Test results: New Alu Powerbook Vs. Old Ti Powerbook

Maxim · Post by **Maxim** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 12:45 pm

Today I did a Live test between a Powerbook Titanium G4 1Ghz
and the new Powerbook Alu G4 1.25ghz.

Same amount of memory. Same operating system. OSX 10.2.8

I loaded the demo session.

The first scene called "LIVE!" generated 16% cpu on the OLD powerbook
and 21% on the new.

The scene called "variation" generated 18% on the OLD powerbook and 24% on the new.

Ok it's just a small test, but it dissapointed me a little. Maybe the lack of Level3 cache in the new Pobo's makes a big difference.

Cheers,

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 2:37 pm

Do the new powerbooks have a longer latency due to higher capacity sizes?

With the faster memory bus maybe version 3.0 with samples loaded into ram will make a huge difference...

still seems kind of odd

Maxim · Post by **Maxim** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 5:49 pm

I don't know if latency is different. I didn't test that. But CPU performance is definitely worse. Something we saw earlier with powerbook updates. I believe it was the transaction from 500mhz to 550mhz powerbooks.

The release of panther definitely will be good news. I've already tested Live on the latest beta of panther. I'll try to post some details soon.

Cheers,

scotty · Post by **scotty** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:06 pm

bummer! At the time when these new powerbooks came out the only stats I could find were comparing the old 1ghz with the new 1.25 ghz which to me seemed a bit...off. Like a more revealing comparison might be a new 1ghz powebook (alu) vs. an old 1ghz powerbook (titanium). I'd hoped that increased bus speed and L2 would make up for the lack of L3. Anyway... after seeing your old 1 ghz vs. new 1.25... I don't want to see that comparison I mentioned! would be too depressing. As it is, I bought the new 1ghz and am very pleased with it... coming from my previous Lombard it was a great step forward. :)

best,
scotty

os · Post by os » Wed Oct 08, 2003 2:18 am

thanks for posting these results.
I was wavering on upgrading my 667MHz G4 (no L3 cache in that either) and I think I'm going to wait.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 3:39 am

Good comparison, any chance you could repeat the test on the older G4 in os9 too? Just for us 'hangers-on'....

nik

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:06 am

you better wait..G5 laptops are coming soon...and by the way...
never buy a winter apple

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:16 am

The text figures aktually tell that for ableton live the new powerbooks are not faster then the old G4 500 PB. I gues you will get a better overall speed when using multiple applikations at the same time..

my G4 1 giga is actually just 20% faster than my PB G4 500 i had before... giving less problems then the giga machine

1 Mega Level 2 cache seems to be the key for good music performance.
Probably the No 1 reason that theese centrinos are so ultrafast.

I might swap to a centrino laptop...just a pitty that there is no OSX for Pentiums

G 4 400 Powerbooks can be speedbumped to 500 easily.
I once got a refurbished G4 500 PB from AApple that was speedbumped from apple directly.

That´s´the reason the G4 500 PB´s get so hot in relation to the G4 400 Pb´s...
There is only one mainboard for booth...just one bridge tells the PB wether its a 500 Mhz modell or not....

krikor · Post by **krikor** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 10:20 am

I switch from t867 to t1g (precedent series i had a good deal 2000 euros incl Sdrive and 60g) and i was really surprised by the difference of cpu load, my actual session is 700mega sounds loaded, with a few plugs (ohmboys dfx suppatrigga and ableton's) i had around 45% on the 867 and i'm down to 20% on the 1g!!! For sur if you compare that to cpu load of a centrino, the macintosh seems like a joke...next computer may just not be a mac...anyway reading this post i'm glad i didn't get the alubook!!!!

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:55 pm

It seems that apple sometimes gets some arteficial slow machines on the market to simulate a real speedboost with the following models

The Ti 1 giga is aktually much faster regarding audio applikations than a Ti 550, but not so much faster than the first Ti 500 modells.

But you have to see that the majority of laptop users are running office and explorer and i-tunes...sometimes watch a dvd or even play a game...
for this the new apple laptops are fast enough...its just hard to call them real multimedia machines when you compare them to the power of pc laptops.

Im close to move to a centrino laptop... Its just that good ones are even more expensiv than the apples, and that i started to like OSX...I like to see what apple is doing next...
The AL books are not my thing... i think they are the ugliest apple laptops since the tupperware books.

I am not realy into the thing that a laptop have to look good..mainly they have to perform.
But design is one of the best things about apple products. It keeps a certain value beyond the plain function.

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 pm

I'm actually waiting for one of the newer second/third generation Centrino tablet PCs to hit the market. Personally I think it would be killer to be able to use the pen to tap different loops to start them up and be able to draw into x/y controls... stuff like that.

Then again maybe I am hallucinating and need to stop the madness hehe.

kenn.michael · Post by **kenn.michael** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 6:28 am

hey Maxim, did you make sure that the processor was operating at full speed? did you go into energy saver and make sure that the processor setting was set to "Highest" and not "Automatic"? I've done Logic tests with a Rev A 1GHz 17" PB vs a new Rev B 1.33GHz 17" PB, and the new machine had roughly a 30% performance improvement. I even got similar test results running the Live demo session on both machines.

jamm · Post by **jamm** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:47 pm

Okay this was a topic i started 1 day after they launched the new powerbooks. I am afraid i was right!

Ola,

The new powerbooks are looking nice but....
the new ones have 512k L2 cache memory
the old ones have 1MB L3 cache.
Anyone knows anything how this affects the speed of both powerbooks.
In my opininion the older is mayby faster than the new ones.
My 500/1MB/L2 cache powerbook is faster than his succescors
the 550 and 665 with 256kb/L2 cache memory!
Is this also mayby the case with the old and new powerbooks.
Apple have proven they can make newer but Slower powerbooks.

Greetinz, Jamm

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:20 pm

i think steve jobs needs his ass kicked. new powerbooks=more-money-less performance. thats fucking absurd. in addition every year theres a new os that u need to shell out $129 for. no upgrades. thats fucked up to. i would burn my mac and get a pc but unfortunatly i also use logic which is no longer producing things on the pc platform. basically im just tired of consumers being treated like giunea pigs for these billion dollar corperations that pay people in east asian sweatshops 10 cents a day to make third rate products that sell for $2000-$3000 a pop. i regret ever getting involved in these scams called computers. i think there should b a consumer revolt where we impale steve jobs and his corperate assholes upon a pole and put it in front of the apple headquarters.

chris_borgia · Post by **chris_borgia** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:55 am

Just wanted to say: I did some tests in an apple store with my 867 tibook VS the new 1.25 powerbooks

RESULT: The missing L3 is a Big deal! (tested with Live and then with Reaktor)

With the downloaded demo of Live on both machines i saw that my 867 with 512mb of ram was faster by 6% then the powerbook 1.25 with 512 of ram. This was witnessed while playing the demo arraignment that came with the demo of LIVE 3.

i then downloaded reaktor 4 demo on both and same results. my 867 was about 7% faster (tested with the DSQ32 ens)

hope this helps someone.
chris

Test results: New Alu Powerbook Vs. Old Ti Powerbook

Test results: New Alu Powerbook Vs. Old Ti Powerbook

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