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Are late production G4 Powerbooks all that different in performance?

shaocaholica

shaocaholica

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 26, 2010
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Sorry if this is covered in a mega thread. I'm looking for a late production powerbook G4 to run the last supported Lightroom/Aperture and photoshop just for demoing but it still needs to be 'useable'. Looking at the spec table they all seem pretty similar spec from the 12in to the 17in. I would max out the memory and install a SSD but am I really going to notice a huge difference between a 12in 1.5ghz/1.25GB and 17in 1.67ghz/2GB when running these apps?
 
I have a late model iBook G4 (1.42 Ghz, 1.5GB RAM) and a late model Powerbook G4 (1.67 Ghz, 2GB RAM) and for most intents and purposes I feel they are the same when using most any software (iTunes, browsers, Discord). I don't have any experience with Lightroom or Aperture specifically. That said, I only really notice a difference when compiling, but even then, it's not necessarily drastic. It's slow vs. slightly less slow =).
 
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Wait there’s PPC discord? Or you mean in browser discord? Also how is web browsing modern sites on a maxed out late Gen G4 laptop?
 
shaocaholica said:
am I really going to notice a huge difference between a 12in 1.5ghz/1.25GB and 17in 1.67ghz/2GB when running these apps?
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Yes, there is a difference!

PowerBook 12s shipped with mid Nvidia GPUs-- they don't even do native Core Image on hardware unlike the Radeons of the 15s and 17s.

Also, "late production" 15s and 17s (the A1138/A1139 "High-Resolution or "DLSD" models) come with faster DDR2 memory and higher resolution displays. The 12s never got this update.

As far as CPU performance is, the difference is negligible, but when combined with the above there is definitely a benefit to a 15 or 17. The appeal of the 12 is its diminutive size (and performance per size), but a bigger chassis can allow for bigger gains.
 
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Are the Late 2005 models particularly rare because so few were made?
 
shaocaholica said:
Are the Late 2005 models particularly rare because so few were made?
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Yes. The last 15" and 17" PBG4s were released in Oct. 2005 and discontinued in Jan. 2006 when the first MBPs were released. Apple had already announced the switch to Intel at WWDC 2005 earlier in June. So they were only available for a few months and already headed for obsolescence at release. I imagine a lot of informed buyers knew to wait for Intel if they could.
 
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I’ve tried both sizes and honestly the jump from 1.5 to 1.67 GHz isn’t a game‑changer. The SSD and 2 GB of RAM are what’ll really speed things up. If you need the extra screen real estate, go 17″, but for Lightroom/Aperture demos the 12″ with SSD and 2 GB is fast enough.
 
I ended up snagging an Early 2005 17in and will upgrade to 2GB and SSD. Also realized the Early 2005 also supports the 30in Cinema Display which I have so I'll run that for the demo.

What kind of SSD is best in 2025? Should I just get an m.2 SATA SSD with a 44pin adapter case? That seems like the best GB/$ option.
 
shaocaholica said:
Sorry if this is covered in a mega thread. I'm looking for a late production powerbook G4 to run the last supported Lightroom/Aperture and photoshop just for demoing but it still needs to be 'useable'. Looking at the spec table they all seem pretty similar spec from the 12in to the 17in. I would max out the memory and install a SSD but am I really going to notice a huge difference between a 12in 1.5ghz/1.25GB and 17in 1.67ghz/2GB when running these apps?
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I gotta step in because I use Aperture 2 frequently. I use a G5 Quad and the thing still struggles a bit with Aperture. It’s a very GPU-intensive program as it uses Core Image for its graphics alongside CPU.

I cannot imagine the PBG4 runs Aperture 2 well at all but tbh I don’t own one so I have not tried. In fact I remember that the 1.6GHz Power Mac G5 was not on the supported CPUs list for 1.0 or 2.0.

By the way, the PowerBook G4 12” GPU (the Go 5200) is not supported by Aperture. Go with the 17” 1.5-1.67GHz model if you actually want to run the program with any degree of speed. Aperture was built with the very latest PowerPC processors in mind and quickly shifted towards being primarily developed for Intel.

Edit: Looks like you already got things settled. For SSD recommendations just get an adapter with some cheap 500GB SATA SSD. You’re not necessarily dealing with a wack SATA controller like the G5s so this should be fine. You’re always gonna be bottlenecked by Ultra ATA/100 speeds.

I cannot stress enough that Aperture is a very heavy program to run and to get the most out of it you need a camera that is supported. HOWEVER if you just plan on importing JPEGs then you can get away with a lot more. RAW photo performance is noticeably slower on my G5 than when I am editing JPEGs.

I have not tried Lightroom but it is 64-bit iirc compared to Aperture 2 being 32-bit but that won’t matter for your purposes.
 
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For a 2015 PBG4 is the best way to re-install Tiger the 10.4.6 retail DVD image (restored to USB) and the 10.4.11 combo update?
 
jktwice said:
I cannot stress enough that Aperture is a very heavy program to run and to get the most out of it you need a camera that is supported. HOWEVER if you just plan on importing JPEGs then you can get away with a lot more. RAW photo performance is noticeably slower on my G5 than when I am editing JPEGs.
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There is arguably no point in doing jpeg editing in a RAW processor. There are more suitable tools.

P. S. Can’t Aperture handle DNG? That would remove the issue of unsupported cameras.
 
Aperture and Lightroom should both support DNG so you could try to get a G4/G5 to load a 100MP 2025 RAW.
 
Actually I don't think I have it anymore does anyone have the Lightroom 2.x (classic) installer for PPC Macs? I think there's a v2.5 from 2009.
 
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barracuda156 said:
There is arguably no point in doing jpeg editing in a RAW processor. There are more suitable tools.

P. S. Can’t Aperture handle DNG? That would remove the issue of unsupported cameras.
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Of course there is no point in editing jpegs in a RAW processor.

Yeah Aperture can handle DNGs just fine. I’ve heard there may be compatibility issues depending on how they are converted but I have a newer camera so I could try it out sometime.
 
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