my iBook G4's speed. I need speed for video encoding, photoshop and such so I'm soon going to sell it and move to an intel MacBook Pro. Although it is weird that whenever I run transmission on my intel iMac it slows it to a crawl... Although I'm going to get myself an older powerbook (867MHz or higher if I can afford it after getting the MBP) for menial tasks like bittorrent or encoding when I have to go to school.

twdawson

Oct 2, 2006, 01:12 PM

I am not happy with the Intel version of osx. I just does not feel as snappy as the PPC version.
It seems alot more buggy and i find myself having to use the "Force quit" option alot more than i ever did.

I wish my Imac G5 never went wrong because i never had a problem until it packed up.

ddekker

Oct 2, 2006, 09:14 PM

pretty much the powermac 17 with a gig of ram is fast enough for most things, one thing that is painfully slow compaired to the intel versions and Windoze.

DD

ricgnzlzcr

Oct 2, 2006, 09:39 PM

I have a 1 ghz tibook with 1 gig ram and a superdrive. I'm very happy with performance for my normal stuff like websurfing, music, iphoto, garageband. I do want to rip dvds and I know that intel would help me out amazingly. Luckily, I work in a lab full of intel iMacs so I'm fine. I just WANT an isight, a more durable enclosure, and most of all the ability to move from OS X, Windows, and Linux whenever I want.