how would a 12"PB's speed compare with my PC?

[estidog]

i'd like to buy a 12" power book. im sick of waiting of updates.
but say i buy a 12"pb with the dvd-burner and maxed out ram (620 i think)and 60gb hard disk space.

how would it compare in speed and handling to my p3-866 PC with 256 mb of ram?

people always talk about how you cant compare the speed of macs and PCs, but a 866mhz powerbook sounds awfully slow. and i've heard the lack of L3 cache is a problem sometimes. i read in mac world magazine that the lack of this is noticeable.

by the way, ill be using it mostly for fairly heavy graphics use and
my p3-866 can hold up pretty well.

i've never used macs really and i dont know what to expect.

 

[dswoodley]

Ic an only compare my pb to my work computer Dell 1.1ghz PIII with 256mb ram. All i can say is for most tasks the pb comes up ahead - Light photoshop, word, excel, webpage building.

 

[estidog]

is this a 12" you are talking about?

thats a shame if a brand new mac only just beats a 1.1 ghz PC.
i know it's a small mac n' all, but still.
i was hoping it'd be speedy.

 

[dswoodley]

yep. per my footer

actually, I couldn't ask for a better machine in such a tight package. There are a few things the desktop is better at, but not many

 

[dswoodley]

I should also mention that my 12" er also for a lot of things beats other folks 2ghz+ with 512mb ram Dells in the office I work at. they do crunch photoshop files a bit quicker though, but the Pb is still competitive in those tasks too.

 

[jxyama]

1) don't get the ram from apple. get the 12" and add the 512 mb ram yourself later.

2) speed will depend more on the OS than the processor. that said, g4 867 is a "faster" processor than p3 866. photoshop, if it's one of the graphics programs you use, is one of the apps that run very well on altivec/g4.

if you are really worried, you need to go see for yourself somehow because the difference in OS will probably do more to the perceived speed than the processor.

 

[Schiffi]

The 15" is still faster than the 12, if you're willing to look into that.

 

[estidog]

thanks guys for the advice so far.

im not looking into a 15" as they are out of my price range and are very old.

yeah i agree i really need to play on photoshop on a mac osX.

i worked out that a 12" pb fully loaded is about £1600
and a 3ghz dell 15" laptop fully loaded is about £1600

they're almost exactly the same price.
as i have no other mac and i'll be at university the laptop will be my only computer and i'm wondering if the 12" screen will be a curse or a blessing.

also im curious as to if i put a cd or dvd into a mac what application plays it? especially a dvd - i know quicktime will but it won't allow full screen unless you upgrade, surely?

also can i still download mpeg videos on a mac?

also i've heard that Flash doesn't run very smoothly (the frame rates, - i've seen petitions to get macromedia to improve the standalone player) on a mac and contrary to what i thought, most web design is done on PCs.

ive used old macs in my old college and if there's flash on a website it seems totally slow and jerky.

where does one advise i get the RAM from for a PB?

 

[kwajo.com]

Originally posted by estidog
thanks guys for the advice so far.

im not looking into a 15" as they are out of my price range and are very old.

yeah i agree i really need to play on photoshop on a mac osX.

i worked out that a 12" pb fully loaded is about £1600
and a 3ghz dell 15" laptop fully loaded is about £1600

they're almost exactly the same price.
as i have no other mac and i'll be at university the laptop will be my only computer and i'm wondering if the 12" screen will be a curse or a blessing.

also im curious as to if i put a cd or dvd into a mac what application plays it? especially a dvd - i know quicktime will but it won't allow full screen unless you upgrade, surely?

also can i still download mpeg videos on a mac?

also i've heard that Flash doesn't run very smoothly (the frame rates, - i've seen petitions to get macromedia to improve the standalone player) on a mac and contrary to what i thought, most web design is done on PCs.

ive used old macs in my old college and if there's flash on a website it seems totally slow and jerky.

where does one advise i get the RAM from for a PB?

first off, 1600 pounds seems high for a twelve inch powerbook, maybe it's just me. secondly, when you insert a cd or dvd, the application that launches would depend on what your settings are, but by default a music cd will open iTunes, and a DVD will open dvd player. quicktime will not actually play the dvd, so don't worry about fullscreen, cause DVD Player can do that for you. what quicktime can do for you is play those MPEG files, they will (most likely) play fine. as for flash, I find performance more than smooth on my 17-inch PB and my old iMac G4 800, so I would guess it would look fine on the 12-inch. as for the screen I would think 12 inches would be great for just grabbing the computer and going off to class or whatever, but if you plan on photo editing or video, it may seem small. luckly you have VGA out so a second monitor while at home will make everything more usable, then just leave it behind when you travel.


as for the ram, this question has come up alot lately, so just peak through the threads, and you will find plenty.

good luck!