[tycheung]

So....i'm creaking along on my iBook G3 800 which I love despite it's faults...

looking for a stopgap machine to use until photoshop macintel comes out....

Big question is: will photoshop rosetta on a Mac Mini Core Duo upgraded to 2gb RAM beat photoshop PPC native/G3 800mHz/640mb RAM? I'm using it to scan and process 35mm color and B&W negatives atm, plus some modest coding, and the usual iTunes/web surfing/MS Office kinda thing. (World of Warcraft is handled by the shuttle nforce 2 box, thank you very much )

Also...does this thing have funny electronic whines over the audio jack? my iBook is ok when it is just an iBook but most of the time I have it dual headed to an external LCD monitor and it whines like hell w/ the interference or whatever it is.

Also, what memory do you get for this thing? PC 5300 or PC 5400?


thnx,

Tyler

[Eug Wanker]

The Mac mini Core Duo 1.66 with 2 GB will be faster than the iBook G3 800 with 640 MB in just about everything it can run, including Photoshop under Rosetta.

The question though is... does your scanner run on the Intel Macs? There is an Intel Mac compatibility peripheral thread here.

[MacOS-Fan]

I agree. The new Mini should smoke your old G3 in any test, even under Rosetta.

[tycheung]

I have Vuescan; I think it just came out in universal binary so hopefully it'll be all right.

[iREZ]

i'd say that an intel mac with 2gb is on par if not faster than a 1.5 g4.

[MacOS-Fan]

Why would you think that a 1.5GHz G4 would be as fast as an Intel 1.66GHz CoreDuo? I'm confused.

[fhoubi]

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

Why would you think that a 1.5GHz G4 would be as fast as an Intel 1.66GHz CoreDuo? I'm confused.

Native Photoshop PPC code on a G4 versus Rosetta emulation on a Core Duo .

My 2 cents, comparing a 1.83 Core Duo versus a iBook G3 700:
- Photoshop Elements 2.0 is slighty faster (in starting up) on the CD (Rosetta), but not much
- the Neat Image plugin for PS(E2) is 5x faster on the CD, and uses both cores (again Rosetta).
Sorry, I only use noise reduction, resizing and cropping. Speed of other filters I don't know.

Other apps f.e.:
- Handbrake 0.7.1 (DVD ripper) is 10..12x faster on the CD (Universal)
- Sigma chess (Rosetta) however is slower on the CD, about 500.000 nodes/s vs. G3's 700.000..900.000.

So in a nutshell: emulation code will be in par with your current G3, maybe slightly faster, but really not by much. Universal code however will smoke the old iBook.

[Tuishimi]

If it is a stop-gap machine (and you PLAN on buying another in the next year) I'd consider going with a current PPC machine. You can probably still find iMac G5 20" machines at a reasonable rate. Or even pick up a somewhat low-end PowerMac.

[tycheung]

yeah I was originally thinking...hmmm....$500 for a new mac might work.

But then, looking at the core duo - $779 w/ edu discount, if I want the larger HD it's $900, plus RAM = over $1 grand...

sigh, nevermind....

[iREZ]

apparently costco has the silent upgraded ppc mac mini's for a very reasonable cost, check your local costco...i think thats a fine stop gap machine. as for my comparison, i forgot to mention my comparison was off of non universal apps such as photoshop and illustrator.