[craigthomas]

Hey, I just don't think I can't wait for a IntelBook, so I'm at that point where I iching for a new machine. So, will I be amazed by a 1.67 AlBook (2Gigs of RAM) over my 1Ghz 1Gig RAM TiBook? I'll go with the 17", so there's some perceived value right there (along with double the RAM). I know they have a faster bus and faster and bigger disk, so I'm sure that will feel snappier too.

If i get a year or two use, i'll be very happy. As long as there is noticable difference in speed. I'm a designer, and use this machine for a living all day but don't want to dump 4 grand into a machine that's just a little faster.

I'd like to see less finder hangups, apps that open much faster, VPC to not be such a pain to open and close, more apps open at the same time (RAM shoud help that). Anyway, if you have experience with this thanks for your reply.

[U n i o n 0015]

I can't give you a comparison to 1.67 G4, but I went from a 1GHz TiBook to a 12" 1.5GHz AlBook. I found performance to be better, but not mind-blowing. If you go use a Power Mac, you'll really feel the difference between a PowerBook and real speed.

The reason I switched from a Ti to an Al is because I wanted a smaller laptop. I sold my Ti, so it only cost me like $350 out of my pocket to upgrade to the newly-released 12" 1.5GHz. I don't think I would've dropped that much money on a second computer since the Ti was doing everything perfectly fine. Honestly, I say keep the Ti as it is still a very good computer and plenty fast for most daily use applications. I just don't think the speed difference will feel large enough for you to justify the cost.

[cambro]

With the new 10.4 emphasis on disk access (indexing for Spotlight, for example), I would bet you get a descent speed increase just due to the faster hard disk. Disk speed is certainly one of the biggest bottlenecks for opening an application for example.

More RAM will also be better than processor speed for many of the things you are mentioning as well. So, doubling your RAM and increasing hard disk speed, combined with a faster bus and processor....I'd say you'd notice a pretty substantial boost.

Of course, I'm typing this on an TiBook that is identical to yours!

[dialo]

I'm in the same situation with a 1ghz, 1gb ram ti. My thoughts:

- the fan is so outrageously loud on this thing since I got the logic board replaced earlier this year that I need a new machine asap. I'd love to sell it, but the fan is so loud that I feel bad taking anyone's money for this POS (and it's starting to give me a real negative attitude toward powerbooks overall).

- I often buy machines with depreciation in mind and, according to that, buying it now as opposed to when they came out represents a loss of a few hundred dollars.

- waiting for a likely fall update brings me too close to the mactel release time-frame such that it won't be a machine I will be happy with for 3 years.

- I don't want the first intel powerbook model, both because of 1 gen quality issues and the fact that there's a decent chance that not enough of the software (assuming I even decide to update all of my software) I use will be ready for it to make up for the rosetta performance hit.

If apple updated the powerbooks tomorrow, I'd buy one immediately. I think the people that made out the best are the ones who bought powerbooks in february.

[craigthomas]

Well, there's a little more pieces to this puzzle:

-My DVD/CD ROM drive doesn't work.
-The display gets a slight shade darker when I unplug my machine
-The battery life, oh man, less than an hour sometimes
-My disk is getting full

I have work-arounds to all the above, but it's not the best expericene

[iREZ]

id upgrade the optical drive and hard drive...you still got a very capable machine and i don't think the new pb's offer that much of a speed boost. pop in a 7200rpm drive and a superdrive till the next pb's come out...then go ahead and make a decision. i have the same clock speed on my pb and can honestly say that i see a difference in the new books, they are faster, but not mind blowing by any means. a G5 iMac is a better option if you don't need portability, and a dual G5 if you want as fast as you can get.

[dialo]

Originally Posted by craigthomas

-The display gets a slight shade darker when I unplug my machine

I'm pretty sure that's an energy saver pref setting.

Originally Posted by iREZ

id upgrade the optical drive and hard drive...you still got a very capable machine and i don't think the new pb's offer that much of a speed boost. pop in a 7200rpm drive and a superdrive till the next pb's come out...then go ahead and make a decision..

I put in a 5400 rpm drive and it made the fan run even more than before (and it's already completely unacceptably loud) so I put back to old drive. THe spinning of the drive (hitachi) was also pretty loud itself. YMMV

[dragonbong]

I was kind of thinking the same thing.... selling my Ti PB 867 combo and getting an Alu. My PB has an 80gig samsung right now and still working combo drive. The Alu i'm looking at is the 12" model though so it's a big decision for me losing the screen size. Only reason i'm thinking of changing is cuz i can get a good deal on it. Although I do hve a 19" external monitor that I would usually hook it up too. (Any hints on the going rate for a 867?)

With your change it seems a bit better with a new optical drive, better CPU, more ram and bigger screen. If you need one right now go for it there really is no HUGE reason to wait. You'll still get the work you need out of it and you will notice a speed dif. And I wouldn't really bank on getting an intel PB revision A.. too sketchy for me so it will be a bit longer after the first release for me to look at one seriously.

[ericssonboi]

Coming from a
12" 1.33 Al.
15" 1Ghz Al.
15" 1.67Ghz Al.

The differences aren't that big..
After upgrading to Tiger on the 15" 1.67Ghz, i found that it was a bit snappier.. maybe a second or two faster responce when loading apps..

I have bench marks for both to compare...

15" 1.67Ghz w/128mb Vram and 2GB Ram

Results 131.75

System Info

Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.3.8 (7U16)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model PowerBook5,6
Processor PowerPC G4 @ 1.67 GHz
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 512K @ 1.67 GHz
Bus Frequency 167 MHz
Video Card ATY,RV360M11
Drive Type Hitachi HTS541080G9AT00

CPU Test 188.07
GCD Loop 175.95 6.87 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 194.58 703.65 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 199.39 5.79 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 187.91 2.92 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 184.28 7.38 Mops/sec

Thread Test 132.00
Computation 95.59 1.29 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 213.21 2.68 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads

Memory Test 122.67

System 131.53
Allocate 971.37 633.62 Kalloc/sec
Fill 160.62 1278.51 MB/sec
Copy 64.30 321.49 MB/sec

Stream 114.93
Copy 106.79 780.62 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 109.55 808.47 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 122.29 782.64 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 122.94 751.19 MB/sec [altivec]

Quartz Graphics Test 176.80
Line 143.77 3.66 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 157.18 11.06 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 169.08 3.90 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 171.11 1.86 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 312.03 5.09 Kchars/sec

OpenGL Graphics Test 126.39
Spinning Squares 126.39 88.44 frames/sec

User Interface Test 203.30
Elements 203.30 65.39 refresh/sec

Disk Test 73.53

Sequential 83.28
Uncached Write 88.71 36.98 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 66.53 27.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 112.37 17.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 77.95 31.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 65.82
Uncached Write 56.88 0.85 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 64.74 14.60 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 68.93 0.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 75.55 15.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]

VS.

15" 1Ghz w/64mb of VRAM and 1GB of Ram

Xbench results
Results 104.19

System Info
Xbench Version 1.1.3
System Version 10.3.8 (7U16)
Physical RAM 1024 MB
Model PowerBook5,2
Processor PowerPC G4 @ 1.00 GHz
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
L2 Cache 512K @ 1.00 GHz
Bus Frequency 167 MHz
Video Card ATY,RV350M10
Drive Type TOSHIBA MK6025GAS

CPU Test 121.36
GCD Loop 117.89 4.60 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 122.76 443.93 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 122.76 3.57 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 123.86 1.92 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 119.73 4.79 Mops/sec

Thread Test 88.24
Computation 64.07 864.98 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 141.68 1.78 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads

Memory Test 130.94
System 139.31
Allocate 633.36 413.14 Kalloc/sec
Fill 139.12 1107.43 MB/sec
Copy 78.32 391.60 MB/sec
Stream 123.52
Copy 125.43 916.91 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 127.45 940.57 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 123.38 789.62 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 118.20 722.23 MB/sec [altivec]

Quartz Graphics Test 144.33
Line 114.36 2.91 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 137.41 9.67 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 138.80 3.20 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 129.23 1.40 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 271.93 4.43 Kchars/sec

OpenGL Graphics Test 90.74
Spinning Squares 90.74 63.50 frames/sec
User Interface Test 190.44
Elements 190.44 61.25 refresh/sec

Disk Test 59.60
Sequential 69.14
Uncached Write 70.05 29.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 52.43 21.47 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 151.17 23.93 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 55.90 22.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 52.38
Uncached Write 44.89 0.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 52.03 11.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 56.32 0.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 58.41 12.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[iREZ]

i think ya got a lousy drive...my cuz threw in a 5400 drive and it's whisper quite, i guess your milage will vary. but i know the travelstar has nothing but rave reviews and seagate just announced the 7200 100gb drive and their drives are pretty good on noise as well...just a thought. seems like you have your mind set on a new comp

[dragonbong]

Hey ericssonboi how are you liking or disliking the 128 video card? If anything that would be the one thing pushing me to get a 15" instead of a 12".

[craigthomas]

Originally Posted by iREZ

i think ya got a lousy drive...my cuz threw in a 5400 drive and it's whisper quite, i guess your milage will vary. but i know the travelstar has nothing but rave reviews and seagate just announced the 7200 100gb drive and their drives are pretty good on noise as well...just a thought. seems like you have your mind set on a new comp

Just curious how you swapped the drive. Once you got the drive in there, did you start fresh and install every thing all over? Or did you somehow use Firewire with your old drive and Migrate?

[ericssonboi]

Originally Posted by dragonbong

Hey ericssonboi how are you liking or disliking the 128 video card? If anything that would be the one thing pushing me to get a 15" instead of a 12".

Its all about preference... more like Portability vs Screen Space.
I love the widescreen and how much more you can view... but i can't say no to the 12" 's size..

The 128mb Vram video card is good... i played Halo with it with little lag...
I didn't try it on the 12" ... but i've read its playable on lower settings.

15" Pro's
Screen size
Backlit keyboard (standard now)
PCMCIA card slot
128MB VRAM upgrade option
2 RAM slots (I have mine maxxed out at 2GB = Fast)
Quick swap battery (put the laptop in sleep mode and you can switch batteries without shutdown)

15" Con's
On the heavier side... (just means you gotta hit the gym more often )
Less battery life (from my experience, that's what spare batteries are for)

12" Pro's
Size (don't really feel the weight... good for travelling)
Good battery life (more juice than the 15")

12" Con's
Only 1 spare slot of ram (1.25MB RAM max)
lack of PCMCIA slot
no Backlit keyboard option
no 128MB VRAM option


Pretty much it comes down to the size vs portability..
The rest of the options (other than RAM) is just bells and whistles..

I still take the 15" in out of the house and lug it around.. (i'm a student) .. but you can't beat the 12"'s size. 15" is more of a desktop replacement IMO .. If you travel a lot and need it in different places.. such as In the office, in the home, on the plane, in the coffee shop, in the car on the way to the airport... etc.. to show presentations and such... then i'd go with the 12" ...
But if you only carry it for like maybe 1 hours tops in a day... then go for the 15" ... its worth the extra money.

[rhythmicmoose]

Originally Posted by dragonbong

I was kind of thinking the same thing.... selling my Ti PB 867 combo and getting an Alu. My PB has an 80gig samsung right now and still working combo drive. The Alu i'm looking at is the 12" model though so it's a big decision for me losing the screen size. Only reason i'm thinking of changing is cuz i can get a good deal on it. Although I do hve a 19" external monitor that I would usually hook it up too.

I sold a TiBook for a 12" two years ago, and I must say, I wouldn't recommend that switch to anyone. If you do any sort of graphics/design work, the loss in screen space is a terrible, terrible thing, and I know this sounds obvious but your external monitor is only going to alleviate that when you're near it. I don't know about your computing habits, but for me, having to use an external monitor is a pain, as I do a lot of that work away from the desk.

[gametime10]

I upgraded from a TiBook 1Ghz/1GB to a AlBook Rev. C 1.5Ghz a few months ago. There is a noticeable speed increase, but like people have said, it's not amazing. I don't do any intense graphics work or anything like that, so the biggest difference for me was in games, which I've all sold since then, since I'm starting school again. But, to answer your question, it was not a big difference in performance for me. I still don't regret it though, since I bought it used and got a great deal, and was able to sell my TiBook on eBay for quite a bit. But if you're going to drop 4 G's, you might be disappointed.

[dialo]

Originally Posted by iREZ

i think ya got a lousy drive...my cuz threw in a 5400 drive and it's whisper quite, i guess your milage will vary.

Yeah, but it seems to fit the descriptions of how the drive sound in some of the current models that people confuse with fan noise all the time except that it's increased by the casing. It can't hear it spin when it's outside of the case

[GSixZero]

I have a 1Ghz tibook at work and a 1.67Ghz Albook at home, both with a gig of ram and they're pretty similar.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

[dialo]

Is the fan outrageously loud on other 1ghz titaniums like it has been on mine since apple replaced the logic board? Is the 1.67 dramatically quieter?