[Mafia]

hey i have a powerbook 12" and its not quite the power i need cause i'm more of a poweruser now then a portable, i don't have the money to upgrade but i was wondering if a quicksilver 733 powermac with a gig of ram would provide me with sufficiant power to run photoshop, flash, dreamweaver, painter 8, some other processor heavy apps, i know its less processor speed then my pb but i'm wondering if the ram and other non portable hardware will make it run faster then my pb.


mafia

[Lateralus]

I don't think you'll love a 733MHz Quicksilver too much. They lacked L3 cache, which made them very show. Most tests have shown that a 533MHz Digital Audio series Power Mac is almost as fast as the 733MHz Quicksilver.

The advantage to the Quicksilver, even the 733, is the upgrade path. As an example, OWC has 1.33GHz G4 processor upgrades with a 2MB L3 cache for under $400. My friend has one, and has been running it overclocked at 1.467GHz for a month now.

Basically, in it's stock configuration, I don't think you'll be impressed with the 733MHz Quicksilver at all, and you may not find it any faster than your PowerBook. But if you're willing to sink some money into it for a processor upgrade, I think you will be more than satisfied.

If you're not willing to put that much money into an upgrade, which really isn't a lot because a 1.467GHz G4 really does fly, then you should probably look into a higher end Quicksilver with cache. The only two Quicksilvers to avoid are the 733MHz and the single processor 800MHz.

[Mafia]

thx, also would the duel processor make the apps i stated earlier incredibly faster or not if so i'm gonna hold out till i can afford a dual 1.8 or a dual 1.42, or 1.25, thx

mafia

[Lateralus]

You'll definately see a nice boost in Photoshop. I am not sure about the other applications since I have very little experience with web design, so I'll leave it to others to voice on them.

[Mafia]

hey i'm considering the quicksilver becuz of the upgrades i could afford early june, what i'm wondering is w/o the upgrade is the 1.5 gigs of ram not going to make apps like photoshop and flash run considerably fasteer? i thought that processor was mainly switching back and forth between processor heavy apps, but the delays within the apps were memory. thx


mafia

[Lateralus]

Having a massive amount of RAM is what keeps a lot of lower end Macs useable under OS X. If the processor is slow, the system has a nice cusion to fall back on if you have a lot of RAM. If you have a slow processor and very little RAM, you'll run into hangs and page outs.

RAM is always good. Regardless of processor speed. It is just more influential on the speed of a system if the processor is slow.

[Vader’s Pinch of Death]

I find the one at work a dog next to the Dual 1.25 we have. I don't suggest them.

[powermacj7]

If you all ready have the powermac 733, get the processor upgrade. I got the Sonnet daughter card 1 gb processor, and it works great. If you don't all ready have the computer, consider a new one system. javascript:smilie('')

[DeathToWindows]

I've got one (see sig) and it is getting rather long in the tooth... I want a DP1.8

[WizOSX]

Buying a 733 QS and then buying a processor upgrade doesn't really make any sense. If you buy the QS from a dealer with some warranty you'll pay at least $800 (on ebay they sell for about 750). The 1.4ghz upgrade will cost $500. For $1300 you can buy a brand new 1.25ghz G4 from Apple which will give you a much better machine (beter video card, hard drive, etc, etc.) If you can buy at educational prices that machine is $1200.

[Mafia]

ya, but i was looking at trading my pb w/ a friend who has one i don't wanna go through the hassels of selling my pb for 1100 then having to wait a month to save up money to go through w/ the purchase, i don't think i'm going to do it but as a power user the 12 867 mhz isn't quite cutting it and i don't know if i can wait till this time next year to go for the g5, if i did trade my pb for a powermac i would be stuck with the powermac for 3-4 years but would purchase a new powerbook (hopefully g5) around this time next year, otherwise i'll keep the pb for another 4-5 years and purchase a g5 desktop next year. its hard cause i'm impatient and def need the power boost but i'm guessing i wouldn't get too much of a boost from this one.



mafia

[robby818]

i have a 733 quicksilver which i bought from Apple's education store in feb of 2002. I'm going to do a dual processor upgrade. I think I will go w Gigadesigns. I'm sure that I'll get a G5 but it will not be for another year- fine by me bec there should be some significant changes by then- including the elimination of AGP.