Powerbook G4 17" 1.04 vs 1.5 GHz ????

[Rsulliv1]

Hey all,

I've done some digging and I haven't been able to find any direct comparisons between the 1.0 and the 1.5 GHz powerbooks (the 17" to be specific).

I can get a 1.0 for under $2000, or a 1.5 for $800 more.

Also, the 1.33 GHz is also an option at about $2600.

I have seen that the 15" 1.33 is about 25% - 30% faster than the 1.0.



the HD is different ( 60G vs 80G), but I'm not worried about that.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

Well are you on a budget or not? I personally would go for faster because I want my computers to last me a while. But if money is tight (and I'm guessing its not since your looking at the 17" and not the 12") then go for the cheaper.

 

[cluthz]

Depends on what you'll use the machine for.
If you are into gaming the 1.33 and 1.5 has much better videocards..

-tb

 

[Seanb23]

I've had my 17" 1 ghz for about a year. It's fine for internet browsing, iPhoto, watching DVDs, etc. Just about any program made for or by Apple is gonna work fast and flawlessly, compared to the competition. But, stray from the flock, and you may run into a little trouble. I've run into some severe problems running high-end CPU intensive audio stuff on it...so I just bought another 512 stick of RAM...it helps a little. A little. But my $3300 machine is simply much slower than modern (and more affordable) windoze stuff, in terms of raw CPU speed, and in some programs, this matters a great deal, despite what Apple aplogists and zealots may tell you. Really, the AMD and M chip stuff I have seen lately just blows the entire powerbook line away. It's unfortunate, and I really, really like OS X, but if Apple cannot manage to force IBM (or whoever) to fit a fast processor, the kind I need, into it's laptops sometime in the next year or three, I might have to re-switch. It really makes me mad, because the platform these laptops use is so markedly inferior to OS X. Perhaps some variant of Linux will eventually catch up...

To the debate at hand, 1 ghz vs 1.5 ghz powerbooks, I cannot imagine someone spending an additional $800-$1000 on a machine that is still much slower than it's similarly priced competition, if speed is the main concern. Reliability and usablility ? Well, the powerbooks are absolutely worth the extra money for that. But speed ? I would say to just wait on the much anticipated G5 powerbook, but that's another thread, and most people think the whole idea is dead in the water, anyway.

In the end, the "mhz myth" may just be that : the idea that Moto or IBM CPUs somehow run twice as fast as Intel or AMD CPUs...just marketing...mere marketing...

 

[mpopkin]

never had a read such a crappy estimation of apple's performance lag or lack of. I have both several computers and a history of using many of the newest and most recent pc laptops(my dad's job updates his laptop every three months) and I have a pbook 1.5ghz 15 inch and a Pmac Dual 2 and A dell inspiron 8200 fully loaded(piece of crap). I have used my dads Centrino 935 or what not( basically it is the new laptop from intel that runs at 2ghz and more and let me inform the basic customer, my powerbook g4 1.5 ghz runs circles around the new centrino or pentium m processor from intel, OS X is the difference, while gaming is not the greatest it is still better on my mac than on the Dell Latitude pc my dad has. PC laptops only advantage is price and even that with a top of the line centrino still runs above 2 g's, while cheaper(and might i add bigger) processors such as the amd 64/pentium 4's may run at almost 3ghz(2x Pbook 1.5) the laptops they produce are 1) weigh 10 pounds with power cables 2) run extremely hot and loud 3) WIndoze powered, virus prone and crash accessible vs the Pbook laptops 1) even the 17 inch weighs only 7 pounds with pcables, the 15 even lighter and the 12 ligther than that. 2) They run cool and quiet 3) OS X= stability, security and crash resistance. In the end, pc laptops cost less, but you pay for what you get, if you want a laptop that will last more than a year or two before being outdated get a mac, if you want mhz status symbol get a pc, if you a intelligence status symbol get a mac, if you want portability with performance and stability get a mac, if you want your machine to have to be reformatted every week and have to talk to tech support every week get a pc, simple fact is you get more for your money in the long run with a mac, security of mind and less after purchase time consumptions(time=money)So the financial aspects balance out. The 1ghz pbook g4 will be good for most apps, but if you want gaming/video editing, fork out and get the 1.5 ghz or wait to christmas and see if a new one is released

I've had my 17" 1 ghz for about a year. It's fine for internet browsing, iPhoto, watching DVDs, etc. Just about any program made for or by Apple is gonna work fast and flawlessly, compared to the competition. But, stray from the flock, and you may run into a little trouble. I've run into some severe problems running high-end CPU intensive audio stuff on it...so I just bought another 512 stick of RAM...it helps a little. A little. But my $3300 machine is simply much slower than modern (and more affordable) windoze stuff, in terms of raw CPU speed, and in some programs, this matters a great deal, despite what Apple aplogists and zealots may tell you. Really, the AMD and M chip stuff I have seen lately just blows the entire powerbook line away. It's unfortunate, and I really, really like OS X, but if Apple cannot manage to force IBM (or whoever) to fit a fast processor, the kind I need, into it's laptops sometime in the next year or three, I might have to re-switch. It really makes me mad, because the platform these laptops use is so markedly inferior to OS X. Perhaps some variant of Linux will eventually catch up...

To the debate at hand, 1 ghz vs 1.5 ghz powerbooks, I cannot imagine someone spending an additional $800-$1000 on a machine that is still much slower than it's similarly priced competition, if speed is the main concern. Reliability and usablility ? Well, the powerbooks are absolutely worth the extra money for that. But speed ? I would say to just wait on the much anticipated G5 powerbook, but that's another thread, and most people think the whole idea is dead in the water, anyway.

In the end, the "mhz myth" may just be that : the idea that Moto or IBM CPUs somehow run twice as fast as Intel or AMD CPUs...just marketing...mere marketing...

 

[Seanb23]

never had a read such a crappy estimation of apple's performance lag or lack of.

That's funny, if you re-read the text of my post and your rambling run-on sentence, we basically agree.

Like I said : OS X is a great operating system, one much more secure and stable than XP, and it's a real drag that we have to run it on laptop hardware that is about half as fast as the competition. If you have some independent, unbiased benchmarks that show a powerbook trouncing an AMD 64 or Pentium M chip based laptop in any real-life high end program, please post 'em. I certainly can't find any.

 

[Grimace]

That's funny, if you re-read the text of my post and your rambling run-on sentence, we basically agree.

Like I said : OS X is a great operating system, one much more secure and stable than XP, and it's a real drag that we have to run it on laptop hardware that is about half as fast as the competition. If you have some independent, unbiased benchmarks that show a powerbook trouncing an AMD 64 or Pentium M chip based laptop in any real-life high end program, please post 'em. I certainly can't find any.

I don't think the Powerbooks run "half as fast as the competition." Can you post some comparison data with Pentiums or AMDs in laptops?

 

[Rsulliv1]

Awesome info

Let's narrow the applications down to Video/Graphics editing.

Adobe's line
Macromedia's line
Avid/Final Cut (and in conjunction with After Effects)

Let's see if this sparks any new thoughts!

Thanks again,
ryan.

 

[Rob587]

I dont know much about this, but from what ive heard the difference btwn the two processors is very big. If you think about it, its about 33% faster than the 1.0.

 

[Lancetx]

Well, regardless of what some have said here, I have a 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook with 1GB of RAM and I have not run into any major performance issues. Granted, the only PC laptop I have had any extensive time using is a 2.8 GHz Celeron based laptop, but I can tell you with no hesitation that my PowerBook does indeed outperform that particular one even though the Celeron has over double the clock speed. YMMV of course, but the PowerBooks are definitely not underpowered nor overpriced when compared to their PC competitors in my opinion.

As for the original question here, I would definitely go with either the 1.33 or 1.5 GHz model in the 17" PowerBook. You get the Mobility Radeon 9600 or 9700, USB 2.0, 512K L2 Cache, 80GB Hard Drive, plus the higher clock speed that you don't get with the original 1.0 GHz 17" model.

 

[Mord]

I've had my 17" 1 ghz for about a year. It's fine for internet browsing, iPhoto, watching DVDs, etc. Just about any program made for or by Apple is gonna work fast and flawlessly, compared to the competition. But, stray from the flock, and you may run into a little trouble. I've run into some severe problems running high-end CPU intensive audio stuff on it...so I just bought another 512 stick of RAM...it helps a little. A little. But my $3300 machine is simply much slower than modern (and more affordable) windoze stuff, in terms of raw CPU speed, and in some programs, this matters a great deal, despite what Apple aplogists and zealots may tell you. Really, the AMD and M chip stuff I have seen lately just blows the entire powerbook line away. It's unfortunate, and I really, really like OS X, but if Apple cannot manage to force IBM (or whoever) to fit a fast processor, the kind I need, into it's laptops sometime in the next year or three, I might have to re-switch. It really makes me mad, because the platform these laptops use is so markedly inferior to OS X. Perhaps some variant of Linux will eventually catch up...

To the debate at hand, 1 ghz vs 1.5 ghz powerbooks, I cannot imagine someone spending an additional $800-$1000 on a machine that is still much slower than it's similarly priced competition, if speed is the main concern. Reliability and usablility ? Well, the powerbooks are absolutely worth the extra money for that. But speed ? I would say to just wait on the much anticipated G5 powerbook, but that's another thread, and most people think the whole idea is dead in the water, anyway.

In the end, the "mhz myth" may just be that : the idea that Moto or IBM CPUs somehow run twice as fast as Intel or AMD CPUs...just marketing...mere marketing...

compareing your older powerbook to new pc laptops is hardly fair, i admit the powerbook is not the proformence king but it sure comes close at 1.5GHz also saying the MHz myth is crap is contradicting youself look at the pentium m (which is a fine chip) compared to a p4 laptop it's the same deal with a g4 and a p4 but dont apply 2x faster (it's more like 1.6x now) to every other chip out there amd chips have very high instructions per clock as do pentium m's but compare your powerbook to the alternatives at the time and there are few better laptops out there.

edit: ok after a whole lot of googleing i cant find any 1.5GHz powerbook vs pc laptop benchmarks.

lets do a benchmark we would need one amd64 notebook one 2.0GHz pentium m notebook and one 3.4GHz pentium 4 notebook and finaly a 1.5GHz powerbook. preferably with equal ram and a 9700 mobility

 

[Rsulliv1]

Well, I've decided to go with the 17" 1.5 with the upgraded video memory (128) and quicker HD 5400RPM

also threw in a iPod and iTrip, just for good measure.

Thanks for all the info!

-Ryan.

 

[kwajo.com]

i made this exact swith about a month and a half ago. the speed difference is noticable,nop doubt about it, but it's not out of this world faster. the biggest difference i notice is the better functioning of the ambient light sensors, and the much much better graphics chip. trust me, this makes a big difference in a lot of things. also renders in photoshop and FCP are improved, but not up to G5 speed obviously. overall i'm happy i upgraded, and moved to the 15" screen. it's less awkward to carry (though the 17" never bothered me at all) and i barely notice less screen res. go for it, go 1.5GHz!!

 

[veedubdrew]

I'd highly suggest springing for the 1.5GHz 17".

I had a 1GHz 12" and the 1.5 is very noticeably faster than the 1.0. Also, it looks like OS X Tiger will make good use of video cards with Core Image, so I would use this as a selling point of the latest generation of PowerBooks.

Core Image has the potential to make many effects/transitions/etc in Photoshop/Final Cut/iPhoto/etc instant with zero (or little) rendering time. If you watch the WWDC video, you can see for yourself just how significant a solid video card is to the future of OS X. The 1.0GHz 17' does not have a Core Image "supported" video card, but the 1.33 does.

If you're doing any DVD authoring, also note that the new machines have 4x drives as opposed to the 2x on the 1.0 and 1.33. Because 2x drives can only burn 4x and 8x media at 1x, the burning time on the 1.5GHz 17" will be FOUR TIMES faster than the others (not encoding, just burning). When burning a two hour DVD, this can save you over an hour and a half of time!

So, in my opinion, it's very much worth the premium for the 1.5GHz machine. Tiger's video card usage alone could save you tons of work time, as will the 4x DVD-R drive.

-Drew

 

[kirk26]

Your title indicates that you want to ask the question 4 times, but I'll only answer once. Definitely go for the newest 17" PB if you not on budget.

 

[Rsulliv1]

Your title indicates that you want to ask the question 4 times, but I'll only answer once.

It's cool. It's a little known method for adding emphesis when conversing non-verbally.

Thanks again,
-ryan