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Help: Did I screw-up?!

P

Prabz

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 25, 2003
73
0
Meri PHILLY meri jaan!
just placed my order today at 11am EST:

1.25 Ghz PowerBook G4
1 GB RAM
80 GB Ultra ATA drive @ 4200 rpm
ComboDrive
yadda...yadda.

As you can see it's a BTO with the RAM upgraded & the optical drive downgraded.

So why am I having the jitters? 'coz I just talked to my local apple store rep. and he said that since I intend to use my computer for Graphic Design work (especially photoshop/illustrator) I should have definitely had the ATA drive upgraded to 5400 rpm because "more than RAM, graphic intensive softwares need a fast drive"

But since I would not be doing any video editing stuff, I thought that 4200rpm would be more than sufficient for me...

....sob...Please tell me what to do now:(?! I'm really at a loss here...

Prabz
PS: can I still cancel my order?
 
You'll be fine. Yeah there would be a little bit of performance gain, but if you work with any reasonably sized photoshop file it'll be able to load completley in ram, and if your at that point, take that money you saved by not getting the 5400, add a few dollars and get a firewire drive. But you got yourself a damn fine machine there, dont worry at all.
 
Apple charges an additional $400 for 1GB (two 512MB modules). You can buy these aftermarket for about $100 each. For example:

http://www.4allmemory.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.memorySearch&manufacturer_id=6&model_id=-3119

Now you've got an extra $200 to spend. The 5400 rpm drive is $125 and will provide faster I/O which might be well worth the extra cost for disk-intensive apps such as Photoshop and Illustrator.

On the downside, the faster RPM drive will consume slightly more power and generate a little more heat. I haven't seen the power consumption figures so I cannot quantify the difference.

Bottom line advice (IMHO):

Call the Apple Store and change the order:

1. Go with the standard 512 MB memory and save $400.
2. Upgrade to 5400 rpm drive -- add $125.
3. Purchase two 512 MB modules from a third party for about $200.
4. Treat yourself to an expensive dinner with the $75 savings.
 
I got the 5400 RPM drive for $113 and a single 512 meg RAM module for $90 as my two BTO options. I wish they'd have the one module as default instead of two 256 meg ones, it'd be so much cheaper for those of us who want the option of easily upgrading without having to trash the two RAM modules and buy two of them instead of one. Don't worry about the HD, though, I love the speed but I doubt it would be so vastly different that Photoshop won't work well on the 4200 drive. If you are serious about performance, the 5400 pales in comparison to a fast FW 800 drive, anyway.
 
um... u mean "pales" i assume...;)

Thanks u guyz for all your input. After 6 hours or wringing my hands, pulling my hair and almost kicking the pail...er..bucket in sheer frustration, I've decided to just F it, and treat myself to a $120 dinner instead!:D
 
The difference in performance is not significant enough to kick yourself for it. But if you're that worked up over it, call them and see if you can switch it. Also, you can use a FireWire drive.
 
Tom's Hardware recently conducted a test of three notebook hard drives, with some surprising results.

Latest 7200-rpm 2.5" drive from Hitachi, for example, consumes about the same power as a 4200-rpm IBM or a 5400-rpm Seagate while providing a real-world performance improvement of 15%. (Refer to the article for benchmarks.)

Their conclusion:

"Summary: Choose the faster hard drive whenever possible.

For users faced with the choice between a standard 4200-rpm hard drive and a faster 5400-rpm or even 7200-rpm model, we would recommend picking the faster-turning drive. Although the battery life will be a few minutes less, the performance increase more than outweighs this relatively small downside. The mere fact that a notebook boots up faster when equipped with a 5400-rpm drive justifies the higher price, in our opinion."

Click below for the full article:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html

PowerBooks today come with Hitachi drives.
 
I thought only the 5400 RPM drive was Hitachi? Either way, I really like the Hitachi drive in my PowerBook, it is definitely the fastest mobile HD I've used so far and I don't notice any real word heat/noise/battery life drawbacks from it.
 
The 80GB 4200-rpm drive in by AlBook is a Hitachi. The speed is in fact very good and so is the quietness.
 
Nobody has mentioned the one drawback about the 5400 rpm drive... If you try ordering a powerbook with one, you probably won't see it until around christmas.
 
Originally posted by Powerbook G5
I got my PowerBook with a 5400 rpm HD and a 1 module RAM upgrade (instead of the 2x256) and got my PowerBook the following week.
Click to expand...
Yeah, availability has totally dropped since then. My order has been open since 10/17 with no sign of a solid ship date. Going by the current apple store ship times, a stock powerbook 15" will ship in 10-15 days. If I added on the 5400 rpm drive, then it jumps to 4-6 weeks. I've talked to apple customer support about this, and they were pretty much able to confirm a general shortage of parts.
 
Just so if anyone cares to know...

With the $120 I saved, plus $20, I just placed my order for a Waterfield Racer-x bag from sfbags.com


"A bag???:eek: ..for $140?!!", you ask?





YeaaAH baby YEAah!!! :D



yup, I probably would not have even dreamt of ever making such an *extravagant* purchase otherwise...
no sir!:eek: not in a billion years...

*penny~wise~pound~foolish*:pPrabz
 
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