My G3 iBook is more fasterer than the new 1.33 GHz PB...
because my G3 800 has 640 MB ram, while the new 15" PB I tried at the store only had 256 MB.
I admit that I did not restart the computer, but neither do I restart my computer much at home. I did close all the open apps and GB still choked on the G4 demo songs. I asked one of the sales people about that. She said that they usually put more ram in floor models so they don't feel so slow. She changed a few settings in GB from automatic to something else. That allowed the song to play, but it was still rather choppy.
GB was not the only problem. VPC with W2K was more sluggish than my iB running WXP. The interface was rather sluggish although there were a lot of apps open at the time. Still, my book usually has Safari, Word, Mail, Snood, Accordance (bible software), and sometimes VPC, open at once. The only thing that really adversely affects my performance is downloading large files. The system gets a bit sluggish while that is going on in the background.
I've heard of the megahertz myth. But more than 500 MHz and a next gen processor should feel considerably faster no matter what the ram situation. At least that is how it seems to me. Obviously, I'm wrong. I was disappointed because I have been saving for one of the new books and I was hoping for a significant upgrade. Yet $50 worth of ram makes my three generations removed iBook seem faster than the stock config of a $2000 machine. If the CPU is that unimportant, why not just skip the CPU race and pump computers full of ram for speed increases? What's the point of a fast computer if it doesn't feel fast? If $50 worth of ram can make that much difference, why not just include it in the first place?
This is more of a therapeutic rant than anything else. Still, I would love to be convinced that a new book is indeed much faster and more powerful than my old one.
Would a mod kindly remove the "more" from the title and erase this request. Thank you.
I admit that I did not restart the computer, but neither do I restart my computer much at home. I did close all the open apps and GB still choked on the G4 demo songs. I asked one of the sales people about that. She said that they usually put more ram in floor models so they don't feel so slow. She changed a few settings in GB from automatic to something else. That allowed the song to play, but it was still rather choppy.
GB was not the only problem. VPC with W2K was more sluggish than my iB running WXP. The interface was rather sluggish although there were a lot of apps open at the time. Still, my book usually has Safari, Word, Mail, Snood, Accordance (bible software), and sometimes VPC, open at once. The only thing that really adversely affects my performance is downloading large files. The system gets a bit sluggish while that is going on in the background.
I've heard of the megahertz myth. But more than 500 MHz and a next gen processor should feel considerably faster no matter what the ram situation. At least that is how it seems to me. Obviously, I'm wrong. I was disappointed because I have been saving for one of the new books and I was hoping for a significant upgrade. Yet $50 worth of ram makes my three generations removed iBook seem faster than the stock config of a $2000 machine. If the CPU is that unimportant, why not just skip the CPU race and pump computers full of ram for speed increases? What's the point of a fast computer if it doesn't feel fast? If $50 worth of ram can make that much difference, why not just include it in the first place?
This is more of a therapeutic rant than anything else. Still, I would love to be convinced that a new book is indeed much faster and more powerful than my old one.
Would a mod kindly remove the "more" from the title and erase this request. Thank you.
Comments
my G3 800 has 640 MB ram, while the new 15" PB I tried at the store only had 256 MB
Here's a buck. Buy yourself a clue. Should have stopped after the first sentence. Why don't you find a DP2GHZ with 512MB of RAM and see if your RAM is better than the processor theory works.
P.S. All you have discovered is that Apple's minimum recommendation for RAM for OSX is a load of shite. Welcome to the club. Its quite large so we'll have shift around to make room.
This hardly means that CPU upgrades don't matter, it just means you have can't expect to run lots of apps at once, or even one or two RAM-hungry apps, when you have so little RAM, and get top performance at the same time. GB and VPC definitely qualify as RAM hungry.
Also, minimum requirements are just that, minimum -- what you need to barely function, not what guarantees good performance.
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
You just made me doubt my purchase, for the second time! But I got 512 MB of RAM in 1 Dim. I can upgrade later if I need to.
Mtosh,
I have been following your decision to buy the new 15" and am very happy it worked out for you the way it did. I was hoping to do something similar myself. I did not go into the store today to prove any kind of a point. I just wanted to enjoy a sample of what I had been saving for. Never doubt your purchase. The book will do for you nicely. What it showed me is that my book will do for me nicely as well for a while longer. I know that you dabble in video so the G4 will show its worth for you.
Cower,
I'll take that buck.
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
You just made me doubt my purchase, for the second time! But I got 512 MB of RAM in 1 Dim. I can upgrade later if I need to.
Mac Voyer is a tool. Ignore him and you'll be happier.
1
2
3 - This particular line is classic:
Other G3 owners, feel free to post here. I will not consider this thread ruined if it becomes overrun with rants. I have a hard time reigning in my frustration as well. G3 success stories would be even more welcome.
4
To make it short and sweet, he/she does nothing but bitch and moan about how slow things are and want others to join in the b&m party with him.
Actually, no.
It's all Apple's fault.
Mr. Voyer- Technology moves. Quick. Follow within at least a generation, or don't whine because nothing works like it should. Be glad that you are on a platform that is making such great progress.
I run Panther, I run Photoshop, I run FCE and iMovie... I have no problems with it. Sure, it's old, and next to a new pBook or even iBook it's slow, but it does the job.
The right time to upgrade will be when I feel like it
(by the way, if you feel a bit nervous about spending that much cash, then it's NOT time for you to upgrade)
Originally posted by torifile
Mac Voyer is a tool. Ignore him and you'll be happier.
1
2
3 - This particular line is classic:
4
To make it short and sweet, he/she does nothing but bitch and moan about how slow things are and want others to join in the b&m party with him.
Dr., heal thyself.
Every one of the above posts were valid concerns and questions. At the time, there were a lot of negative reports about how GB performed on a G3 and what exactly the limitations were. I called for those with experience to share it. Why do you see that as a problem? The other posts you cited were based on recent articles that I thought would make for good discussion. For the most part, they did. What is your beef with that?
I have noticed that you seem to be a poison poster. Every word you write is a harsh flame. You do not enter a thread with anything positive or useful to say about the topic. You are fill with spite against any poster who says something you don't like. If something sounds like it is remotely critical of what Apple has done or produced, you whip out your long sword and start hacking away.
If you read my post, you would know that I was not bashing the G3. I was surprised that I could not see the extra performance in the superior G4 book. I acknowledged that it was a therapeutic rant. And I ask for an explanation for my observations. Your post is out of place here, and so are you. If you have nothing useful to add to a discussion, DON'T POST IN IT!
Jubelum, I would thank you to comment on my post and not on Tori's misrepresentation about my post. I know technology has moved on. I don't want to think that my iBook could keep up with the newest PB under any circumstance. I have no idea what you were responding to.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
I have noticed that you seem to be a poison poster. Every word you write is a harsh flame. You do not enter a thread with anything positive or useful to say about the topic. You are fill with spite against any poster who says something you don't like. If something sounds like it is remotely critical of what Apple has done or produced, you whip out your long sword and start hacking away.
Every one of my 3800+ posts is a flame? That's news to me.
BTW, I recognized that you were not knocking your G3. You don't seem to post without knocking something, though. That's why I called you a tool. You can't make a positive contribution with any thread you start. That's what I was calling you out on.
And if you would like to point out my 3800+ flames, please do. I'm waiting.
Settle down, children.
Mac Voyer:
You hardly tried a fair comparison of the two computers. That's why others (myself included) see this as another stupid rant.
1. You admit you tried the G4 "as-is" in the store. How do you know that it hadn't paged out a huge amount of memory to disk beforehand or that there weren't other non-gui processes running that could be affecting it?
2. You used the newer computer with *less* memory than your old one, an amount that is barely suitable for running Mac OS X in the first place. Maybe you should remove your own iBook's memory and try using your it for a week before considering a test like this. Even then, when things page out, you're going to be testing the speed of the hard drive and bus, NOT the CPU or the machine overall.
3.You test and then complain about GarageBand, a program that doesn't even run fully on your older G3 iBook. Apples to Oranges, Mac Voyer.
Originally posted by Brad
To all parties:
...You used the newer computer with *less* memory than your old one, an amount that is barely suitable for running Mac OS X in the first place. Maybe you should remove your own iBook's memory and try using your it for a week before considering a test like this. Even then, when things page out, you're going to be testing the speed of the hard drive and bus, NOT the CPU or the machine overall.
How much ram is required to run the OS? What is the true minimum amount of ram needed to see the true performance of the CPU?
Even though you've wuit all the open apps, have you insured that there aren't half a dozen other user accounts running in the background ? (fast-user-switching).
I'm not saying this is the case ... but it IS something that can tie up huge amounts of ram/cpu/performance.
Originally posted by Mac Voyer
How much ram is required to run the OS? What is the true minimum amount of ram needed to see the true performance of the CPU?
The true minimum is whatever it will run with. A fair comparison is using the machine with the same amount of ram so that differences can be accounted for solely by machine makeup and not other, easily remediable, factors. That said, I'd say at least 512 megs of RAM for 10.3. More depending on what you're doing.
Originally posted by torifile
The true minimum is whatever it will run with. A fair comparison is using the machine with the same amount of ram so that differences can be accounted for solely by machine makeup and not other, easily remediable, factors. That said, I'd say at least 512 megs of RAM for 10.3. More depending on what you're doing.
Thank you. I would not have guessed it would be so high but after my experience, I can certainly believe it. I think it is important that Macs be displayed with enough ram to make them look good. As far as the restart issue, the store had not been opened all that long so it would have been turned on not too long before I got there. Also, the salesperson did not see fit to restart the machine after I pointed out the problem to her. She said that the machine needed more ram and they had not had a chance to put more in it. I was amazed at the difference the lack of $50 worth of ram could make. I still expected it to be faster than my three generations old iBook. The purpose of the display model is to give the potential buyer a sense of what it is they will be buying. If I could get that impression from the machine, just imagine the impression a Windows user and true Mac voyeur would get from such a lack-luster demo. Perhaps I will go back in a few weeks and take another look after they have upgraded the ram.