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1.5 vs 1.67 PBs - maccentral suggests little difference

S

sbb155

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 15, 2005
498
5
Did anyone see the benchamrks just posted at Maccentral?
Very little differences between 1.5 and 1.67 Ghz. - a few seconds at best in most cases.
I guess it is different than when the 12" was 1 ghz and the 17 " was 1.33 (a 33% difference), compared to now.

Doesn't this mean that really the best value is the 1.5 ghz 15" PB or even the 12" (if yoiu don't want an ibook that is)....

I guess also the uniformity of the 5400 HD makes a difference....

Comments anyone? Esepcially for us PB potential buyers...

I guess the REAL advance will be dual core G4 to get improved performance... Hell, it seems that a dual MDD PM is better than a single 1.6 G5!!
 
sbb155 said:
Did anyone see the benchamrks just posted at Maccentral?
Very little differences between 1.5 and 1.67 Ghz. - a few seconds at best in most cases.
I guess it is different than when the 12" was 1 ghz and the 17 " was 1.33 (a 33% difference), compared to now.

Doesn't this mean that really the best value is the 1.5 ghz 15" PB or even the 12" (if yoiu don't want an ibook that is)....

I guess also the uniformity of the 5400 HD makes a difference....

Comments anyone? Esepcially for us PB potential buyers...

I guess the REAL advance will be dual core G4 to get improved performance... Hell, it seems that a dual MDD PM is better than a single 1.6 G5!!
Click to expand...

Really shows how lackluster of an update this really was...
 
too close

personally i think they should be concentrating on dual core now... the single g4 is starting to show its age... but even still there should be a bigger gap
 
I just got me 12" Powerbook G4 1.5 and I love it... previously had (well I still have it) an iBook G4 800... but they gotta stay connected for a while as the Powerbook is cleaning out the iBook HD with the 8-way random write format... not really sure how long that's gonna take but it's been running for a few hours right now and not showing a ton of progress...
 
I think the main reason for going for the 1.67GHz would be for the option of 128MB on the video card (and Dual-link DVI :D) and the standard superdrive. Add some stuff to the 1.5GHz, and it's only $50 or so more for the 1.67GHz (or if you add the 128MB and drop the SuperDrive, it's about the same difference). But 170MHz now shouldn't be expected to give much of a difference in anything anyway. A few years ago though, it was a bigger difference ;)
 
Counterfit said:
I think the main reason for going for the 1.67GHz would be for the option of 128MB on the video card (and Dual-link DVI :D) and the standard superdrive. Add some stuff to the 1.5GHz, and it's only $50 or so more for the 1.67GHz (or if you add the 128MB and drop the SuperDrive, it's about the same difference). But 170MHz now shouldn't be expected to give much of a difference in anything anyway. A few years ago though, it was a bigger difference ;)
Click to expand...

If anything, I think the value of having 128 MB VRAM is so that when you have two displays connected, both displays may have 64MB VRAM. Right now, on my PB, two displays means I have 32 MB per/display, which sucks, so I keep the 20" the primary display when I can.
 
This is why the G4 sucks.

This is exactly why the G4 in its current incarnation sucks so badly. all Apple & Freescale are doing right now is increasing the clock multiplier. Because FSB speeds aren't going up, real performance won't go up very much. In extremely CPU bound applications with a tight codebase that can fit into the on-chip cache, then you'll see speed-ups equivalent to the MHz increase. On the other hand, anything intensively using the FSB won't see much (if any) increase.

I personally couldn't care less about a G5 in a powerbook, but I >DO< care about a FSB increase. That is the real reason that a 1.6 G5 feels so much snappier than a 1.67 G4 (even though the G4 outperforms the G5)!

So much for updates.

(cranky)
 
The chip is maxed out kids. We're deep into overclocking territory and there's no speed gains to be made with the bus stuck at 167 and Apple's insistance on killing the L3 cache on the G4. This revision is a waste unles you're new to the game.
 
I think Apple realized the speed bumps are minimal so they added all the extra stuff like more RAM, SMS, etc and a price cut to make the PBs more attractive. Still, it is a better deal now than the previous gen PBs.
 
Apple can't win. They provide a nice update at a lower price and get knocked because it's not much faster. If they provided a big speed boost, they'd get knocked because it'd be a rev. A. :rolleyes:

I for one think these are really nice.
 
So what did you expect, an 11% increase in CPU clock speed giving a performance increase of 20% or something?
 
Other than a Dual Core G4 it looks like the G4 is maxed out. The best thing about the Powerbook update was scrolling touchpad and disk lock.
 
In about 3 years I might buy a 12" Rev. D PowerBook..... just due to the price of them at that point.

Might also pick up a cheap G3 PowerBook and stuff it with dual batteries for a long-lasting note taking machine kinda thing.

But now, I love my 12" Rev. C PowerBook. :D:D:D:D
 
SilentPanda said:
not really sure how long that's gonna take but it's been running for a few hours right now and not showing a ton of progress...
Click to expand...

It will take a long time. Might stretch into a couple of days depending on the hard drive size. Writing 0's to an 8GB hard drive took me 20 minutes. So... 160 minutes for an 8 way write, and that means it takes 20 minutes per gigabyte. This was on a 5200 or a 4200 rpm drive, I forget which. Looking at 800 minutes if its a 40 GB drive.
 
sbb155 said:
Did anyone see the benchamrks just posted at Maccentral?
Very little differences between 1.5 and 1.67 Ghz. - a few seconds at best in most cases.
I guess it is different than when the 12" was 1 ghz and the 17 " was 1.33 (a 33% difference), compared to now.

Doesn't this mean that really the best value is the 1.5 ghz 15" PB or even the 12" (if yoiu don't want an ibook that is)....

I guess also the uniformity of the 5400 HD makes a difference....

Comments anyone? Esepcially for us PB potential buyers...

I guess the REAL advance will be dual core G4 to get improved performance... Hell, it seems that a dual MDD PM is better than a single 1.6 G5!!
Click to expand...

Did you guys bother doing the math? In most tests, the 1.67 ghz is about 10% faster than the 1.50 ghz version. That's in line with the 11% advantage in clock speed. What's the big surprise or disappointment???

I'd also be skeptical of these tests. There's no way in hell that the 12-inch 1.5 ghz PB is THAT much faster than the 15-inch 1.5 ghz PB. And why didn't they run multiple tests and average out the times? Sloppy sloppy joe.
 
Nothing in those tests that make me run to the nearest Apple retailer... I probably gonna replace my iBook (G4@800) this year (sometime after Tiger is released), and will get either a 12" iBook or 12" PowerBook. At the moment it seems like it's gonna be a new iBook, but some MAJOR upgrades of the PB could change my mind, like dual core or - yes I know it's a bit worn out - G5/Cell...
 
gekko513 said:
So what did you expect, an 11% increase in CPU clock speed giving a performance increase of 20% or something?
Click to expand...

It looks like it's more like a 9% increase in performance and that's with more ram and a faster 5400rpm drive too. Yikes. It really goes to show how bad the current G4 processor is. As I recall the 7447B is actually slower (at the same speeds) than the 7447 with the L2 cache disabled. The larger L2 chache is the only thing that makes it faster. Terrible. Shameful. Disgraceful. Awful. Quite possibly the worst upgrade ever.
 
1984 said:
Terrible. Shameful. Disgraceful. Awful. Quite possibly the worst upgrade ever.
Click to expand...
For crying out loud. Must it be said again?

Yes, the G4 is reaching the end. That's why they added other features and dropped the price! There's more to upgrade than just the CPU, you know.
 
Those benchmarks don't surprise me. The only good thing between the 1.5's and the new ones is the new price. If anyone is in the market for a PowerBook, have a look around for a 1.5Ghz model with the faster HD, and you will get more of a bargain!!

aussie_geek
 
the whining, the whining...

Jeez, people--get a grip.

It was a speedbump. A small one. It signals the nearing of the end for the Powerbook G4 as we know it--the next big rev. will be any one of the technologies we have been drooling over and praying for over the last several months (dual core G4s w/faster bus speeds, G5's, Cells, etc.). It is hard to tell which, as Apple probably has all of them in development in one fashion or the other and is not tipping its hand.

Still, the increase of standard RAM, SMS, faster drives, AE/BT, backlighting updates and the 128MB graphics card are all welcome, as is the overall reduction in price. While they are not the "bleeding edge" tech we might be hoping for, they are a good value.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the final version of a product is often its best, most reliable rendition. It seems to me that these are the last of the single-core G4 AlBooks. The next bid release will issue a new era, complete with new design issues, bugs, real-world failings, etc. I predict that these current AlBooks will be considered very durable and desirable, even when the new systems come out.

I bought a closeout Pismo when the TiBooks first came out. My Pismo was built like a tank, more expandable, showed scuffing/scratching less, and lasted me three years of constant use as my only CPU. It had a G3 chip instead of a G4, but it still ran 10.3 like a champ. No broken hinges, peeling paint, or any other such problems. You don't find nearly as many lovers of 1st generation (400/500mhz) TiBooks as you do Pismo-philes.

BTW, I am putting my money where my mouth is. I'll be buying a 17" Powerbook within the next 30-60 days. I anticipate that it will be "obsolete" within a few months after that when the "next big thing" comes out. But for my purposes, it will be more than fast enough, durable enough, and expandable enough to meet my needs for at least another 3-5 years, all without the rev A issues the "bleeding edgers" will be facing.

A slightly slower processor/mobo in a working G4 machine trumps a busted down 1st generation G5 every time.
 
its not their fault!

Apple is at the mercy of the chip manufacturers here. I have so been hoping for the 7448 freescale chip to be ready, i'm sure that is why they held out for so long with this last update. Alas, it obviously didn't meet the deadline. so instead, here is a suckass lite overclock of an already straining chip with some fancy extras to make you forget that this upgrade was possible 9 months ago. so if freescale hasn't got the 7448 ready now, that doesn't look great for the dualcore g4's in the near future either. Damn i wish they could get ahead of the curve here! Same same for the G5 in the powermacs, its all up to IBM, if antares isn't ready soon, expect a price drop and some other lame "features" in a minor powermac upgrade.
it sucks to have some one else set the timelines, when all the hardware is around in good quantities apple happily schedules speedbumps every 6 months (my observation of the ibook line, which uses the cpus that the PB's no longer need).

Kevin in Canada
 
1984 said:
It looks like it's more like a 9% increase in performance and that's with more ram and a faster 5400rpm drive too. Yikes. It really goes to show how bad the current G4 processor is. As I recall the 7447B is actually slower (at the same speeds) than the 7447 with the L2 cache disabled. The larger L2 chache is the only thing that makes it faster. Terrible. Shameful. Disgraceful. Awful. Quite possibly the worst upgrade ever.
Click to expand...

I'll repeat it again with some more clarification then. So what did you expect, an 11% increase in CPU clock speed giving a performance increase of 20% or something, for CPU bound benchmarks? :rolleyes:
 
cemil said:
Because FSB speeds aren't going up, real performance won't go up very much.(cranky)
Click to expand...

Hit the nail on the head.

We are all "rumoring" about a G5 PowerBook. It seems logical.
IBM, Toshiba ... announced the "cell" processor. They are talking about that it can scale from a super powerful games station to a cell phone.
Perhaps a PowerBook is in there somewhere?
 
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