[J.B.]

Background: I have been running 10.1 on an iMac 233 with a 7200RPM drive and 256MB of RAM since the OSs release. Obviously, my expectations are low as far as performance goes. I've found the overall speed very usable but just too "sticky" compared to 9.

I've been considering replacing the iMac and its dying monitor with an iBook 500. Well, I got to demo one running 10.1.2 for a while and was very disappointed. I knew the faster hard drive in the iMac would mostly cancel out the MHz increase, but I thought a supported graphics card would help Aqua's responsiveness. It doesn't. The user experience is almost identical to my original iMac. Menus and window controls are sticky, scrolling and resizing windows is laughable, and iTunes visuals poke along at the same 7-9fps as my Bondi buddy.

I am still very impressed with the form of the iBook, but I have trouble believing the speed bumps of the iBook 600 will make much difference in X. Is the bus/processor bump enough to make X less gooey?

As an aside, I played briefly with a new iMac 800 and was very impressed with how responsive X was. In fact, I think X on the 800 is as fast as 9 on my 233/2MB ATI Rage II. Just goes to show how much power X requires and how much work needs doing to reduce Aqua's load.

cheers,
JB

[stefls]

hey Jb,

For several months i've been running X.1x on my 600 with only 128 MB ram.
For me it's usable, but when I open too many apps it sometimes gets a loooong wait, but that should be solved with some add-on ram.
A comparison concerning iTunes framerates: mine does 14-18 fps, which is quite acceptable. If you want real responsiveness, ie a computer that does match the needs of this OS... you may question yourself wether it's wise to go for the current iBook. But then again, I'm satisfied

cheers,

Stefan

[nick h]

J.B.-

I do not experience really any of what you described on my 600.
My frame rates vary actually, I've seen them go up to 20+ in "fast mode", but they usually hang in the 7-15 range in "qality mode".

OSX is satisfactory. Not anywhere near an iMac, but its preferable when compared to some other OS's, and the iBook is way more preferable as well (Ti is a bit wide for my portability needs).

-Nick

[Arkham_c]

When I added an additional 512MB of RAM to my iBook/600, it literally doubled the performance under OSX. I think you would find that this is the case for the iBook/500 as well.

[CheesePuff]

Well, here is my setup:
- 600 MHz iBook (100 MHz system bus)
- 384 MB RAM
- Stock 15 GB Hard Drive

It runs Mac OS X 10.1.3 with no hitches. I run Office v.X, Photoshop 7, Project Builder, etc. and it runs them just fine.

[Voch]

My setup has been pretty nice, too.

iBook/500/DVD
384MB RAM
10GB HD

Office V.x, GraphicConverter, Eudora b21, Internet Explorer 5.1.2, MacMAME (w/ the OpenGL plugin), and even a little experiment with NetBeans 3.3.1 for Java development (I just ran it and typed some code up...no BIG projects yet).

Voch

[J.B.]

Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I hadn't thought of RAM being an issue because I was limiting my tests to one app at a time. With OS Xs RAM-thirst, though, the 128MB in my test model may well have been an issue. I also hadn't thought to check: 1) whether display was set to "Millions of colors" (which really slows my iMac down) and 2) "Whether Faster but Rougher" was checked in iTunes.

Add to this the fact that this iBook had been a display model for some time, and I may not have given it a fair shake. I may have to take another look. Perfect or not, I envy those of you who have these machines. The iBook may be the best true portable yet!

cheers,
JB

[mike one]

setup: 600 + 384MB + 20GB

apps: office x, IE, acrobat reader, celestia, omni dictionary, SWG

classic: eudora, two scientific database search engines(beilstein, and scifinder scholar), photoshop 6, spartan Molecular Modeling, chem draw.

no problems in any area except with IE, which often runs better/faster in classic. yahoo chess works better with classic IE too

there is a definite speed hit from os 9.x but the stability and power far outweight that limitation in my opinion.

[SpeedRacer]

Can anyone using X on an iBook definitively state that it the GUI is more responsive (menu switching, launching apps, restarting machine) than the same machine running OS 9?

iBook/500/256/10gig here. I work FT in Mac troubleshooting and i find the single most important aspect of X performance to be a G4 vs G3 processor. There is simply no escaping the reality that X was designed to run on a G4 in order to off-load the incredible demands of the Aqua UI into Altivec.

As much as i would like to believe all the stories about great performance on a G3, i have personally tried every trick in the book on my iBook (killing font smoothing, running non-translucent appearance themes, dropping to 1000s of colors, killing drop-shadows, running "top" to monitor page-outs, etc) to improve performance and the end result is always the same: the G3 simply cannot escape the pitifully slow responsiveness of menus, app launches, and window navigation/resizing.

If you want to run X you best buy a G4-based machine.

Speed

[kennethmac2000]

I think what you have to do is what I did. Try to convince yourself that the 500 MHz model will do you. Then, when that doesn't work, go to your local Apple site, click Store at the top of the page and order the 600 MHz one. :-)

(Admittedly, this is made rather more difficult by the lack of choice Apple are currently providing on the optical drive front.)

[cmoney]

Originally posted by SpeedRacer:
<STRONG>Can anyone using X on an iBook definitively state that it the GUI is more responsive (menu switching, launching apps, restarting machine) than the same machine running OS 9?

iBook/500/256/10gig here. I work FT in Mac troubleshooting and i find the single most important aspect of X performance to be a G4 vs G3 processor. There is simply no escaping the reality that X was designed to run on a G4 in order to off-load the incredible demands of the Aqua UI into Altivec.

As much as i would like to believe all the stories about great performance on a G3, i have personally tried every trick in the book on my iBook (killing font smoothing, running non-translucent appearance themes, dropping to 1000s of colors, killing drop-shadows, running "top" to monitor page-outs, etc) to improve performance and the end result is always the same: the G3 simply cannot escape the pitifully slow responsiveness of menus, app launches, and window navigation/resizing.

If you want to run X you best buy a G4-based machine.

Speed</STRONG>

I don't get your first question. There's no way that X is faster than 9 on the same machine.

Anyway, yeah the iBook 500 is sluggish in X. I've done almost everything you've done and it's still a little sluggish. Going from millions to thousands of colors really did the most to help. Depending on the system load, it can be just fine to downright stop-and-go (I've reached points where restoring a minimized icon from the dock will animate at around 5 seconds for each frame of animation!).

But the other day, I borrowed a friend's iBook 600 and guess what. It was surprisingly spritely in OS X. I loaded up the same apps I use daily and things were generally responsive enough for me to really really like OS X. In fact, it was enough of a difference for me to consider getting an iBook 600 and getting rid of my 500.

I'd consider a full, all-out PowerBook G4 if only the MHz difference was bigger. I don't wanna spend $2999 to only go from 500MHz to 667MHz, bus speed and G4 notwithstanding. After all, I upgraded from a PowerBook G3/400 (lombard) to the iBook 500 last summer. I just couldn't justify the expense for a measly 100MHz upgrade (from PBG3/400 to PBG4/500) and now, I'm much more comfortable getting another $1499 iBook 600 instead of a $2999 PBG4/667. For me, the iBook 600 is just that much better than the iBook 500 that it could be an impulse buy!

There are other issues (I like the smaller form factor of the iBook) but mainly, it comes down to the fact that the iBook 600 runs OS X well enough for me. I've also used a PBG4/667 and to me, it only seemed marginally faster than the iBook 600 at the tasks where OS X is slow (window scrolling, window resizing, minimizing windows, etc). Maybe I just didn't load it up that much, but I was definitely surprised at that.

[titanX]

I own both a G4 Cube 450 w/ 704 Mb RAM & an iceBook 600 w/ 384 Mb RAM and I can assure you that the responsiveness of X is about the same on both machines : i.e. excellent for me...

The iceBook may even get quicker than the G4 Cube on certain tasks (app launching), but most of the time the 7200 rpm HD of the Cube compensates the frequency advance of the iBook.

I only sense the absence of Altivec for very specific tasks such as video encoding, MPEG playback (which is good but uses almost all the CPU on the IBook)...

The last thing that really bothers me in X is window resizing (not in the finder but in certain apps like Omniweb). For that, the iceBook is very slow but so is the Cube (a little less maybe).

For the rest, using X on an iceBook 600 w/ 384 Mb RAM is a REAL pleasure... (I confirm 384 Mb is a minimum for good OS X responsiveness)

[Carl Norum]

My iBook 600 (384 MB RAM, 40 GB HD) began its life as a 500/128/10 model, and with boosting its specs is hugely faster than before.

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by titanX:
<STRONG>I own both a G4 Cube 450 w/ 704 Mb RAM & an iceBook 600 w/ 384 Mb RAM and I can assure you that the responsiveness of X is about the same on both machines : i.e. excellent for me...

The iceBook may even get quicker than the G4 Cube on certain tasks (app launching), but most of the time the 7200 rpm HD of the Cube compensates the frequency advance of the iBook.
</STRONG>

That's interesting b/c i'm running X on a Cube/500/384/Radeon here and the performance between the Cube and the iBook is like night and day. The Cube is useable, the iBook is not.

Given that RAM should not be an issue unless the OS starts paging-out, it would appear that the consensus is that the iBook/600 is just really that much faster than an iBook/500. So let's look at the specs...

According to Apple-History, you're basically the difference between the iBook/500 and iBook/600 series are:

• 100mHz faster CPU speed
• 34mHz faster system bus
• 5-10GB larger hard drive

Given that the larger hard drive would only affect performance to the degree that a higher performance drive is used (questionable) we're talking about a major change in performance coming from an increase in 100mHz CPU and 34mHz bus.

And having directly compared performance on machines differing 50mHz i find it hard to believe 100mHz itself would make such a noticeable improvement, so are we ultimately talking about a bottleneck in performance based on system bus speed (66mHz vs 100mHz)?

Or perhaps we're talking a difference in subjective performance? Personally, when i click on a menu i want immediate response - the G4s show this, the iBook lags behind cursor movement everytime.

So what are we looking for here? Perhaps there's a more objective measure to use for evaluating performance of OS X on different machines?

Any clues?

Speed

[ccsccs7]

Given that the larger hard drive would only affect performance to the degree that a higher performance drive is used (questionable) we're talking about a major change in performance coming from an increase in 100mHz CPU and 34mHz bus.

And having directly compared performance on machines differing 50mHz i find it hard to believe 100mHz itself would make such a noticeable improvement, so are we ultimately talking about a bottleneck in performance based on system bus speed (66mHz vs 100mHz)?

The change in bus speed from 66MHz to 100MHz is a 50% increase. Just thought I'd point that out. Larger hard drive stores more information in the same area, more information is pulled from disk even with the same speed drive. Again, not conclusive, just a little speculation.

[seanyepez]

OS X isn't terrible on a 500-megahertz iBook. Search the forum; there have been millions of posts concerning the same, exact topic.

[titanX]

And having directly compared performance on machines differing 50mHz i find it hard to believe 100mHz itself would make such a noticeable improvement, so are we ultimately talking about a bottleneck in performance based on system bus speed (66mHz vs 100mHz)?

Or perhaps we're talking a difference in subjective performance? Personally, when i click on a menu i want immediate response - the G4s show this, the iBook lags behind cursor movement everytime.

I'm not sure I see what you're talking about. When I click on a menu, I get the same immediate response from the Cube and from the iBook 600. No lags at all.

I haven't tested X on an iBook 500, so I can't tell for sure there's a huge difference as with performance compared to the iBook 600, but it makes sense to me that 20% more CPU speed and 50% more bus and DRAM speed would affect overall performance and responsiveness on X.

[SpeedRacer]

Well until there is a definitive measure of Aqua performance all this talk is neither here nor there. I say it sucks, you say it's great.

My point is just this:

1) Compared to OS 9 OS X's UI is like swimming in molasses when using a G3. After using a g3-based machine (whether it be an iBook or a B&W tower) for a week in X, booting back into OS 9 feels like a machine 2x as fast.

2) A G4 has significantly less spinning circles, UI delay, skipping UI effects and than a G3 at the same speed running OS X.

Granted, multitasking (switching BETWEEN apps) in X is leaps and bounds better than 9 and there are many other great features about X , but Aqua/Finder performance is not one of them. The experience remains: X is noticeable slower running on G3 over G4 CPUs. Is this an truly scientific study? I never claimed it was, i simply find it slightly unusual that everyone i have had using X on a G3 machine finds it unbearably slow, on a G4 not so.

Take from it what you will.

Speed

[J.B.]

The other problem is that we keep comparing portable G3s (iBook) with desktop G4s. I think the best real world test would be to have a TiBook 500 and an iBook 600 side-by-side in 10.1. That would neutralize bus speed, hard drive, and video card issues and might make the G3/G4 difference more apparent. So...anyone lucky enough to have both?

cheers,
JB

[cmoney]

Originally posted by J.B.:
<STRONG>The other problem is that we keep comparing portable G3s (iBook) with desktop G4s. I think the best real world test would be to have a TiBook 500 and an iBook 600 side-by-side in 10.1. That would neutralize bus speed, hard drive, and video card issues and might make the G3/G4 difference more apparent. So...anyone lucky enough to have both?

cheers,
JB</STRONG>

And while it steps away from the iBook discussion, comparing a desktop G3 to a desktop G4 would also show the performance difference between G3 and G4 aren't huge. In fact, I've got a G4 Cube/450 and an iMac DV SE 500 and Aqua response is pretty much similar on both.

Back to the iBook question, I think the 66MHz bus on the 500MHz iBook is the major handicap. In comparing my iBook 500 to both the desktop iMac G3/500 and the iBook 600, both of which have a 100MHz bus, I find that the latter two are in a similar performance range.

I agree with another poster who said that the biggest G4 advantage comes in applications where the main functions can be Altivec enhanced, things like iMovie. I don't think we can expect as much of a G4 advantage in things like GUI drawing. For Altivec to really shine, it needs to be fed a steady stream of data. That doesn't happen as consistently in GUI calculations.

My vote is on bus speed.

[spb]

And the fact that the rage 128 & it's driver is supposedly not optimized for x..?

blame ATI ( easy ) or Apple ?

The fact , also , that in future versions of x they're not going to support all the rev a imacs & ibooks sucks big time - lots of potential users will probably go pc..

I personally , have given up on x .. maybe wait until v 11 ?? ( 2003? )

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by cmoney:
<STRONG>
I agree with another poster who said that the biggest G4 advantage comes in applications where the main functions can be Altivec enhanced, things like iMovie. I don't think we can expect as much of a G4 advantage in things like GUI drawing. For Altivec to really shine, it needs to be fed a steady stream of data. That doesn't happen as consistently in GUI calculations.

My vote is on bus speed.</STRONG>

Well i'm stickin to my guns .

In support of the G4 vs. G3 argument, i've got reports of a X installed on both a B&W G3 and a AGP G4 (same vid card, RAM, bus, etc) and the performance on the G4 is considerably faster.

Moreover, the following Developer doc seems to add some support to the G4 argument:

[Velocity Engine: Quartz and QuickDraw both take advantage of the Velocity Engine to boost performance.

Source: <A HREF="http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/SystemOverview/SystemTechnologies/Graphics_and_Imaging.html" TARGET=_blank>Graphics and Imaging
</A>

Again, this is not to dismiss the value of bus speed or mHz (clearly these have their place), but i think even SJ said it himself: "Mac OS X was designed to run on the G4".

Speed

[ 03-11-2002: Message edited by: SpeedRacer ]

[nest18]

It's like if someone has got a clubcard for this topic but it get back every month ...

First let's say that i have both G4 733mhz (512ram) and iBook 500/66 (384ram). Yes the performance of the iBook are not to be compare with the G4 but please ... it's a portable, ring a bell !!!

The main problem about aqua is that every pixel is calculated from the CPU and none of the task are given to the graphic card, for those who are interested in this subject go to arstechnica.com . This is a Apple problem

For me 384 of RAM is THE MINIMUM is you want to play SERIOUSLY in os X. My iBook is totally converted to os X and it feel correct and usable, the beta was a pain in the a** but 10.1 is more than usable.

For those you always complain about os X the only thing I can tell them is stick to 9 and WAIT.

[Bernard Ducamp]

A poster said : I hadn't thought of RAM being an issue because I was limiting my tests to one app at a time. With OS Xs RAM-thirst, though, the 128MB in my test model may well have been an issue.
---------------------

I wouldn't call it "RAM thirst". Rather, I would say that the memory manager for OS X will alway look to DRAM first for available space (fast). If none is available, then stuff is paged out to the hard drive (virtual memory-slow in comparison) to make room available in DRAM. So, the more DRAM you have, the longer the memory manager will go before needing to do virtual memory pageouts.

[J.B.]

And by "RAM-thirst" I meant the fact that the Window Manager under OS X uses more available memory than my entire OS 9.1. Is this the price we pay for added stability? The truth is the memory manager for 9 doesn't have to be very complex. 256MB is more than it knows what to do with. But, then, imagine 256MB in 7.1!

Fortunate for computer makers, I suppose, that there's always some new technology that necessitates faster processors and more bloated OS's and programs to tax them. I remember being impressed with the pep of my SE/30 8/80 and 7.1.

cheers,
JB

[JeffZPgh]

Does no one ever tire of these topics? Sheesh, give it a rest - no response to threads like this, no matter how rational, is ever going to convince someone who thinks that OS X is slow that it is in fact "fast enough" or convince anyone that some magical hardware combination is just right to make OS X "fast".

As for telling people to wait for OS X to become faster on older hardware through future revisions - I really doubt that's ever going to prove true. Not because it's impossible, but because Apple has very little business reason to expend resources on it.

OS 9 may have fast UI responsiveness compared to Aqua, but you know what's faster yet than OS 9's UI? A command line. My point? Advances in UI technology that make things appear nicer to the end user always come at a cost. Those of us who have moved to OS X (be it from OS 9 or another operating system altogether) and say we like it obviously care more about the UI improvements than about snap-of-a-finger responsiveness.

The bottom line: it's subjective, so you can't discuss it objectively.

Jeff

[SpeedRacer]

I subjectively state that i find the Windows XP UI capable of running faster on 100 different manufacturers hardware than Mac OS X running on 1 manufacturers hardware.... sorry, but it has to be said. Revolutionary new UI or not, it's still sad to see an OS incapable of running smoothly on only 1 of 2 possible processor lines.

I also subjectively state that the entire issue of running OS X on a G3 is still subjectively new due to the recent release of 10.1.3 and standardization by Apple on OS X as its default OS only 2-3 months ago and the need of my organization to make a call on whether or not to even support OS X on G3-based machines. Based upon my subjective experiences with X on iBook and the wide variance in the subjective experience of others, it looks like we'll be drawing the line at 400mHz G4s and up.

But then all that is stated here is inherent subjective and should be taken with a subjective grain of salt.



Speed

[spb]

So that means that all ibook users should buy a pbg4 , just to run x?

Sorry.. but as you said XP can run on much lesser cpu's.

If its really as bad as this -why did apple ship the ibook w/ x?

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by spb:
<STRONG>So that means that all ibook users should buy a pbg4 , just to run x?

Sorry.. but as you said XP can run on much lesser cpu's.

If its really as bad as this -why did apple ship the ibook w/ x?

</STRONG>

B/c no company is going to rev their desktop line to g4 CPUs before they rev their desktop line (the iMac). And yes (at this point in the game) if you want to run OS X as your primary OS you should buy a Ti... or an iMac... or a Tower b/c this is the processor which Apple has been able to offload the Aqua's otherwise taxing GUI onto. Yet another example... i've been using a Titanium/500 with the older Rage128 graphics and same exact RAM as my iBook all this week. The performance on X is (subjectively) significantly more responsive. Faster app launches, snappier GUI renderings, etc. IMHO, there is simply no comparison in performance that can explained away by bus speed. I've also been catching up on that ArsTechnica review mentioned by nest - great article, explains a lot.

Either way, i'll guarantee you this much... you'll see g4 iBooks by year end.

Speed

[Bernard Ducamp]

Fact: The change in bus speed from 66MHz to 100MHz is a 50% increase.
-----------------
Question: Consider an iBook with a 66 MHz system bus. If the memory is all PCI-100 type (i.e. can operate at 100 MHz), does that mean that the iBook is really a bit faster than the 66 MHz bus would suggest because the cpu encounters less "Wait" states with 100 MHz memory??

[Lateralus]

Well...

As the owner of an iBook 500/640MB I can say that I find OS X more than fast enough for me.

[nigeljedi]

iBook:
�500mhz
�320MB RAM
�CD-ROM

I found that my iBook ran pretty sluggishly in OS X (10.0.4-10.1.3) as compared to either my old 350mhz iMac (320MB RAM, CD) or, obviously, my new 800mhz iMac (256MB RAM).
When I have either iMac hooked up next to the iBook, it seems painfully slow.
Just a personal observation.

[wunderkind]

I thought I add two words to this discussion. When I downloaded 10.1.3 update, I could no longer use X. Everything became incredibly slow and I could not even start Classic (and Classic has never ran well for me in any version of X). Also I noticed earlier that for some reason whenever I try to quit Classic, it would write some 30,000+ pageouts which slows the whole system down.

Probably I "played" with the system too much and updating to 10.1.3 made things worse. But even when I installed 10.1 update back in October, I was not quite satisfied with its performance.

I was about to conclude that X is unusable on iBook 500.

So I decided to give X final shot this past weekend. I erased my X partition and reinstalled 10.1 and all the updates that followed it.

I can't believe how well X is working now. It is working better than any time before (I did not run any version before 10.1). It --feels-- as fast as 9.2. Definitely, window resizing is very slow and scrolling in Finder windows with many files and in long application menus is slower than in 9. But overall Finder is faster than ever. And Classic is very stable and extermely usable.

Now I am giving X a second thought. I think now for me it is becoming (or became) a real alternative to 9. Time to get native Canvas and Photoshop.

This is on iBook 500/CD-RW with 640MB RAM

PS. I did have to restart once since reinstalling X - because of black-screen-of-death-after-wake-from-sleep bug. I had this happen before, but I could never find a fix for it.

[aloner]

I felt OSX was OK in my iBook 500 CD with 384 Mb RAM until I tested a new iMac 800 Mhz with 256 Mb. OSX flies in the iMac and cannot compare with the performance of my iBook.
Back to OS9 until the performance of OSX is improved.

[xyber233]

Today at CompUSA, I tried resizing an IE window. I was horrified. The rage 128 chip has to go!

[vsurfer]

Originally posted by CheesePuff:
<STRONG>Well, here is my setup:
- 600 MHz iBook (100 MHz system bus)
- 384 MB RAM
- Stock 15 GB Hard Drive

It runs Mac OS X 10.1.3 with no hitches. I run Office v.X, Photoshop 7, Project Builder, etc. and it runs them just fine.</STRONG>

Cheese,

I'm sure it runs them just fine but what's the goo factor? How "sticky" is the window resizing and all that -- I wait with baited breath because i'd prefer to save some spondoolahs and buy an iBook instead of a Ti Book. But i am far from convinced -- pity the demo machines in the stores never have enough RAM to really give an impression of what a really loaded machine can do.

[Arkham_c]

It's not the video card that makes the iBook slower in OSX. I have an iBook 600 with 640 MB of RAM and a G4/450/Radeon with 640 MB of RAM, and they are for all intents and purposes identical in OSX performance.

If you want better OSX performance, you need a faster CPU.

[SpeedRacer]

In my ongoing tests on the iBook/500 i borrowed some RAM and upped the Book's memory -&gt; 384... no difference whatsoever. The "goo factor" (as vsurfer so accurately terms it) remains in full effect. Though admittedly in certain applications more than others (MS Office, IE, etc) it is still far too intrusive for me to get work done effectively in X - especially when i have a lightning fast and reliable product in Office 2001 for OS 9.

It's a shame that "a crash a day makes the classic Mac OS 9 go away."

Regardless, i'm looking at pulling X off this system within the next couple weeks. Even if i can run for days w/out crashes and feel like a "GUI Superstar", it's increasingly not worth the degraded performance. I've spoken with at least 2 Apple engineers on the issue and even they agree that i've tried virtually all methods known to increase performance. Till the IceBooks go G4 (apparently sooner rather than later) X will remain the underdog.

Speed

[vsurfer]

Originally posted by SpeedRacer:
<STRONG>In my ongoing tests on the iBook/500 i borrowed some RAM and upped the Book's memory -&gt; 384... no difference whatsoever. The "goo factor" (as vsurfer so accurately terms it) remains in full effect. Though admittedly in certain applications more than others (MS Office, IE, etc) it is still far too intrusive for me to get work done effectively in X - especially when i have a lightning fast and reliable product in Office 2001 for OS 9.

Speed</STRONG>

Speed I can't blame U - but I don't think I'm going back to 9 (at home) either.

I am trying to decide between an iBook w/14" screen superdrive or a 550 Ti with 133 mhz bus.

Ultimately the susp that the G3 will become passe to Apple drives me toward the Ti. That and the speedy 133mhz bus.

I went into J&R and timed application startups on G3's and G4's (absent any other way to benchmark) and found the Ti's significantly faster. Mind you once you have an app up in X there's little chance you'll have to reboot anytime soon.

IN real life i work on OS9 during the day and have more fun on OSX at night. And that's what I like about them there apples you can work on them all day and still enjoy yer mac at nite. I mentioned goo factor - and i hope that further optimizations will occur, I'll quote another person on this forum who described OS9 as too "Baroque" for his taste. Interesting choice of words.

During the day however all I care about is getting my work done in a variety of graphical apps, and OS9 is just fine for that.

BTW I went into Gateway to try some of the new windoze XP machines, but they gave me the creeps in a visceral kind of way. "I subjectively state that i found it a nauseating UI" "subjectively icky fonts" and i did mess with smoothing in the control panels but they were still "subjectively icky and pixellated and stringy-looking."

The only caveat i have about the Ti book is that i find the resolution harder on the eyes than the iBook, and switching it from its native setting is not really a happy move for me. The Ti hit on the bank account won't be a happy move either.

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by vsurfer:
<STRONG>
I am trying to decide between an iBook w/14" screen superdrive or a 550 Ti with 133 mhz bus.
</STRONG>

v...

If you're not in a terrible hurry, i suggest you wait approx 2-3 months. More interesting prospects may have arisen at that time.

Speed