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A Fantastic Tip I Had Never Heard Of !!!

macdon401

macdon401

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 9, 2005
261
0
i found this tip fantastic, I had never heard it before and I'm not a new Mac person by any means! It has sped up my G5 iMac like stink, and I was happy before! With thanks to powerbook911 and mad jew... her you go...!

In the energy saver, go to custom, and then select "options." Set your processor performance to "Highest." They are usually default to "automatic," which makes things feel slower.

from mad jew...
I know iMac G5s exhibit quite a massive performance gain going from Automatic to Highest so it's probably true for the Power Macs too.

Thanks to this forum again, the best folks around when you need friendly help!
R
 
Nice work macdon401. :)

Now, a second very small tip: if you use very specific and relevant titles everyone around here will find/see the tip much easier. Just something for next time. :)
 
mad jew said:
Nice work macdon401. :)

Now, a second very small tip: if you use very specific and relevant titles everyone around here will find/see the tip much easier. Just something for next time. :)
Click to expand...

ding ding ding, and we have a winner for the tip of the day! :p
 
Of course you're being honest and your great intentions have to count for something 'round here. But since most people navigate by titles around here, it's very cool to have one that's very specific as to what the thread will be about.

Nevertheless, I'm sure many people will appreciate the time and effort you went into starting the thread in the first place. This is the best place to learn about Macs IMO and threads like yours are great for that reason. :)
 
macdon401 said:
from mad jew...
I know iMac G5s exhibit quite a massive performance gain going from Automatic to Highest so it's probably true for the Power Macs too.
Click to expand...

This is a great tip for 'Book and iMac G5 users, but AFAIK Power Macs don't have this option. I'm not at my PM right now, so I can't check for sure, but that's what I seem to remember.
 
Not sure, but macdon401 mentioned they saw performance gains on their G5 in the other thread so it could be that they were talking of the Power Mac, not the iMac. :)
 
yea we had our group of G5 iMacs several months before we learned of this feature, and we do heavy PS and ID work. I can honestly say we gained at least a 40% performance increase. It was like getting new machines.
Why the hell did Apple enable this feature by default on a desktop. Laptops, it's a no-brainer, everybody wants a longer lasting battery. But in a desktop environment what are you saveing? 1.2db?
 
Yes, I found this myself quite a while ago while tooling around system prefs. Thanks for the tip though.

On a side note, it's amazing how much more battery life you get when you set it to "Reduced." I found I squeeze at least another half hour out of my iBook when it's off-leash.
 
RandomDeadHead said:
yea we had our group of G5 iMacs several months before we learned of this feature, and we do heavy PS and ID work. I can honestly say we gained at least a 40% performance increase. It was like getting new machines.
Why the hell did Apple enable this feature by default on a desktop. Laptops, it's a no-brainer, everybody wants a longer lasting battery. But in a desktop environment what are you saveing? 1.2db?
Click to expand...

Probably to help keep the iMac from overheating. I left mine on automatic, but that's for two reasons. One, I'm not making a living off my computer so I don't need things done as fast as computerly possible. Second, I don't have air conditioning so it helps keep my iMac from becoming an iToaster on hot and humid summer days. And I also things it helps keep the iMac quiet instead of sounding like its prepping for takeoff from your desk. The computer is more of a consumer/prosumer computer than a true professional computer, which means that its intended user base is probably more interested in a quiet computing experience and that the computer will not necessarily be going to a climate controlled environment and very well could be going to a place where some computer illiterate retard stuffs a pillow in between the stand and the computer thereby blocking the air intake ports because they think it looks cute if the computer is "sleeping" on a pillow and then puts a cape around it thereby blocking the exhaust vents because they think they have such a "super" computer. Though I haven't heard of this case (though if anybody had and has a news article talking about said person's new iFlame, please post so I can laugh), Apple has to take into account all kinds of users and not all of them are as intelligent and computer wary as those on MacRumors. Its easier for Apple to get experienced computer users to switch from Automatic to Highest than it is to get potential iFlame owner to switch from Highest to Automatic.

But that's just my opinion. I'm off to look for a pillow and a cute cape now.
 
greenguy4 said:
So for iBooks is it best to leave this at reduced/high/automatic?
Click to expand...

I'd say it depends on your needs and how you're using your iBook. If you're on a plane without a spare battery and you need your iBook for a diversion or what not, then I'd say reduced for the extra battery life. If you're doing quite a bit of work but nothing that is processor hungry, then I'd say automatic. If you've got your iBook plugged into a wall outlet and, or you're doing processor intensive tasks, then highest. If I actually owned a laptop myself, I'd probably leave it on automatic all the time, but it really depends on how you're using it and what your needs require.
 
Heres a tip:

When you first set up your computer, go through every single system preference and change it to your own needs. That way you don't miss anything like this. Works every time.
 
It is present on the PowerMacs, and I have it set at Highest except when this room starts to get too hot :p (Stupid Dual 2.5GHz G5s :p)
 
Maedus said:
I'd say it depends on your needs and how you're using your iBook. If you're on a plane without a spare battery and you need your iBook for a diversion or what not, then I'd say reduced for the extra battery life. If you're doing quite a bit of work but nothing that is processor hungry, then I'd say automatic. If you've got your iBook plugged into a wall outlet and, or you're doing processor intensive tasks, then highest. If I actually owned a laptop myself, I'd probably leave it on automatic all the time, but it really depends on how you're using it and what your needs require.
Click to expand...
On the laptops you can set the energy savings to change based on whethe or not your plugged.

SO, on the iBook, when I plug in, it automatically goes to "Better Performance." When I unplug, it switches to "Better Energy Savings."

Helps my iBook FEEL a bit more like a viable desktop replacement when I'm at home or plugged in.
 
Verto said:
I'm hesitant about this, as I don't want my iMac to overheat.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't be a problem, unless maybe you're using your iMac in a room that has a high ambient temperature. And if it does overheat, it should shut itself down before doing any permanent damage, and then you could change the setting.
 
mad jew said:
Nice work macdon401. :)

Now, a second very small tip: if you use very specific and relevant titles everyone around here will find/see the tip much easier. Just something for next time. :)
Click to expand...

Maybe that's as direct as macdon401 can get... maybe his day job is a SpamTitleWriter ;)
 
Good tip, albeit one you want to be thoughtful with.

I admittedly haven't experimented with this heavily, but I thought I remembered back when the G5 towers were first released with this feature, most tests showed it was mostly in synthetic benchmarks (XBench) that "Highest" made a big difference over "Automatic", but then that might have been wrong and the situation might be different with the iMacs (especially vs. a 2-processor tower.

In my case, I've always left my DP-G5 at Auto to keep it quiet and save some power (you can measure the difference with a wattmeter), since it's always felt plenty fast and I'm usually disk bound, not processor bound anyway. With an iMac, I could see this making a much bigger difference, though, and I'll certainly try it at work and see if it makes the heavy lifters happy (we run some pretty beefy scientific stuff on our couple of G5 iMacs). If the fans get too noisy I'll probably hear complaints, though.
 
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