[Eckslusive]

I need to get a laptop for next year school and I'm thinking about a used 500mhz G3 ibook. Is that alright for indesign and photoshop or will it be hella slow??

[BrettOZ]

My brother has that model - If you are looking for Graphics/Video work - I would go for the 32MB Video Card version.

But he runs PS and has no problems that I am aware of?? However he has maxed out the RAM inside it

[Luca Rescigno]

You should DEFINITELY max out the RAM on any iBook you get, period. Doesn't matter really what kind it is (well, Clamshells are old enough so they don't really benefit from going above 320 MB, but you get the idea).

Secondly: only get the 500 MHz version if it's all you can afford. The 500 MHz iBooks are significantly slower than the 600 MHz and faster iBooks.

Thirdly: If you can afford it, get a 600 MHz with a CD-ROM, or a 700 MHz or faster one. Those models have powerful video systems capable of using Quartz Extreme which will take a load off your processor, allowing it to spend more time thinking and less time drawing eye candy. You probably don't NEED one of these models, but if you find a good deal on one then you should definitely consider it.

I think any 600 MHz iBook should suit your needs well, provided you can afford it. Otherwise I suppose you'll have to go with a 500 MHz.

[Eckslusive]

i could get a 800 Mhz ibook Logic Board, but I'm hearing some people say it wont fit in the case, and vice versa.

[stew]

Originally posted by BrettOZ:
My brother has that model - If you are looking for Graphics/Video work - I would go for the 32MB Video Card version.

Ehhh...no.
VRAM doesn't make difference for Photoshop at all. Or InDesign. Or iMovie. VRAM makes a huge difference for various 3D modeling applications and maybe in the latest QuartzGL enhanced FCP, but that's about it. VRAM is way overrated IMO.

[vickster]

I'd hold off and price the market for either 700 or 800 models, as all the habitual upgrade junkies will dumping them to grab the 900 models. I reckon the 16mb vram 700mhz models will be had a an especially sweet price point. QE will still be enabled at that point, and once you max out the ram at 640mb, you'll be set...

vickster

[billybob128]

i had almost the same problem but i was torn between an iBook that i could afford or wait ages till i could afford a 15"pb as im impatient i went for the iBook and havnt regretted it one little bit

i use my 800 640 for everything from typing to graphics in DT and its gr8 for all those so.....

[BrettOZ]

Stew

When I was talking about the VRAM - I was really thinking for Video work. Do you really think VRAM is overated when the OS uses Quartz Extreme to full potential? Just curious...

[hoopla2000]

IMHO, OS X on G3 based Macs doesn't seem to run fast enuff in general. If I purchase a computer now to keep at least 2 years, then, I wouldn't go for any G3 Macs. Probably, my opinion's kind of biased because I mainly use macromedia mx package, and they run awefully slower on a friend of mine's i-Book with maxed-out RAM than my Ti-book.

[radarbob]

is (well, Clamshells are old enough so they don't really benefit from going above 320 MB, but you get the idea).

Not so.

I have a revA iBook, 300MHz G3 with 544MB of RAM. From my experience, the difference between a 512MB simm and a 256MB simm is the difference between being able to run OS X on my precious and OS X being unusable when running more than one app at a time.

While I was on OS 9, 288MB (32MB on board + 256MB simm) was more than enough for everything I did - lots of apps all the time and a 20MB RAM disk to boot. Not so with OS X.

Pre Mac OS X had lots of user-settables for controlling performance / RAM use: virtual memory ON/OFF, RAM disk, allocating specific memory amount to individual apps. OS X however takes all that control away. It is clear that THE way to maximize OS X performance on an iBook is give it all the memory you can. I suppose there is a real, practical limit to this but that's beyond what we can stuff into our iBooks.

OS X uses virtual memory - i.e. it utilizes the hard drive to pretend there is more RAM than is physically there. The more real RAM you have the less the OS has to utilize the hard drive. Hard drive access is about 1,000x slower than physical RAM access speed. VM is why OS X will run acceptably within such a wide range of available RAM, but run obviously faster with maxed-out memory.

To truly maximize OS X takes a multiple G4 CPUs w/ ATI type grapics guts w/ 64MB on-card memory (I know, 32MB is spec'ed minimum); and LOTS of RAM.

[stew]

Originally posted by BrettOZ:
When I was talking about the VRAM - I was really thinking for Video work.

Hardly any video editing program I know uses VRAM in special ways.

Do you really think VRAM is overated when the OS uses Quartz Extreme to full potential? Just curious...

When does it use Quartz Extreme to it's full potential? IMO QE is accelerating things that should never be so slow in the first place.
Even then, when going from a 8MB Rage iBook to a 32MB Radeon iBook I hardly noticed any speed improvements. Scrolling and resizing is just as slow as it used to be. If that jerky behavior is QE to its full potential I'm very sorry for Apple.
If anything is limiting your video editing experience on an iBook, it's the lack of a G4.

[BrettOZ]

Fair enough. Am I right in assuming VRAM would assist in play back of video?

[stew]

Am I right in assuming VRAM would assist in play back of video?

How should it? The main work of video playback is decoding, which the CPU does for you. Additional VRAM won't do anyting for video playback.

[BrettOZ]

No dropped frames when "playback" occurs, reading this document shows the move away from the use of the CPU and back onto the Video Card?

http://a32.g.akamai.net/7/32/51/e3f0.../Quartz_TB.pdf

Was only talking about the playback.

[stew]

Originally posted by BrettOZ:
No dropped frames when "playback" occurs, reading this document shows the move away from the use of the CPU and back onto the Video Card?

http://a32.g.akamai.net/7/32/51/e3f0.../Quartz_TB.pdf

Was only talking about the playback.

Where does this document say "more VRAM makes movies play faster"? Dropped frames usually occur when the CPU is not up to speed with decoding - bringing the decoded image to screen is not the bottleneck here. Moving compositing from the CPU to the GPU will leave you more CPU available for decoding, but between 16MB VRAM and 32MB VRAM there will be no improvement here. Decoding movies happens in system RAM and not VRAM.

[dreilly1]

The 500 MHz iBook is a little pokey for OS X. The earliest 500 MHz iBooks had a slower memory bus than the other iBooks.

If you are using OS 9, then it might be fast enough.

Also, take a good look at how long the iBook can run off battery, since the batteries from that era tended to get worse with time -- my old 500 MHz could only run about 50 minutes on battery in OS X before I sold it.

I have an 800 MHz iBook now, and it's fine for what I need it to do (mostly Starcraft. )

[Bagu]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
The 500 MHz iBook is a little pokey for OS X. The earliest 500 MHz iBooks had a slower memory bus than the other iBooks.

You are absolutely correct. I too, have a 500MHz iBook, which feels like as if it's meant to run OS9, but not X.

If you are using OS 9, then it might be fast enough.

OS9 is definitely fast, but I wouldn't go back anymore.

Also, take a good look at how long the iBook can run off battery, since the batteries from that era tended to get worse with time -- my old 500 MHz could only run about 50 minutes on battery in OS X before I sold it.

Wow, same here. Although mines runs a bit longer, it wouldn't be a stretch to call it 50 minutes when in heavy usage. It has been a painful part of owning this iBook.

I have an 800 MHz iBook now, and it's fine for what I need it to do (mostly Starcraft. )

Is it the $999 model?
Is the speed gain noticeable from the 500?
Did you get AppleCare?

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by Bagu:
Is it the $999 model?
Is the speed gain noticeable from the 500?
Did you get AppleCare?

Nope, I got my 800 when it was the $1299 model. I'm not sure if the current $999 model's specs are similar. Mine has 32 MB of VRAM.

It feels easily twice as fast as the 500.
I ran MacBench on both of them, and the new one was roughly twice as fast as the old one in processor-intensive things, Lots faster with the Graphics stuff, and only slightly faster with hard disk things.

I've been debating the AppleCare thing. We're definitely getting AppleCare for my wife's Gigabook, but I'm not sure if I want it for my iBook too. That's a lot of money for something I may never have to use...