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Buying PowerPC Macs In 2012
- Thread starter Goftrey
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Agreed. Although the number of people who still use P4's as their main machines to this day is amazing. Both my parents (at work) & all of my school use cheapo P4 Optiplex's.
I have to admit that P4 kicked the **** outta AMD chips at the time. I had a P4 Northwood chip. It blew away my AMD Athlon XP 2600+ in every aspect.
Not true at all. AMD kicked the **** out of P4 and because of the P4, AMD was able to have the best processors for awhile and gain some marketshare... even having slightly better CPUs than the Core Duo. It wasn't until the Core 2 Duo where Intel took the lead and never looked back.
It also depends if the systems were built equally. If I recall correctly, the Athlon 2600 was the equivalent of a 2.6 GHZ Pentium 4, correct me if I'm wrong.
PPC machines still have their use but at this point on most of the still usable models their price to performance ratio just sucks.
If you can find a bargin on a nice Powerbook G4, why not? Hell I'd go ahead and guess a lot of people could live on a late G4 pretty easily but it's insane that a lot of them go for $300 when you can get a C2D Macbook that will run circles around it for the same price range.
If you can find a bargin on a nice Powerbook G4, why not? Hell I'd go ahead and guess a lot of people could live on a late G4 pretty easily but it's insane that a lot of them go for $300 when you can get a C2D Macbook that will run circles around it for the same price range.
If you find a C2D MacBook for $300 I'd like to know where. Most I've seen are closer to $500 or more.
Just bought one
Recently my ibook G4 1.2 ghz bought the dust, the dreaded video chip on the logic board issue. I considered just buying a board but in the end I thought it be better to use the 1.2ghz as a parts mule and buy a new ibook. Picked up a 1.07 ghz ibook G4 for 80 bucks. Only 512 RAM, but was able to use the 1 GB chip I had in the 1.2 ghz.
For that I have a decently fast, portable computer that can: Run all my PowerPC apps natively, surf the modern web with G4 camino and tenfourfox, use classic software I have that goes back 20 years, view youtube with mactubes, even HD video with Coreplayer.
Even in 2012 I'd still call that 80 bucks value for money.
Recently my ibook G4 1.2 ghz bought the dust, the dreaded video chip on the logic board issue. I considered just buying a board but in the end I thought it be better to use the 1.2ghz as a parts mule and buy a new ibook. Picked up a 1.07 ghz ibook G4 for 80 bucks. Only 512 RAM, but was able to use the 1 GB chip I had in the 1.2 ghz.
For that I have a decently fast, portable computer that can: Run all my PowerPC apps natively, surf the modern web with G4 camino and tenfourfox, use classic software I have that goes back 20 years, view youtube with mactubes, even HD video with Coreplayer.
Even in 2012 I'd still call that 80 bucks value for money.
I've been told that the little netbooks are faster than my G4. I'm sorry but that is sooooo far from the truth I don't even see how onw could even conclude that. I was working on this ladies hp netbook and I seriously wanted to throw it. It was sooooo slllooooowwww...
I had a Dell Mini 9 about two years ago that I made into a Hackintosh for kicks. It was awful. It ran everything, but very slowly. A 1.33ghz iBook G4 seemed much more competent, and had a nicer keyboard (that said, the Powerbook G4 keyboards are sooo much nicer than the iBook keyboards).
I use a G4 gigabit (dp 450) and a 800MHZ eMac as my daily machines, the only problem i have is that my iPod touch wont connect to itunes (10.1 isn't Tiger compatible) Besides that i LOVE it. If i can find a Leopard disk i may put the eMac on Leopard though...
I sold a 1.3 GHz iBook G4 and replaced it with a 1.6 GHz HP mini. To be honest, they're about the same as far as speed goes, I didn't notice much of a difference between the two.
I benchmarked my 12" 1.5GHz PowerBook and a coworker's Atom powered Dell Mini 9 with Snow Leopard each on Xbench and the PowerBook edged it out. Not that Xbench is gospel truth, but since they're both 32 bit single core systems it wasn't too bad.
Interesting. The Dell Mini was certainly usable on OS X, but just felt slow, especially multi-tasking. But when you think of it as, a (at the time) 5-6 year old G4 was as fast as a (then new) Dell Mini 9, that's kind of funny and one of the reasons people love the G4's so much.
Actually I just went back and looked. It was actually an ASUS EeePC.
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=454696
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=397582
i picked up a intel white macbook 2006 for $320 in Aus on fleabay. I did have to get a replacement batt, but besides that it was in new condition. It also had the better vid card.. X3100 vs the gma950...
there great macbooks, Still use it to this day... but its not Power Arch...
there great macbooks, Still use it to this day... but its not Power Arch...
The 2006 models, at least when I last bought my MB a year ago were about 350-400.. Core Duo was going for about $300-$350.. I'd imagine the prices are similar today if not dropped but I haven't done a lot of looking.
Either way it's just not worth paying $300 for a Powerbook that can hardly handle a flash video when for a small premium you can get a laptop that can still hang in 2012. Even a Core Duo model will blow it away.
you have to remember some times it's not about the "best" computer, some times it's about the "right" computer..
hmm, even though i love the PowerPC arch, i do prefer the unibody alu design to the powerbooks.. regardless of whats inside.
that said, i still prefer my PM for doing day to day tasks..
that said, i still prefer my PM for doing day to day tasks..
Good point, but if you absolutely need the pluses of a Powerbook (bigger screen, aluminum, backlit keyboard) than I'd really pay the extra for an early gen MBP.. look hard enough and you can find one pretty cheap. Looking at completed listings I'm seeing some of the first gen CD models for ridiculously cheap prices.