G5 PowerMac 1.6 Comparable to G4 1.5 Ghz??

g520incherg520incher
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Ok, I know one is slower but by the specs can I expect it to be a huge amount slower?



I have a PowerMac G5 single 1.6 Ghz and I'm thinking of trading it in towards a 12 inch Powerbook 1.5 Ghz because I want to become nearly completely mobile, except when I'm at home I can plug into my 20 inch Cinema Display.



I've been waiting quite a while for a G5 Powerbook but I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing anything equivalent to that for at least another year. I want to go mobile now as I'm away from home far more than I'm there.



I use the machine for content creation mostly, internet, office, etc, and I of course am concerned about rendering times. I find my 1.6 G5 to be pretty fast but in the future am hoping to buy a much faster desktop. But for now the speed of my PowerMac is not too bad. I don't really want to drop a lot in the area of speed though when moving to a Powerbook.



My G5 has a 1.6 Ghz processor, 800 Mhz System Bus, 1.5 GB DDR333 Ram, 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, 64MB Ultra graphics card, OSX Tiger 10.4.1.



The 12 inch Powerbook sports a 1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz System Bus, 60 GB 5400 RPM HD, 64MB GeForce Go, OSX 10.4.1.



I would be putting 2 Gb Ram in it.



Can I expect a huge speed decrease??



Thanks for the help.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by G520incher

    [B



    My G5 has a 1.6 Ghz processor, 800 Mhz System Bus, 1.5 GB DDR333 Ram, 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA HD, 64MB Ultra graphics card, OSX Tiger 10.4.1.



    The 12 inch Powerbook sports a 1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz System Bus, 60 GB 5400 RPM HD, 64MB GeForce Go, OSX 10.4.1.



    I would be putting 2 Gb Ram in it.



    Can I expect a huge speed decrease??



    Thanks for the help. [/B]



    The biggest handycaps of the PB would be the slow bus speed/archatexture of the G4 (133 v 800) and the hard drive, I would say get a FW 7200 RPM for media storage and scratch if you do get the PB, and for rendering, max out the ram. It also depends what you are rendering, a 15 minute Motion sequence with 50 layers? stick with the G5, just some video, audio and basic graphics, the PB will probably hold it's own.



    On my Mac Mini, I find the biggest bottleneck to be the HDD, I wouldn't even attemt serious media work on this without first modding in a 100gb 7200RPM primary disk and adding a 7200rpm FW for backup and scratch.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    mynameheremynamehere Posts: 560member
    If you can, go for the 15"...slightly faster processor, and more pixels, which would be useful for, well, anything really...but especially for content creation.



    On the other hand, if you need to go totally mobile, go for the 12"
  • Reply 3 of 7
    g520incherg520incher Posts: 86member
    I won't be doing any kind of motion or animation work and I rarely exceed 20 layers on an image.



    I have definitely considered getting the 15 inch for the extra screen real estate but I spend a great deal of time on public transportation and I really want to keep it small and light. I do have the 20 inch Cinema for home use so I think I can handle the small screen on the go.



    That is something I actually need to test with some of my software. Luckily the programs I use have the tool palettes attached to the main design window, and they don't take up a lot of space.



    The FW drive is an excellent idea. Can anyone recommend some really good ones I can check out?



    If I go this route I figure I will do the trade for the Powerbook, and then whenever new PowerMac's are released with dual core chips, then I'll purchase one of those and use it as my main rendering machine at home. I don't have a whole lot of money right now to invest on hardware as I'm still spending on much needed software, so hopefully the trade will work out ok.



    I just hate knowing I'm getting a slower machine, even though its portable.



    Thanks for all the help.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    g520incherg520incher Posts: 86member
    Does anyone here currently own both machines? Could you give me an idea of differences in speed between the two? Any idea where I could find some benchmarks on both?



    Thanks.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by G520incher

    Does anyone here currently own both machines? Could you give me an idea of differences in speed between the two? Any idea where I could find some benchmarks on both?



    Thanks.



    The Apple store has the latest version of Adobe CS2 on all its units, I say burn a file to CD or thumbdrive, go to the store copy it to desktop and play away, but keep in mind - Demo units have only 512 megs ram IIRC so check "about this mac".
  • Reply 6 of 7
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    1.6 G5 will be faster in every way, not spectacularly in most apps, but very satisfyingly in Final Cut, Photoshop, and other G5-compiled poweruser applications.



    Also, you have a much faster bus, RAM, harddrive, and interface speed.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by G520incher

    Does anyone here currently own both machines? Could you give me an idea of differences in speed between the two? Any idea where I could find some benchmarks on both?



    Thanks.



    dude, i understand your mobile/power dilemma.



    imho you will be dissapointed by the 12" powerbook.

    -5400 rpm ata vs 7200 rpm desktop with sata

    -nVidia go5200 vs did you say you had a 6800 Ultra in your powermac ??

    -167mhz FSB vs 800mhz as someone mentioned previously

    -g5 class processor vs g4

    yes, the much maligned g5 is still a very nice cpu and ghz-for-ghz it demolishes the g4 on many counts.



    maybe start with xbench site for some benchmarks?



    if you really do need the mobility and if you are not doing intense rendering like (50 layers in motion), i think the powerbook 12" is your best option, but i think you should be aware of what to expect...



    i'm being bitchy today 'coz i'm about to start a

    iMac g5 17" + iLugger** = my powerbook g5

    thread



    .............

    **iLugger

    http://www.ilugger.com/

    .............

    .............
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