[Mallrat]

I'm a mac geek, but I can't tell you waht bus speed or cache are, but i know the numbers and higher is better.

But who cares?

Is a 1ghz v.s an 800 that much faster?

I mean if you only use word, it doesnt' matter.

If you use Final Cut Pro, what do you save 10 seconds? 1 minute?

People in the powerbook forum are talking about this and that, but to me, they are all aobut the same.

Just trying to make everyone feel better. I think some people get too caught up in it all.

Look I have a G3 ibook... any G4 will kick ass.

My G3 still works fine. It is fine. Can do amazing things. Change the world.

No reason to stress over these little specs.

The difference to me bewtten the G4 ibook is either a 12 inch or 14 inch monitor.

Other than that they are the same.

Versus the powerbook, the only big difference I see is DVI and the keyboard.

Pick your machine, but to me they are all the same.

So dont' get caught up in the little things. Pick yours based on price and what feels good to you and don't listen to everyone else.

Yes, not even me.

[redJag]

Originally posted by Mallrat:

Just trying to make everyone feel better. I think some people get too caught up in it all.

This is the only thing I agree with you on. People do get too caught up in it. However, cache, bus speed, processor, and more, all affect overall performance. Users on this forum may over-hype them, but they are all important factors. Mac users just haven't had a good edge on performance since halfway through the G3's life

[Eug Wanker]

Is a 1ghz v.s an 800 that much faster?

Yes, noticeably so, depending on the app. It's a 25% difference after all.

I mean if you only use word, it doesnt' matter.

True, but you don't pay for the speed increase to run just Word.

If you use Final Cut Pro, what do you save 10 seconds? 1 minute?

Dunno about FCP, but for other software it can be hours.

Look I have a G3 ibook... any G4 will kick ass.

I will likely buy a G5 PB, when it comes out, to upgrade my TiBook 1 GHz.

My G3 still works fine. It is fine. Can do amazing things. Change the world.

I got rid of my iBook 600 because it was too slow.

Pick your machine, but to me they are all the same.

That's good for you. Hence the existence of the iBook.

Pick yours based on price and what feels good to you and don't listen to everyone else.

Exactly.

[Luca Rescigno]

My iBook had an 800 MHz G3 and it was painfully slow. I liked it at first but the last month I had it was very frustrating. I think most of the slow speed was from the slow hard drive, though.

Anyway, even basic everyday tasks like application switching when there were more than two applications open were slow. I didn't like having to wait two or three seconds for menubars to drop down or for iChat to come to the front. And this was with maxed out RAM on a computer that was only six months old! I'm very glad Apple dropped the G3. My G4 eMac is so fast! I can't keep up with it, really. I think it's mostly because the hard drive is a comfortable 7200 RPMs, but it also helps that it has a 1 GHz G4 - much faster than my iBook. In fact, I'd say real-world performance feels about twice as fast on the eMac than the old iBook.

I still agree that getting mad at there being slightly less L2 cache than before or something is silly. Look at the product as a whole - it's balanced, it's priced right, it's exactly what Apple needed! Who cares if it has less L2 cache? What does it matter that it's a 7455 instead of a 7457? Whoop de f*cking doo.

[sniffer]

Technically this has nothing to do with G3 and G4 ("generation 3 and 4") as this is just marketing gimmicks from Apple. Personally I would actually prefered to see the 1.1Ghz ibm chipset in there on full bus speed and cache. That would've been something. But I am not dissapointed as the new upgrade looks very good.

[Kibon]

The new 12" base model would be noticeably better when compared to the old base model, even if Panther was removed from the equation.

The increase in RAM speed alone will probably mean a 10% or more improvement in speed by itself. I've been reading that much of OS X is optimized for the G4, and most of the applications out there are by now as well. Not to mention the doubling of RAM in the base configuration.

Apple's new choice of video card, the ATI Radeon 9200, will definately show an increase for the iBooks in gaming benchmarks compared to previous models (duh). That said, I think the biggest improvement in these new models is the standardization of the combo drive across the entire product line. The 12" model is a VERY good deal, perfect for a post-secondary student if he/she is okay with the screen size.

However, this doesn't mean that someone with a recent iBook should now throw it in the garbage. Technology moves quickly...

[ae86_16v]

Buy what fits your needs. . . I agree that most people probably won't need a Dual G5 max out w/ 8GB of ram to surf the web though.