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OogaBooga · Sep 3, 2005, 05:08 PM

Wazzup MacNN!!1

Alright, seriously though -- I bought a Rev. C PowerMac DP 2.0 on June 6th, and I just recently got a great offer on it for $1700 cash. Since I'm a freshman in college, I'm thinking about selling my PowerMac and getting a brand new 12" SuperDrive PowerBook. I've just bought a 19" LCD monitor that I want to use with my Mac so an iBook is out of the question.

Here's the thing -- Honestly, I don't do anything too intensive on my machine. I like to play around in Logic Express and would really like to get into more audio stuff, for which the G5 is great. But I don't want to "step down" to a 1.5 G4 and find it to be too slow. I know the PowerMac might come in handy one day within the next 4 years since I'm just a freshman, and might change my major, but I would love to be able to use my computer at a coffee shop. I mean, if I was using Photoshop or anything else, a slow machine would be bearable. But with audio work, when your is too slow, audio doesn't play at all. It's either all or nothing. And I don't really see myself taking my computer to class, since all my classes are really small and 3/4 of them are computer classes anyway.

So my question is:
Should I sell the PowerMac for $1700 and go mobile, or keep the desktop machine for extra power? Argh... I wish I just would have gotten the PowerBook to begin with.

P.S. - Randman, I can't afford a 17" PowerBook.

mgehman · Sep 3, 2005, 06:23 PM

Don't have a G5, but I do have a DP G4 and I have had all 3 versions of the Powerbooks, 12, 15, 17. You will definitely notice the difference with Powerbook vs. the Powermac. Audio is always a problem from what I've found, but video is worse on the 12" Powerbook. DVD's are ok, but some avi's and mpeg's play choppy. I think it has to do with the 64MB video RAM. I did not have that problem with my 15" with 128MB VRAM. So, I think it comes down to, will you actually use the portability of the Powerbook, if not and you want the power, keep the Powermac. Sorry I didn't give you a definitive answer, but it all goes back to what you want. I wouldn't think of parting with my Powerbook, but the portability is the thing for me. Hope this helps.