1.5 Powerbooks Fast enough?

benthomas1977 · Post by **benthomas1977** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:37 pm

Anyone use live on a 1.5 Ghz Powerbook?

Are the hard drives fast enough or should I upgrade? 5400 rpm hard drie ok? Is it possible to upgrade to a faster one?

I am planning on running 2 Absynth AUs, a mid size Reaktor ens, Simpler, Impulse and two or three loops at the same time. Do you think it would handle it nicley with 1 GB of ram?

I have an old 667 tibook and need to upgrade as it is litterally falling apart and randomly freezing (something really, really bad is going on inside)

Powerbook G5 news?

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 5:45 pm

fondue wrote:Anyone use live on a 1.5 Ghz Powerbook?

Are the hard drives fast enough or should I upgrade? 5400 rpm hard drie ok? Is it possible to upgrade to a faster one?

I am planning on running 2 Absynth AUs, a mid size Reaktor ens, Simpler, Impulse and two or three loops at the same time. Do you think it would handle it nicley with 1 GB of ram?

I have an old 667 tibook and need to upgrade as it is litterally falling apart and randomly freezing (something really, really bad is going on inside)

Powerbook G5 news?

the 5400rpm hd's are fast. in the last powerbooks apple used 5400rpm hd's with 16MB cache... these were QUITE fast.

1gb of ram would be good but Reaktor isn't the most effecient on G4s, especially when its patched in Ableton.
if you can run what you want to do on your 667 G4 and get 90% CPU, then you can expect about 35 - 40% cpu on one of the new G4 1.5ghz.

and i wouldn't expect a G5 tomorrow. maybe june/July at the earliest.

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:16 pm

Keep in mind (I'm not 100% positive about this, but I think it's true) re: harddrives... a 5400 laptop HD will seek, write, etc. faster than a 5400 desktop HD because of the smaller diameter (heads need to move shorter distance). I have no idea how it correlates though (for example, if a 5400 laptop drive compares to a 7200 desktop drive).

sonicboom · Post by **sonicboom** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 6:48 pm

Yes, there is G5 PowerBook news.

The news is that article after article after article talks about how this server-class chip is just too big, hot, and power-hungry to use in a laptop for now and until IBM comes out with a low-power version you are going to be waiting.

Article: G5 PowerBook: Not so fast

sqook · Post by **sqook** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:54 pm

dave999z wrote:Keep in mind (I'm not 100% positive about this, but I think it's true) re: harddrives... a 5400 laptop HD will seek, write, etc. faster than a 5400 desktop HD because of the smaller diameter (heads need to move shorter distance). I have no idea how it correlates though (for example, if a 5400 laptop drive compares to a 7200 desktop drive).

I seriously doubt that platter diameter would have a significant impact on performance. Of course, you could always benchmark and let us know. ;]

If anything, I'd believe that laptop hard drives would perform worse than desktop drives because of lower power draw.

Zakari Luk · Post by **Zakari Luk** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:36 pm

sonicboom wrote:Yes, there is G5 PowerBook news.

The news is that article after article after article talks about how this server-class chip is just too big, hot, and power-hungry to use in a laptop for now and until IBM comes out with a low-power version you are going to be waiting.

Article: G5 PowerBook: Not so fast

interesting article. it almost sounds like they can do it now but it would be a bigger heavier laptop, which i personally would not mind as long as it was powerful yet portable. it sounds like apple wants their stuff to be more like furniture i think, if the size and weight of a g5 powerbook is their reason for not having one now. sleekness before performance i guess.

vince watson · Post by **vince watson** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:00 pm

dont you think this is just the final ploy to sell as many of the remaining and new (1.67) powerbooks in stock...

The single version powerbook g5 will be out in 3rd quarter of 05, and the dul is shipping in 12 months from now...

i have this on 'seriously close to the line' authority. i may of course be getting wrong info, but the links last week that were showing the 2 mistakes apple made on the website, and Asian order lists proved the point to me anyway....

as for the g4 being fast enough, I have 2gb ram in mine, and the only programs i have in it are Ableton, Peak4, Quicktime Pro and some tiny bits. Its almost as fast as a single g5 desktop in terms of speed.....

if you ram it full of every plugin you never use etc....your doomed...

just make sure you repair permissions after every install of any product and your g4 PB will run sweet as a nut.

braj · Post by **braj** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:12 am

I have an old 667 that I just replaced the original HD with a 7200 8mb cache Hitachi and it is significantly faster, I'm surprised actually how well Live is running. Logic, which has a rep for better performance, has maxed out the CPU more often than Live4.

1.5 Powerbooks Fast enough?

1.5 Powerbooks Fast enough?

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