apple g4 vs. pentium 4? (i know, redundant, but pertinent)

paulkeeley · Post by **paulkeeley** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 6:37 pm

hey everyone,

i realize this has probably been asked a million times before, so i apologize pre-emptively. but, i'm switching from pc to mac in the next couple of months and was wondering how much of a performance difference i would be looking at between a p4 and a g4 processor. (let's say a g4 1ghz, vs. a p4 2.4ghz).

the main reason i'm asking is because my roommate has a rather nice shuttle xpc p4 2.4 ghz, and i've been playing with live on his system. needless to say, it runs beautifully, even with reverb on 'first class' setting, as well as at least one effect in each channel insert. i don't think the processor usage ever got above 30%.

now, if i am going with a powerbook g4 1ghz, is it still quite usable? ie, are the faders/pots quick and responsive, or is there a bit of delay in the refresh rate? i've tried using ableton on my friend's ibook g3 700, and it ran quite poorly. :(

so, long and the short: is a powerbook g4 1ghz enough to nicely run 12 stereo tracks simultaneously with a delay and reverb send, as well as a couple of track inserts? or does it even compare to a p4 2.4?

any input from both sides would be greatly appreciated. thanks for your time. peace.

The Hulk · Post by **The Hulk** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:02 pm

If you're using 2 send tracks on OS X Live, sending to 12 tracks won't be a problem. You should get the same CPU response on a 1 GHZ Tibook. however, if you were to ad a different effect to each 12 tracks Live will definitely choke on you (this may happen on a PC too for all I know).

mic-minimal · Post by **mic-minimal** » Thu Jun 19, 2003 8:39 pm

I've got a shuttle, the amd version though, xp2500 but damn this thing kicks ass, there liquid cooled and make hardly no noise great machines, they even have dual output monitor ports by nvidia and are very good quality, I would never go back to a full size desktop for a music only pc, there's just no reason.

about the laptop your contemplating do a search here, check the performance thread out, if you can't find it do a search for "performance"
if you get a mac make sure it's from a place where you can return it without a restocking fee, that said a pc laptop will shoot gism all in the face
of any mac laptop period, and I'm talking about a pc laptop that's p3-800mhz and above can woop the top of the line mac laptops ass, now if you compare any p4 or xp laptop to the top of the line power book it's just
not fair and if you stoop so low as to compare the new centrinos to the top
of the line powerbooks it's downright cruel. the only reason to go mac is if
you're using mac only software or you want to get laid, which by the way is the reason I'm saving up for the 12" powerbook it's the perfect dick extension but I will continue to do serious work on my amd. If this is going to be your main piece I'd save the money you'd spend on the mac and buy a sony centrino laptop, an external firewire/ usb2.0 harddrive, novation remote 25 controller, and a pair of beringher truths powered monitors all for the same price with some change left over. If the centrinos
had a 12" screen instead of 14" I'd do that myself, I've always loved the smaller screens on laptops.

otto · Post by **otto** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 2:38 am

strictly hardware speaking, yeah, the PC lappers will eat a mac in terms of preformance, especially in live which is not optimized for mac.

HOWEVER, no matter what those boner fucks say about PC jizzahurts, the Windows OS is shit. Even XP which is just disney land 2002.

OSX Jag is crazy stable, and the reason to go mac. their hardware will catch up VERY soon.

Industrial design speaking, not a friggen contest. there is a reason that powerbook gets ya laid!

P.E. · Post by **P.E.** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:31 am

don't be mactarded. check out the future macs they look great with one exception, pc's already have everything they aspire to be already today.

oh no

now macheads are gonna start saying " pc's suck, wait until the year 30003 when the new new newer macs come out there going to kick pc ass....hahahah

steve jobs has got something in your mouth and it aint sausage.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 12:52 pm

i really hate to join the fray, but people who bash xp need to actually use it before they diss it. I don't fucking care if you hate the look of it or whatever, it has been incredibly stable for me (and just change the look to windows classic mode, was it really that hard?). On my toshiba satelite p4 2.4 xp pro, i run all kinds of software, from graphic (photoshop, in design) to extremely powerful CAD 3d rendering programs (triforma), sonar, live and reason together, all with blazing speed, no problems, no chrashes, no wiping the hard drive clean etc. my friend on his ti book has wiped and re-installed like 3 or 4 times now, cause osx is too stable and doesn't play well with others. Mac geeks, give us a break, use your osx if you like it, but don't go around dissing xp for trite reasons, especially when in the same sentence you admit that the pcs are faster (and cheaper).

ryan

stew · Post by **stew** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 1:30 pm

May I request that some of you turn down your language? There's no need to use four letter words when describing what you don't like about a certain platform, really.

That said, it's pretty much a matter of personal preference. I have both a Dell and an Apple laptop, and I like and dislike them both.

No doubt, the Dell has superior CPU power. More softsynths, more plugins, more voices - you name it. Also, the 1600x1200 screen is a blessing. However, the Dell is probably never ever going to make it on stage, this is what I'm going to use the iBook for:

The iBook is, hardware-wise, much less fragile. The Dell makes squeaky noises when I just open the lid and I can easily twist the display by one or two degrees. I don't want to know what happens to it when I drop it... My iBook has dropped from the table once, and absolutely nothing - nothing happened. Sound kept on playing without dropouts, nothing bent, nothing broken. Also, the iBook weights much less and is much more quiet than the Dell. The built-in sound has lower latencies and better quality and I don't get sound dropouts when switching to another sound app - this happens from time to time on the Dell, running XP. Using a firewire drive with the iBook is much less hassle, the 6pin connector provides power where with the Dell I need an extra cable for power. When plugging a USB mouse in the Mac, it's instantly there and it works. The Windows computer rattles the hard drive first, pops up "new hardware detected" windows and drops one or the other sample buffer.

My verdict: The Windows PC for the studio, but on stage it's an Apple notebook for me.

ajkandy · Post by **ajkandy** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:19 pm

Just to add more fuel to the debate, Apple accidentally put up a specs graphic last night on the Apple Store website, in relation to new Macs rumored to be introduced Monday (June 23) at WWDC. It was quickly removed but not before people cached the image.

1.6, 1.8 and dual 2.0 Ghz PowerPC G5 (PowerPC 970)
up to 1GHz processor bus (Hypertransport?) - runs at 1/2 proc speed
USB 2.0
PCI and PCI-X
up to 8GB DDR SDRAM
Optical and analog audio i/o (toslink)
Firewire 800 and 400
Fast Serial ATA HD's
Bluetooth/Airport Extreme ready
AGP 8X cards from NVIdia and ATI

Now, remember that the PPC 970 is a 64-bit chip with truly jaw-dropping floating point performance. Early specs extrapolated from IBM white papers put the dual 2GHz machine at being equivalent, roughly, to a 6-10GHz Pentium 4. (yup.)

Once Live, Reason, and VST plugins are rewritten to take advantage of this, most likely you'll never have audio 'choke' problems ever again.

Well, we'll see on Monday, won't we?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:44 pm

I DO USE XP!!!

just cus i use a mac, don't assume i don't have XP which HAS crashed on me numerous times on an extremly powerful desktop.

P.E. · Post by **P.E.** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 4:52 pm

no offense ajkandy, but a little more research is needed, like I said everthing the future macs are suppose to be the pc's already are, and there not even true 64bit, but pc's are true 64bit right now.

check out this link. read the article closely and then the replies.

http://www.musicgearnetwork.com/cgi-bin ... 1;t=013560

The Hulk · Post by **The Hulk** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:47 pm

Let's settle this once and for all. Guys with macs get more chicks.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:02 pm

A shame we can't afford to take them out to any nice restaurants after getting into so much debt to pay for the damn things though.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:17 pm

On the other hand, less time rebooting and fixing problems means more time for putting Alex's patented lovey-dovey smooth moves on your lass!

Heavy petting costs nothing unless you're in Vegas.

-Alex

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:21 pm

P.E. wrote:no offense ajkandy, but a little more research is needed...

Indeed...

P.E. wrote:...like I said everthing the future macs are suppose to be the pc's already are, and there not even true 64bit, but pc's are true 64bit right now.

In what fantasy land? Not only do you need a special, expensive 64 bit chip (think more expensive than PPC), you'll have to special order a 64 bit clean version of Windows...

Putting 32 bit vs 64 bit aside, there's little advantage for Live users either way, because Live reads its data right from the hard drive! Pretty much all that advantage gives you is concurrent access to more than 4 GiB of memory. This feature is useful to everyone in the world except for Live users.

-Alex

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 8:37 pm

Anonymous wrote:I DO USE XP!!!

just cus i use a mac, don't assume i don't have XP which HAS crashed on me numerous times on an extremly powerful desktop.

If XP crashes then something is wrong with the hardware or the software you're using. XP is for me rock solid, which means it won't crash. Windows2000 is as stable as XP in my opinion. I am running those systems for years now and it's as stable as I need an OS to be.

Hope you can solve your issues since XP should be stable.

apple g4 vs. pentium 4? (i know, redundant, but pertinent)

apple g4 vs. pentium 4? (i know, redundant, but pertinent)

PowerMac G5 specs leaked

XP crash