Performance of the new 12" powerbook

[QCassidy352]

Ok, here's my situation... I have an ibook 900, and although I like it a lot, I'm thinking about selling it and buying a new 12" powerbook. I would want to do it soon, since taking advantage of the "buy a bundle" promotion would be a big factor in my decision.

But I'm wondering how big the performance difference would be between these two machines. I know there have been many discussions of the 12" 867 compared to the ibook 900, and the ibook only really was slower in altivec tasks.

However, the new 12"er has (compared to the old powerbook) a 133mhz faster processor, twice the L2 cache, and a faster video card. (am I missing any differences between them?)

So my question is, how much of a performance improvement will I see with the powerbook over the old powerbook, and by extension, over my ibook? In particular, I'm wondering how good the nvidia GeForce FX 5200go is. Thanks.

 

[QCassidy352]

nobody? Thoughts on the new 12" powerbook performance?

Is it worth it to upgrade from an ibook 900?

 

[dswoodley]

i haven't seen any benchmarks including the new 12in yet, but the speed bump is only marginal. With the 12 Pb, what you are paying for are the "pro" features: airport extreme, usb 2, better graphics card, slot loading drive, superdrive, better keyboard and of course, altivec. Don't know if this helps, but if i had the choice to make again between an iBook and the 12PB (i've got rev A), the PB would win again, hands down.

 

[QCassidy352]

thanks for the reply.

the speed bump is only marginal, yes, but... Everyone is saying how the bigger PBs are ok losing the L3 because they got twice the L2...

So if losing L3 while going from 256-->512 L2 keeps your performance as good or better, doubling the L2 on a machine that never had L3 must make a big difference, no?

Also, do you know how much better the nvidia 5200go is than the ibook's Radeon 7500?

 

[powerbookje]

ibook

my girlfriend has the 900 ibook and I have the powerbook 12", Most of the tasks the powerbook is faster (G4), and in altivec aware app's it runs circles around the ibook... Take the plunge and get the powerbook, it's thinner, lighter, faster, sexier...

 

[gotohamish]

Re: Performance of the new 12" powerbook

Originally posted by QCassidy352
Ok, here's my situation... I have an ibook 900, and although I like it a lot, I'm thinking about selling it and buying a new 12" powerbook. I would want to do it soon, since taking advantage of the "buy a bundle" promotion would be a big factor in my decision.

But I'm wondering how big the performance difference would be between these two machines. I know there have been many discussions of the 12" 867 compared to the ibook 900, and the ibook only really was slower in altivec tasks.

However, the new 12"er has (compared to the old powerbook) a 133mhz faster processor, twice the L2 cache, and a faster video card. (am I missing any differences between them?)

So my question is, how much of a performance improvement will I see with the powerbook over the old powerbook, and by extension, over my ibook? In particular, I'm wondering how good the nvidia GeForce FX 5200go is. Thanks.

The iBook 900 is a fun little machine as I use one at work - but my TiBook 500 is still MUCH quicker at all my tasks - from Finder thru to Photoshop.

 

[powerbookje]

Are you sure about that? My father has a rev A tibook 500 with 512 ram, my GF's 900 ibook is much faster!

 

[QCassidy352]

I can't see a 500 mhz G4 being faster than a 900 mhz G3 except at some tasks that rely heavily on altivec. In non-altivec tasks G3s and G4s perform about equally at equal clockspeeds. Meaning a 900 mhz G3 would smoke a 500 mhz G4 in anything non altivec.

Of course, it also depends heavily on the amount of RAM in each. Also of note is that the ibook has a much better video chip than the 500 mhz Tibook, which can't even run QE.

--
Ok, that aside - I went to an apple store today to play with the 12" PB. Now, here are the caveats:
1) it was the old version
2) it only had 384 RAM (I'd have 512 or 768)
3) it's a demo model, which means it has god-knows-what installed/running.

So I do say this with those things in mind, but... it sucked. I got spinning beach balls doing *everything.* I didn't run any "scientific" tests, but my ibook is much more responsive than that PB, no matter what I'm doing.

Someone convince me that isn't representitive of real-world performance...

 

[Abraxsis]

Well first of demos are always slower, IMO. I think it has to do with the fact of anyone and everyone playing on them, changing options, downloading and installing. (in the case of places with web access like CompUSA) I would suggest that you NEVER take the "word" of a demo machine on the speed of a system overall.