When will we see a new PowerBook?

res · May 16, 2002 1:00AM

Any idea when we can expect a PowerBook revision or Speed bump?

I would love to use a PowerBook for Cubase SX when it comes out this summer, but the Recommended System is a a PowerMac G4, 733Mhz, 512 MB RAM.

While the current 800MHz Titanium PowerBook looks like it would do the job, I've found that it is really best to exceed the recommended system by as much as possible -- especially if you want to use a lot of VST instruments and effects.

Also, do you expect the next PB to be a speed bump or a whole new revision?

powerdoc · May 16, 2002 1:46AM

[quote]Originally posted by Res:

Any idea when we can expect a PowerBook revision or Speed bump?

I would love to use a PowerBook for Cubase SX when it comes out this summer, but the Recommended System is a a PowerMac G4, 733Mhz, 512 MB RAM.

While the current 800MHz Titanium PowerBook looks like it would do the job, I've found that it is really best to exceed the recommended system by as much as possible -- especially if you want to use a lot of VST instruments and effects.

Also, do you expect the next PB to be a speed bump or a whole new revision?<hr></blockquote>

I expect a minor update in six months when new chips will be avalaible : remember that the tibook use the fastest 1,3 volts G4 7455 avalaible : the 800 mhz (the 1 ghz is 1,6 volts : desktop use).

I'll see a major revision next year with a new mobo architecture : DDR ...

macsrgood4u · May 16, 2002 7:41AM

MWSF.

matsu · May 16, 2002 10:39AM

And also remember that a laptop carries a performance hit as high as 1/3rd relative to it's desktop counterparts. Even when the bus speed is the same. The cache on the new PB's probably helps, but a laptop 800 probably isn't as fast as a desktop 733, it's probably more like a desktop 667, maybe even 600 depending on the app, and possibly as high as 733.

I keep mentioning this, but I'll mention it one more time. The previous rev 667Ti was about as fast as a 466-533Mhz PM. The 533PM scored one or two points higher than the 667 in an overall test timed test of various apps (done in Macworld UK) thy add to it every month and pretty much everything from a bondi iMac to a DP 1GHz is accounted for.

Hold out for a faster/cheaper Ti.

brussell · May 16, 2002 10:47AM

[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

And also remember that a laptop carries a performance hit as high as 1/3rd relative to it's desktop counterparts. Even when the bus speed is the same. The cache on the new PB's probably helps, but a laptop 800 probably isn't as fast as a desktop 733, it's probably more like a desktop 667, maybe even 600 depending on the app, and possibly as high as 733.<hr></blockquote>Hmmm, why is this? The 533 was a different chip with a shorter pipeline, and was probably as fast as the 7450 667/733 desktops, not just laptops.

Generally, the laptops have had SOMETHING different in addition to the processor, like a lack of L3 cache, or slower bus, or slower GPU, that could account for the difference. If they've got the same bus, processor, and cache, why would they be slower?

Can you provide a link to the MacWorld comparisons?

trowa · May 16, 2002 7:15PM

one main reason for laptops being slower than their desktop counterparts is due to the hard drive. Notebooks usually have slower hard drives than desktops. Most desktop hard drives run at 7200 RPM with faster seek times. Notebooks usually have 4200/5400 RPM with much slower seek times due to the smaller size to fit in the smaller enclosures.

Also due to battery/power consumption, I believe the CPU sometimes doesn't run at its most optimal level (all the time).

- trowa

matsu · May 16, 2002 7:45PM

I don't know why, although HDD speed, cache system, and video subsystem are probably the best places to look first. And those things are a lot more equal now than they've ever been.

I don't think it comes down to pure pipeline stages. The 733 tower's did well against the 533. This is also true in the x86 world for just about every benchmark I've ever seen, and a couple of years ago it used to be really bad on the x86 laptop side -- much worse than on the mac. Could it be power-saving and processor throtling features that also retard performance so much.

Go to your local book-store and rip open one of those big glossy UK mac mags. I'm pretty sure macworld UK just updates their list every time they test a new machine, they leave quite a few older tested machines on there for comparison's sake. The issue I looked at still had a bondi imac listed (it was the slowest machine, surprise!

) One thing to note was that the machines were all tested in standard configs, so machines that shipped with anemic memory allotments probably suffered disproportionately.

tigerwoods99 · May 16, 2002 9:21PM

You mean to tell me Cubase SX will have a minimum of 733 G4 for requirements? Jesus, glad I got this dual GHz. I thought that would be plenty of power and would give me good performance.

thalmrast · May 16, 2002 10:23PM

I just got a new TiBook 800 with the 5400 60GB drive. It's REALLY nice. I previously owned a TiBook 500 which had been upgraded with a IBM 48GB 5400 drive. Compared to the old 500 Ti, the 800 Ti is:

-about 70-80% faster compiling C++/Java code (the processor is only 60% faster so the cache is making a big difference) This Ti compiles my C++ project slighter faster than my AMD 1.4Ghz desktop Linux box which has a 7200RPM drive.

-the airport range is MUCH better, about as good as my wife's iBook

-it runs a LOT cooler

-the screen is much, much brighter ... the screen is really nice to look at (side-by-side compared to my old 500 Ti, the new screen is about twice as bright), and the resolution is nice too

-the keyboard is slightly better

-the DVD/CD-RW is much quieter

Apple did a really nice job with this latest Ti rev IMO. They addressed most of my annoyances with the previous Ti 500. The Radeon Mobility 7500 is almost on par with the desktop Radeon 7500 according to Tom's Hardware's review and you can't even really compare the Ti 800 to the Ti 500 when playing FPS -- the Ti 800 is in a different league altogether.

The battery life so far seems comparable to the Ti 500. If I'm heavily abusing it I get about 3 hours. If I do absolutely nothing I get maybe 4-5 hours. Supposedly Jaguar has more options to control battery usage.

In short ... I LOVE this laptop! :cool:

brussell · May 16, 2002 10:40PM

[quote]Originally posted by thalmrast:

I just got a new TiBook 800 with the 5400 60GB drive. It's REALLY nice.<hr></blockquote>Congrats. I'm picking up my Ti800/60G drive tomorrow morning.

If you want to feel even better about your purchase, read <a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0205/16.titanium.php"; target="_blank">this.</a>

res · May 17, 2002 12:51AM

[quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

You mean to tell me Cubase SX will have a minimum of 733 G4 for requirements? Jesus, glad I got this dual GHz. I thought that would be plenty of power and would give me good performance.<hr></blockquote>

They say the minimum is a PowerMac G4, 256 MB of free RAM (so it looks like people with G3s are our of luck). The recommended system is the PowerMac G4, 733Mhz, 512 MB RAM. And it is only going to run in OSX.

I've learned from past experience that it is safest to go for around 50% more power then the company recommends.

I would really love to use a PowerBook for all my recording and such. I guess I could get the 800 Mhz one and stick with Cubase 5.1 if SX is too demanding for it.

I would feel a lot better about getting one right now if it were just a little faster (even just 1Ghz). That's why I was wondering if we might get a speed bump around MWNY.

[ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: Res ]

thalmrast · May 17, 2002 7:56AM

MacWorld just released their new review of the PowerBook 800. They found that the PowerBook performed almost identically to the PowerMac 800:

<a href="http://www.macworld.com/2002/07/reviews/powerbook.html"; target="_blank">http://www.macworld.com/2002/07/reviews/powerbook.html</a>;

rogue27 · May 17, 2002 8:06AM

heh...

You know, the 667 towers that Apple put out for a couple months were removed from the lineup because people began posting benchmarks that showed the 533 was faster than the 667.

Also, apple's laptops don't carry much of a performance penalty compared to pc laptops, which generally have a significant performance penalty compared to equivalent desktops.

HD speed is one of the areas where a laptop is weaker than a desktop, but if you get one of the larger powerbook drives they are faster than traditional laptop drives.

I'm sure the 800 Mhz Ti would be adequate, but I'd get more RAM and the biggest HD just to get the most performance out of it if you bought one now.

I don't imagine the hardware will get bumped again until fall or winter at the earliest, but I know Apple wants to keep these things competitive, so maybe they'll kick up the clock speeds and drop the prices sometime before Christmas after they can get some better chips from Moto. I think the main issue is the balance of performance and power consumption (which translates into heat and battery drain)

matsu · May 17, 2002 8:44AM

So it would appear that bus, cache and video improvements have made up most of the difference. That's good. Back in the pre-early pismo days, Apple was about the only company that sold laptops with performance comparable to their desktop counterparts.*** MAXing the ram and a 5400rpm drive might make any perceptible speed difference disappear altogether (for big/disk intensive activities) -- seems to be already gone otherwise!

Ah ah <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> <-- not negative, think of it more as a waging finger, we don't have an "A-ha, lightbulb just went off in my head" smily.

They say the PB performs NEARLY (one point, OK hardly a differnece) as fast as an 800 desktop in photoshop, and that it's slightly faster in iApps and overall. Remember also that the 800 desktop has NO L3 cache, while the Powerbook800 has 1MB. If somebody down-clocked a full-cache 933 or 867 to 800Mhz, I wonder what the performance would be?

Still, this is impressive, considering that a laptop 1.6-1.8Ghz P4 probably wouldn't go much faster than a desktop 1.13Ghz P3.

***It's kinda sad. Apple used to be the only company that made laptops as fast as their desktops and now they're making desktops as slow as their laptops. heh. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />

[ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]

thereubster · May 17, 2002 9:21AM

I notice the Apple reps also claiming these new Tibooks to be "twice as fast" as the Pismo G3 PB's dropping an unsubtle hint that we Pismo owners should upgrade now. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> But I've had a play with a new Tibook DVI/667 with 256 RAM and it didn't blow me away compared to my Pismo 400 with 512Mb RAM. I'm sure some stuff would be quicker (OK I dont play games) but my 2 firewire ports are VERY useful and I find OSX to be fine. I think I'll be waiting for the mythical 1 Ghz (or dual!! )Powerbook

before upgrading. Esp since its still faster than my friends 500Mhz iBook ...

fran441 · May 17, 2002 9:24AM

You guys need to read this article, because the desktop G4/800 and the laptop G4/800 are very comparable, with the laptop winning in some cases:

<a href="http://www.macworld.com/2002/07/reviews/powerbook.html"; target="_blank">http://www.macworld.com/2002/07/reviews/powerbook.html</a>;

giant · May 17, 2002 9:43AM

[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

And also remember that a laptop carries a performance hit as high as 1/3rd relative to it's desktop counterparts. Even when the bus speed is the same. The cache on the new PB's probably helps, but a laptop 800 probably isn't as fast as a desktop 733, it's probably more like a desktop 667, maybe even 600 depending on the app, and possibly as high as 733.

I keep mentioning this, but I'll mention it one more time. The previous rev 667Ti was about as fast as a 466-533Mhz PM. The 533PM scored one or two points higher than the 667 in an overall test timed test of various apps (done in Macworld UK) thy add to it every month and pretty much everything from a bondi iMac to a DP 1GHz is accounted for.

Hold out for a faster/cheaper Ti.<hr></blockquote>

And the ti500 can do more vst instruments than the ti667. It's not just the fact that it was a laptop, it was all the other factors that make the ti667 suck. So does that mean that the ti500 is more powerful than the 533?

I'm only half screwing around...

PS I use a powebook with logic and don't run into problems. I write all of my songs in midi using softsynths and the exs, playing it at the same time as reason and then bounce audio and bring it in. My point is that if my old ti500 powerbook can run all of this without me hitting the ceiling on many songs, than I doubt that you will have much of a problem. I don't know much about cubase, but for audio, these powerbooks are fine. Logic is recommended to run on dual processors, just like everything else mac these days, so does that mean I'm hurt by not having dp? not at all. You just saw a new revision so it's going to be a little while. If you want a powerbook for audio, what are out now are fine. If you are worried, then just buy logic for it...

gumby5647 · May 17, 2002 10:05AM

next PowerBook Revision is mid-fall. 800Mhz and 1Ghz will power the new units.

res · May 17, 2002 3:46PM

Since it looks like it will be awhile before the PowerBook gets a speed bump I think I'm gong to try to scrounge up the money for the 800MHz with the 60gig drive and 512 Ram (1 DIMM so I can upgrade to 1GB later).

It will run everything now without a hitch, and if it has problems with Cubase SX when it is released, I'll sell the powerbook when the next model comes out and upgrade again.

ghost_user_name · May 17, 2002 4:44PM

If i buy the 800 now, what kind of resale value would I get on eBay if I sell after the new models are introduced?

rupert · May 17, 2002 4:57PM

Probably around $2500, maybe a little less.

-'pert

When will we see a new PowerBook?

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