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How much faster will be new MacBook be than my...

J

Jebaloo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 12, 2006
296
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How much faster will be new MacBook be than my old PowerBook G4?

The reason why I'm asking a question that should probably have a pretty obvious answer is because I've heard that the graphics card in thew nnew MacBooks is terrible, but is it worse than my current graphics card?

I do 3D intensive work on my powerbook, but am just about to finish university, so intend to cut out the architectural modeling on vectorworks etc from my daily life!


However, I will continue to use Photoshop. So basically I'll be more of a 2D kinda girl than a 3D.

Here are the specs:

PowerBook G4, 1.5Ghz, 1.25 GB SDRAM... GeForce FX Go5200

MacBook, 2Ghz, 2GB DDR2 RAM... Awful Graphics Card

Cheers.:)
 
MacBook for almost everything other than Photoshop would be 6x faster. Still Photoshop performance on the 2Gigabyte MacBook would be good but wait until CS3-Santa Rosa-Leopard before you get a MacBook.
 
nazmac21 said:
MacBook for almost everything other than Photoshop would be 6x faster. Still Photoshop performance on the 2Gigabyte MacBook would be good but wait until CS3-Santa Rosa-Leopard before you get a MacBook.
Click to expand...

Why? CS3 fair enough. Leopard, mmm, prolly fair enough. But why Santa Rosa? What if they don't use Santa Rosa? What if Santa Rosa doesn't get used for a year?

Do you know something we don't? I doubt it.

The Macbook, I'm not so sure. It will be very good for your needs (Including Photoshop) but as you stated the graphics card isnt that great. Far from terrible mind.

How about saving up a bit more for a MBP? If your not going to do much 3D modeling its maybe not worth it, but its worth looking into. :)
 
Markleshark said:
Why? CS3 fair enough. Leopard, mmm, prolly fair enough. But why Santa Rosa? What if they don't use Santa Rosa? What if Santa Rosa doesn't get used for a year?

Do you know something we don't? I doubt it.

The Macbook, I'm not so sure. It will be very good for your needs (Including Photoshop) but as you stated the graphics card isnt that great. Far from terrible mind.

How about saving up a bit more for a MBP? If your not going to do much 3D modeling its maybe not worth it, but its worth looking into. :)
Click to expand...

The OP would at least get the GMA x3000 with the Santa Rosa MacBook, otherwise still buy today's MacBook but wait until Leopard.
 
nazmac21 said:
The OP would at least get the GMA x3000 with the Santa Rosa MacBook, otherwise still buy today's MacBook but wait until Leopard.
Click to expand...

Is this set in stone? Things change fast (Sometimes too fast) in todays computer industry. How do we know Apple will even use Santa Rosa? Just because its the next 'big' (Used loosely) thing from Intel doesn't mean it'll be used by Apple and for that matter in Laptops... Powerbook G5 anyone?

Apple are not Dell. A processor change is a big thing, it's not as simple as click on a different heat sync and away we go, again, especially in Laptops. We've not long had C2D in them, look how long it took them to get those in and how long people were waiting for those.
 
To the OP, Just buy it when CS3 and Leopard come out. It's your choice if you want to wait for Santa Rosa or not. If you decided to wait until Santa Rosa, wait until Penryn. Penryn is scheduled to be released at the end of the year. For now, you already have a PowerBook G4 that will serve you well for time to come.
 
Thanks for your advice on the purchasing dates... unfortunately my much loved PowerBook is dead... well almost dead.

I've already ordered the MacBook, but I was just wondering whether I should prepare myself to use the university computers for the rest of term for the 3d stuff and photoshop, or whether the new MacBook will be ok.

This is taking into account that I have CS1, and usually tend to handle pages the size of small walls at 150dpi for architectural presentations. I just hope that the little MacBook handles those big files as well as my trusty (but now dead) PowerBook.
 
Jebaloo said:
The reason why I'm asking a question that should probably have a pretty obvious answer is because I've heard that the graphics card in thew nnew MacBooks is terrible, but is it worse than my current graphics card?

I do 3D intensive work on my powerbook, but am just about to finish university, so intend to cut out the architectural modeling on vectorworks etc from my daily life!
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean with 3D intensive work. The Macbook is not designed as a hardcore gaming machine. On the other hand, lots of stuff doesn't use 3D graphics anyway. I don't know vectorworks, does it show you animations at 30 frames per second? If yes, it uses the graphics card for that, go for a MacBook Pro. If not, if it takes seconds to draw an image, then it doesn't use the 3D parts of the graphics card, and you're fine.
 
Cool, so basically as long as I'm not using the 3d stuff too much, then no problem. I use Vectorworks just for 2d stuff, and use Sketchup for 3d. Sketchup is a pretty simple application, so I'm hoping that the macbook will handle it.

What I'm wondering it whether the Macbook I buy, will give me a speed increase or decrease on the 3d stuff that I do with it in comparison to my olw Powerbook.

I'm not a gamer, and I'm not making computer animations, just 3d drawings.
 
Jebaloo said:
Cool, so basically as long as I'm not using the 3d stuff too much, then no problem. I use Vectorworks just for 2d stuff, and use Sketchup for 3d. Sketchup is a pretty simple application, so I'm hoping that the macbook will handle it.

What I'm wondering it whether the Macbook I buy, will give me a speed increase or decrease on the 3d stuff that I do with it in comparison to my olw Powerbook.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Sketchup does not use OpenGL hardware acceleration like some of the more advanced modelling apps do. Thus, like most other programs, it should run significantly faster on your Macbook than it did on your Powerbook.
 
I have a new MBP 17", and before using that was using an iBook G4 at 800mhz and an eMac G4 at 1.25mhz and this thing FLIES. CS2 is faster under Rosetta than it was on either of those.

I think you will notice the increase, and i bet any of the 3D stuff will probably run about the same to faster.

Enjoy it!!!!
 
CaptainHaddock said:
I'm pretty sure Sketchup does not use OpenGL hardware acceleration like some of the more advanced modelling apps do. Thus, like most other programs, it should run significantly faster on your Macbook than it did on your Powerbook.
Click to expand...

FYI- Sketchup does use OpenGL hardware acceleration
 
Photoshop CS3 Beta was insanely fast on my MacBook. Just a warning though, that any graphically intense stuff will make your MacBook SCORCHING hot and the fans will rev way up. You wouldn't want to do any photoshop work in your lap! I haven't seen the final release so maybe it's just the Photoshop CS3 Beta, but I would imagine the performance would be about the same with the final release. But other than that, I love this machine and definitely recommend upgrading to a Macbook (Pro or not depends on your needs and budget) with an Intel processor. They fly!
 
Jebaloo said:
Here are the specs:

PowerBook G4, 1.5Ghz, 1.25 GB SDRAM... GeForce FX Go5200

MacBook, 2Ghz, 2GB DDR2 RAM... Awful Graphics Card

Cheers.:)
Click to expand...

Sorry hunny, but the 5200 is just as bad, if not worse then the GMA950.
 
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