I'm looking to buy a G4 Powerbook so I can play with OS 10.4, and was wondering how the clock speeds of a G4 perform relative to AMD and Intel. Obviously since they are all clocked very low they do quite a bit of work per cycle, but, for example, what kind of speed should I be looking at if I want to come close to my Pentium M 1.7 or my Sempron 3000?
Well, as a general rule, PPC (RISC) processors at 1.0ghz will perform like a 2.0ghz 80x86 (CISC or SISC (i cant remember the spelling)). Note that this is not exact, but is a good rule of thumb. I'd get at least 800mhz for OS X , and that would be w/ alot of RAM. A 1-1.8ghz with a gig or 2 of RAM would be great.
I thought that's about what it was, but I wasn't sure. I've actually got no desire to match the performance of my current computers, but I wanted to be sure I had some frame of reference for the speed I'll be buying myself. I've given it some consideration, and I think I'll end up buying the cheapest 10.4-equipped 12" laptop on ebay, iBook or PowerBook so I can play with the OS for a while and have an ultra-portable beater laptop floating around. If I like what I see, I suspect next stop is a MacBook.
I'd just get a cheap intel mac mini, you can get them for similiar prices to a powerbook ibook and will give you a good machine that will last.
Originally I was looking at G3 iMacs, actually. Unfortunately I don't have much space where I'll be staying this summer and the laptop is a really nice way around the problem. I just want to play with the OS at low cost and see if that's really what I want for my next big computer purchase, so if I can find even a G3 iBook I'll be satisfied.
A g3 ibook isn't good for much. First of all, laptop batteries are only good for a few years, so you would probably have to have it always plugged in or buy a new battery. Also - that math for PowerPC VS. Intel is old - the core architecture (and, for that matter, pentium m,) changed all that. A 700mhz g3 will perform about as well as a 1ghz pentium 3. As said above - I would go with a new mac mini ($579 with student discount) and a switch box if you want to experiment. The box is the same size as 7 cd cases stacked up, so you wouldn't really have to worry about space. Just buy a switch box and use your existing kbd, mouse, and monitor. It will run about 3 or 4 times faster than that ibook you want to buy and will give you a better indication of what using a modern mac is like.
I know what you're getting at, but the problem with space isn't really for the computer itself. I could set a full tower on the floor with no problems if I needed to, but I don't have a desk so anything that requires an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse is out. The cord isn't an issue and I'm well familiar with the problems old laptop batteries have. One thing which I suppose may have caused confusion is that I've actually switched goals halfway through this thread. Originally I was thinking about getting a late-model PowerBook for day-to-day use, but I've changed my requirements. I just want something that runs 10.4. It doesn't even have to run it well; I've used Macs before and am aware of and comfortable with the performance. I just want to have a Mac I can set up exactly to my liking to see if this is really an operating system I want to drop real money on. A Mac mini would have significantly better performance than anything I've got at the moment, but that's not the current goal. I just want something to play with, and a nearly-useless G3 iBook for $200 is a better choice than a Mac Mini at three times the price.
