Test results: New Alu Powerbook Vs. Old Ti Powerbook

jho · Post by **jho** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:27 am

I have a Ti 667 and can feel you on the bummer performance. I just bought a new 2.8Ghz windows XT machine for Live and it's running the same test at 2% and 8% !!!

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 9:20 am

chris_borgia wrote: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

This is astonishing. I'm glad I've got the Ti 867Mhz then - had been thinking about upgrading soon and sell the Ti while there's still many people using OS 9. But, no....

I'll keep it.

And speaking of Apple just pulling money out of our pockets --- and despite the fact that PCs are faster --- Logic Pro just arrived here and it's amazing value for money!!!

Jamm · Post by **Jamm** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:13 pm

I love to see a G5 powerbook but in the meantime my
Powerbook 500(l2=1mb) is still going strong here.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:15 pm

jamm wrote: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

Good news for me of course, getting ready to sell a G4 Powerbook 500 with a gig of RAM. I'll post on the General forum when it hits Ebay, just incase there are any of those owners of 1.33 GHz 17" powerbooks here who want to UPGRADE to 500 MHz.

I'm going to start a new topic on Cache and Live performance for PCs. In particular, Prescott vs Northwood vs Extreme Edition vs Centrino, and the major differences in Cache size between them all.

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:16 pm

Amberience · Post by **Amberience** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:53 pm

Are you saying don't buy a new Powerbook if you've the chance of an older one then??

Jamm · Post by **Jamm** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:36 pm

I hate to say it but sometimes that is the right choice!

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:20 pm

Sad issue, that.

glad I've got the 867

Adam.Jay · Post by **Adam.Jay** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:37 pm

My G4-400mhz can handle 8 stereo tracks (or up to 12 if i am using smaller 4 bar loops), each with the 4 band eq, 4 master FX. CPU meter never gets above 65% i love it!!

but my 867mhz 12" G4 Aluminum (which i beleive is the ONLY G4 Powerbook ever made with a lousy 256k L2, GRRR) will handle the same load at 50%.

it doesnt so much upset me that my 867 isnt at least twice as effecient, because it effecient ENOUGH for me. I can also rewire 10 Stereo Reason Channels, add Ableton FX, open Audio Hijack and patch Waves 4.0 L2 compressor within and record the whole session in REALTIME with no glitches. (640mb ram helps) Rarely do i hit the ceiling of my 12" powerbook.

Also, i have to remind myself that Ableton Live 3 isn't Altivec G4 optimized. Once there is an Ableton Live version that is Altivec optimized, G4 users should get 50-75% more performance, maybe even more if currently using VST FX.

krikor · Post by **krikor** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 7:59 am

A new reason not to get an Alubook... otherwise you will just have to buy a new PCMCI DSP card...

Important note for Aluminum Powerbook owners

The latest Apple 'Aluminum' G4 powerbooks will freeze when using MIDI and audio with RME's CardBus card. After weeks of heavy testing and examination using a PCI Logic Analyzer on our CardBus card, we have come to the conclusion that the chipset of the current Apple PowerBooks includes a hardware bug. A PCI memory read command right after a busmaster memory write burst can end up in a deadlock. The computer seems to have crashed. The effect is easy to be reproduced by using software like Logic with both audio (busmaster) and MIDI (memory read). This problem can not be solved by a driver update.

Thanks to RME's flash technology we are able to provide a slightly changed hardware version, which no longer triggers the problematic events. This new special Aluminum PowerBook version (hardware revision 12) uses I/O instead of memory commands to access the cards internal registers. Of course, such a change also requires a changed driver, which uses I/O read/write commands as well. The new driver version 1.4 detects a revision 12 CardBus card and uses I/O then. With all other hardware revisions, the usual memory commands are used.

A CardBus card flashed to Aluminum PowerBook can not be used in a Windows or Linux machine anymore! Of course it can be flashed back to CardBus (only on the Mac!), and is then compatible to Windows/Linux again.

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 12:24 am

Maxim wrote: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.

Cheers,

----
I'm a bit confused by all of this. I have a new 1.25 al g4 powerbook and ran these tests today with the ableton 2.1.1 session demo song under os 10.3.3.

I was at 2% idle and never went past 17% for any of the scenes. Why would your test machine be at 24%?

And for the arrangement demo I was at 2% Idle and maxing at 18% while playing. It stayed around 17% for the most part but jumped to 18% on occasion.

Why would this be?

Upgrade to a 500mghz? No thanks, I think I am going to keep my 1.25 al. No problems here.

lemon · Post by **lemon** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 5:45 am

Hi all,

It seems to me people are using different versions of Live and demosongs,
you can´t get right answers concerning CPU performance if setups aren´t
exactly the same.

Lemon

jamm · Post by **jamm** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:13 am

Adam J wrote:

My G4-400mhz can handle 8 stereo tracks (or up to 12 if i am using smaller 4 bar loops), each with the 4 band eq, 4 master FX. CPU meter never gets above 65% i love it!

At home thats okay,
but standing on a stage in front of a crowd,
65% begins to get a bit scary for me.

greetinz jamm

Adam.Jay · Post by **Adam.Jay** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:32 pm

jamm wrote: At home thats okay,
but standing on a stage in front of a crowd,
65% begins to get a bit scary for me.
greetinz jamm

hmmm.. wasnt scarey in front of 2,5000 people..
see: http://www.technofans.de/images/review/ ... 9_8994.AVI

now 90% would be scarey.

Adam.Jay · Post by **Adam.Jay** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:33 pm

*2,500

Test results: New Alu Powerbook Vs. Old Ti Powerbook

Testing CPU performance