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TazmanDman · Jun 17, 2002, 02:10 PM

I'm considering the powerlogix upgrade for my pismo 500 because rendering in iMovie is getting to be more pain than pleasure....

will the G4 be a significant jump to performing better in iMovie and/or OS X? I know both are optimized for G4 use but how much compared to my current G3?

thanks in advance

-Taz

DNA man · Jun 17, 2002, 06:50 PM

I don't know for sure but I would guess that performance would be on a par with the G4PB with the 500mhz chip. I would think you will see a difference. Until some one posts about their upgrade experience.....we'll just have to wait and see.
I'll be keen to find out too!!!!!

chingwei · Jun 17, 2002, 09:08 PM

Hi y'all,

I'm an excited owner of a Pismo 400, and I am anxiously waiting for the "verdict" on the new G4 upgrade too!

Here's a webpage that did some tests (IMovie tests too) between a Pismo 500 and a Titanium G4 400/500 (The first generation, I think it's the same chip as the new Pismo upgrades, the 7410?) I am also guessing that the performance of the upgraded Pismo would match that of the 1st Generation TiBook G4-500MHz, since the bus speed is the same, video card is the same, etc etc...

<a href="http://www.barefeats.com/pb500.htm" target="_blank">BareFeats</a>

Hope that helps!

If you end up getting the upgrade, don't forget to post your experience!

-Ching-Wei

TazmanDman · Jun 18, 2002, 12:18 PM

Well from what I can interpret from those BareFeats tests, the only real world differences in upgrading the pismo is if you are encoding mp3's or rendering something that is G4 optimized. Everything else is about the same, even gameplay framerates (not that laptops are great gaming machines <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ). Not sure that makes it a worthwhile upgrade....

thanks for your input so far

-Taz

chingwei · Jun 18, 2002, 12:52 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by TazmanDman:
Well from what I can interpret from those BareFeats tests, the only real world differences in upgrading the pismo is if you are encoding mp3's or rendering something that is G4 optimized. Everything else is about the same, even gameplay framerates (not that laptops are great gaming machines <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ). Not sure that makes it a worthwhile upgrade....

thanks for your input so far

-Taz<hr /></blockquote>Yes, but weren't you most concerned with rendering in iMovie? It looks like the G4 is almost twice as fast as the G3 at the same speed, doing iMovie rendering, right?

From what I've read on another thread, this 500MHz upgrade might be all we will ever get (the 7410 maxes out at 550MHz).

Anyway, I do agree that this upgrade is a lot less attractive to Pismo 500 owners than Pismo 400 owners like me...

-Ching-Wei

JFischel · Jun 18, 2002, 01:34 PM

You guys really need to consider all the parts that go into the machine that make it faster. Sure the chip will speed it up, but there's things like cache, bus speed, and memory that needs to go into the fold. Saying it's going to be on par w/ a Ti500 may be a bit of a stretch. Will you see a MARKED improvement over your current machine, yes. Will you instantly get a Ti500 by dropping a new CPU in your box...I tend to think no.

I just pitched my Pismo 400 and got a new gen Ti667 because of the new system architecture.

I hope I don't come across as an ogre, just being a realist.

TazmanDman · Jun 18, 2002, 03:38 PM

I didn't mean to imply that it was a horrible upgrade for what you get. In fact, if I continue to use iMovie like I am now ( I just purchased Bravo and Echo effects from Virtix and am pleased with what I can do, the upgrade would definitley spur new life of at least maybe 1-1.5 years in my aging pismo.

I do understand that realistically it won't be the same as an original Ti500 even though the bus speed and video subsystem are the same, but it wouldn't be too far off either I don't think.

-Taz

chingwei · Jun 18, 2002, 06:27 PM

I agree with Tazman,

The reason I say it will probably be on par with a Ti500 is that I don't think there ARE that many architectural differences between the Pismo and the first generation TiBooks...

Same video card, same bus speed, same memory type, same amount of cache, and the same type of cache (external, half processor speed).

JFischel, I agree with your points that a processor does not a computer make. However, I believe that in this particular case, based on knowledge of the respective architectures, that an upgraded Pismo would have performance very close to that of the 1st gen TiBook at 500MHz.

Unless there's some other thing I'm missing, in which case, please let me know, as that would be valuable info for me to have as I am making the decision over whether to upgrade my Pismo 400, and am currently basing my decision on my assumption about the TiBook comparison.

Cheers!
CW

[ 06-18-2002, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: chingwei ]

tooki · Jun 18, 2002, 06:44 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by JFischel:
You guys really need to consider all the parts that go into the machine that make it faster. Sure the chip will speed it up, but there's things like cache, bus speed, and memory that needs to go into the fold. Saying it's going to be on par w/ a Ti500 may be a bit of a stretch. Will you see a MARKED improvement over your current machine, yes. Will you instantly get a Ti500 by dropping a new CPU in your box...I tend to think no.

I just pitched my Pismo 400 and got a new gen Ti667 because of the new system architecture.

I hope I don't come across as an ogre, just being a realist.<hr /></blockquote>I must agree with chingwei that an upgraded Pismo will be the same as a 500MHz TiBook, with one caveat: hard drive speed. Early Pismos had slower hard drives than the TiBooks (although who would be doing video editing with the stock 6 or 12GB drive anyway?).

The first-generation TiBooks are simply Pismos in a different case, with a different screen and CPU. The entire system architecture is identical, and so is the performance of non-Altivec-enhanced applications.

tooki

ddiokno · Jun 18, 2002, 09:38 PM

I tend to agree with the other posts here, that all things being equal, the upgraded PB will be roughly equivalent to the tibook 500 (minus the 15-inch screen) Spec for spec, they we're nearly identical under the hood (although the tibook lost one of the firewire ports). I think if you have a 400 mhz Pismo, you will notice a marked difference (and even moreso with altivec enabled software -- ie iMovie like you mentioned, and OSX). It will not speed up any graphics intensive processes...
good luck!
dave

PeteWK · Jun 24, 2002, 01:35 AM

All true. The only concern I have is that my Pismo is still under warrenty until Sept of 2003. It's my wife's machine at this point and it will need to stay as such for the forseeable future. I'm not so sure Apple will be thrilled to work on it with a G4 chip in it.

PeteWK