how fast a laptop to run OSX?

[mikemike]

Hi Guys,

I've using OSX since the beta. Even though Jaguar was a lot better apps like ical still felt laggy beside outlook on a pentium. So I tended to stay in 9.

My mac laptop is a Powerbook 333. But recently I was freelancing on OSX on a G3 800 ibook and there were no real speed lags at all.

I'd like to use OSX as my main OS. So I need a new (probably second hand!) laptop. G3 333 obviously doesn't cut it. What's the minimum in your experience that would? Whether on a G3 ibook or g4 powerbook?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[hvfsl]

You need a laptop with at least a ATI Radeon or Nvidia Geforce Go, so that is at least the PB G4 550. Although I would go for at least a 667Mhz PB G4. I wouldn't get an iBook if you are doing anything that relies on a fast computer to work well.

 

[alex_ant]

I would look at a minimum of 667MHz for a PowerBook and 700MHz for an iBook. The iBooks will basically be just as fast MHz-for-MHz as the PowerBooks except in apps that use AltiVec.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by alex_ant
I would look at a minimum of 667MHz for a PowerBook and 700MHz for an iBook. The iBooks will basically be just as fast MHz-for-MHz as the PowerBooks except in apps that use AltiVec.

The PBs have a faster bus (and, I think, a faster hard drive). Also, Quartz and the Finder are two of the Altivec using apps, so it can be a pretty good boost.

 

[Flowbee]

Jaguar runs just fine on my G3/400 Powerbook (Pismo) w/512mb of RAM. No serious lags whatsoever. I use it primarily for Dreamweaver and Fireworks, + Safari and the iApps.

 

[Vector]

I have it loaded on my wallstreet 233. It is a little slow in some cases, but i have run photoshop on it without much trouble.

 

[mrjamin]

graphics card is important - quartz is a big lag-reducer! My friend has one of the first snow iBooks (G3 500) and the quartz graphics engine won't work on his - lagging is really annoying!

 

[bryng]

It runs very nicely indeed on my iBook 800, runs noticably more slowly on my friend's 500mhz iBook.

I am sure it is actually the graphics card makes a real difference, though.

Apple accidentally installed a 700 MHz logic board in my iBook when they repaired it a few weeks ago - the difference in responsiveness (and heat) was very different from what you'd expect from just the drop in chip speed.

Same machine, same install of the OS and applications - the perfect environment to test this, methinks!

 

[mrjamin]

yeah, i have a G3 800 iBook which runs it with no problems.

 

[DakotaGuy]

It runs good on my iBook 600Mhz even though I do not have a supported video card, it runs OK on my iMac DV. I would say any G4 and a G3 600Mhz or better runs OSX pretty good. Newer video cards that support Quartz Extreme will probably help more on GUI speed then the actual MHz or type (G3/G4) of processor.

 

[tjwett]

I would say a 32mb graphics card is a MUST. OS X was a real slug on my Titanium 550.

 

[howard]

sheesh you guys have high standards. i have a friend with a 500mhz 8mg vid card ibook with 128mg ram and it doesn't run that bad.

 

[vniow]

how fast?

300Mhz iBook baby, w00t!!

 

[daniel77]

basically 300mhz G3+ and any G4

 

[ibookin']

Originally posted by bryng
Apple accidentally installed a 700 MHz logic board in my iBook when they repaired it a few weeks ago - the difference in responsiveness (and heat) was very different from what you'd expect from just the drop in chip speed.

Ugh. I hate it when something like that happens. Your iBook has been downgraded to only 16MB of VRAM on an ATI Radeon instead of your previous 32MB on a Radeon 7500, which is probably the cause of your decrease in speed. Get Apple to swap out the logic board right away; you paid for an 800 and deserve an 800.

 

[bryng]

I did....the 700 Mhz board had a very short stay indeed...

 

[mikemike]

Thanks for all the advice!

From the sound of it, if I go for a 667 G4 powerbook it'll all be great.

One more question. Didn't they change the powerbook screenwise after a few months? If I'm searching by specs on Loot, is there any way of telling the higher res model from the older one? Both seem to have the same size hard drive.

 

[Megaquad]

Just go for 667 MHz DVI G4 Powerbook, it has 32 MB Radeon and 1280x864 screen res (vs. 1152*768 and 16 meg gfx in previous revision)

 

[Gus]

While I notice a big difference on my new iBook 800, the Pismo 400 will run it it quite well. I had one for 3 years, and it was a fantastic machine. It only has 8MB GPU, but it was never that noticably slow. I think the 1 MB L2 cache on the Pismo helps it ourperform all but the newest iBooks.

Regards,
Gus