Panther or Tiger for DVI TiBook?

[adamyoshida]

I'm running a 667 Mhz DVI TiBook with a Gig of Ram - right now I'm using 10.3.9 - I'm wondering if people think it would be worth my while to go up to 10.4.9, since I've got disks for both. What's the speed difference? In general, I've found that OSX works on something of a curve and, for most of the older hardware I've been setting up for people (a Pismo, a few Lombards, some G3 iBooks) that Panther is the fastest system. Indeed, in most cases, Panther seems faster than Jaguar.

So, in this case, would a 667 TiBook be fast enough that, perhaps, it might take advantage of the general enhancements of Tiger? I've only used Tiger on high-end Intel platforms before, so...

Also, not that I want to put too much into this - but, right now, I'm using the stock drive which came with the system (I presume a 4200 RPM 30 Gig) - would pulling a 7200 one off eBay or somewhere provide a nice speed boost? And, if so, would it cause heat/battery problems?

 

[faintember]

would pulling a 7200 one off eBay or somewhere provide a nice speed boost? And, if so, would it cause heat/battery problems?

A faster HD will make a large difference. I upgraded my 1GHz TiPB HD to a 5400rpm Hitachi Travelstar HD and noticed a pretty big change with no heat or battery issues at all.

As far as 10.3 vs. 10.4, I have no clue as I upgraded from 10.2 to 10.4 on my TiPB, but it was slightly faster, maybe, after the switch to 10.4.

 

[Angelus]

I was in the same spot as you 3 months ago. I've got the 667 DVI tibook and it had been running 10.3.9 quite nicely with the stock 30GB hard drive and 512MB RAM.

I upgraded to Tiger with that configuration and while i found general OS tasks to be faster and snappier, it was crippled by the RAM and hard drive. I could only have two apps at most if the computer was to run comfortably with no lag.

Then I bought a new battery from OWC, upgraded the RAM to 768MB and installed an 80GB 7200rpm HD. The difference is very obvious and I'm very happy with my system. Sure it is held back performance wise by the bottlenecks in the CPU,motherboard etc but it can do the tasks i want such as browsing,itunes,iLife 06 and watching DVD's all at the same time. In fact i would definitely say that across the board, performance under Tiger now is faster and far more slicker than Panther ever was. Tiger feels like a mature version of OS X. You kinda get the impression that this is what they were aiming for in the first place when they first started OS X development.
I'd say go for it but make sure you have at least 768MB RAM because the minimum requirements went up from 128MB in Panther to 256MB for Tiger.

After all these upgrades, my mum is getting my laptop when i start working in the summer and buy a Macbook Pro. I've had it since 2002 and now with the new, battery, RAM and 7200 rpm hard drive I expect it to serve her well for another 2-3yrs.

Ok sorry for not reading your post properly the first time, its late at night here and i was about to go to sleep.
Ok you've a gig of RAM so that aspects fine. I entirely agree with you about the speed enhancements which came from upgrading 10.2 to 10.3 and in my opinion, Tiger, if you give it the RAM and HD resources it needs is much faster than Panther.
In terms of the 7200rpm hard drive, its blazingly fast compared to the stock 4200rpm drive i had. However, it does make my fans run a little bit more if I do HD intensive tasks. My computer has never gotten dangerously hot, melted keys or crashed, but the fans definitely come on more often. Still I think the speed improvements are worth it.

 

[adamyoshida]

Well, my main system is a Core 2 Duo monster. But I want this as a road warrior. I've already got a new battery, plus a Gig of Ram - though, like I said, I'm wondering about the hard drive.

Also, I wouldn't mind running iLife. I imagine I'll be able to pick up some iLife '06 Discs pretty cheap when '07 comes out.

 

[synth3tik]

10.4 ran great on my 667 TiBook, no issues at all.

 

[faintember]

Well we both said a faster HD is fine, though I would not buy one off of ebay. Storage is so cheap today you might as well buy a new one.

 

[Bill Gates]

Since it's your road warrior I'd opt for a 5400RPM drive for lower heat output and longer battery life versus a 7200RPM drive.

 

[Lord Flashheart]

I have MBP and a Ti 867 with 512mb ram running 10.4.9. I need to up the ram, but it runs fine. I get the beachball every once in a while, but its fine.