Macbook v PPC - what's the reality?

[JazzyJ]

Hi all,

It would be cool if someone could share their experience of PERFORMANCE on the Macbook 2.1ghz or 2.4ghz in comparison to a PPC.


I've been running PT LE 7.4 on a:


G4 Dual 1.3Ghz 2MB L3 Cache
2GB Ram
Internal Firewiredrive OS Drive (using IFC-1P Internal FireWire Converter with 911+ with HW RAID 0) 80GB
Internal Firewire Audio Drive (using IFC-1P) 120GB
Firewire card
Belkin USB 2.00 / Firewire card
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB / Arctic Cooling Graphics card
OSX Tiger 10.4
MBox 2

- and it absolutely rocks! Loads of tracks, loads of plugs etc.

Would I get the same kind or performance out of a Macbook? I'm not sure how an Intel processor relates to a G4 processor etc.
I appreciate the size and transportation difference of the two set ups, but concerning track count and plugins what can I expect?

If anyone's got both a suped up G4 and a Macbook please let me know the results.

I've been using a Dell Inspiron 6000, 1.73ghz, 2GB, internal 7200rpm 80gb, external 2.5' Firewire 7200rpm 80GB, Win XP Pro, PTLE 7.4, Mbox 2 -

for Portable Recording (with a couple of c1000 mics) and have been amazed at the track count and plugin power (Just recorded an album with a poor community in the north of Brazil - http://clown4christ.com/Flor/flor.htm)
- but am wondering if it's time to say goodbye to the PPC and go small and intel if the power is actually there. Otherwise I'd think about a G5. Will a single intel 2.1ghz or 2.4ghz steam roller over my G4 dual 1.3ghz??


Any comments from user's who have used various set up's and remember the plugin / track count performance would be apprecieated.


Yours

JazzyJ

[JChance]

Originally Posted by JazzyJ

Hi all,

It would be cool if someone could share their experience of PERFORMANCE on the Macbook 2.1ghz or 2.4ghz in comparison to a PPC.


I've been running PT LE 7.4 on a:


G4 Dual 1.3Ghz 2MB L3 Cache
2GB Ram
Internal Firewiredrive OS Drive (using IFC-1P Internal FireWire Converter with 911+ with HW RAID 0) 80GB
Internal Firewire Audio Drive (using IFC-1P) 120GB
Firewire card
Belkin USB 2.00 / Firewire card
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB / Arctic Cooling Graphics card
OSX Tiger 10.4
MBox 2

- and it absolutely rocks! Loads of tracks, loads of plugs etc.

Would I get the same kind or performance out of a Macbook? I'm not sure how an Intel processor relates to a G4 processor etc.
I appreciate the size and transportation difference of the two set ups, but concerning track count and plugins what can I expect?

If anyone's got both a suped up G4 and a Macbook please let me know the results.

I've been using a Dell Inspiron 6000, 1.73ghz, 2GB, internal 7200rpm 80gb, external 2.5' Firewire 7200rpm 80GB, Win XP Pro, PTLE 7.4, Mbox 2 -

for Portable Recording (with a couple of c1000 mics) and have been amazed at the track count and plugin power (Just recorded an album with a poor community in the north of Brazil - http://clown4christ.com/Flor/flor.htm)
- but am wondering if it's time to say goodbye to the PPC and go small and intel if the power is actually there. Otherwise I'd think about a G5. Will a single intel 2.1ghz or 2.4ghz steam roller over my G4 dual 1.3ghz??


Any comments from user's who have used various set up's and remember the plugin / track count performance would be apprecieated.


Yours

JazzyJ

I'm still running 7.4 on a 1.5 Powerbook G4 with good success. However, as soon as plugins and VI start to add up, it gets choked. I also have a newer Windows Vista machine that's dual-core and 2 gigs of RAM, and it breezes through large sessions with lots of tracks & plugins.

The bottom line is this-
The newer generation of Intel-based Macs are tremendously more powerful than any of the last generation G5's.
The G5's are wonderful and still work well, and I know plenty of project studios here in Nashville still running on G4's and G5's....
But a new Macbook is simply more powerful in terms of processing power than a PPC machine. I have several friends with Intel Macs who made the switch from an older PPC machine, and every one of them is amazed at the difference in speed & processing.

So yes, you would be more than comfortable going to a Macbook setup with 7.4.

[accession]

Originally Posted by JazzyJ

Would I get the same kind or performance out of a Macbook? I'm not sure how an Intel processor relates to a G4 processor etc.

My personal experience:

G4 iBook 1.33GHz --> 16 Dverbs --> screen redraws nearly grinding to a halt.

Intel MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core2Duo --> over 100 Dverbs --> screen redraws still reasonably snappy.

Based on these figures, the dual processing Intel Mac Book Pro was around 6 to 8 times more powerful than the single PPC G4 processor.

More than I could ever want really, and that includes loading up with RTAS soft synths and not turning a single hardware synth on for a session. Stunning!

[59Cadillac]

hey...
i just bought a macbook with 2.2Ghz and boosted it up with 4gigs of ram.
i thought that this was plenty enough of power to run ptle 7.4.2 with the mbox2 interface but the system slows down and drops out when i use more than 1 plugin on one (stereo) track.

in this forum i often read about people who are very satisfied with the performance of their system. they run it through the same macbook like the one that i bought. they say they run up to 10 tracks each with up to 5 plugins without any problems.

what do i wrong? even my windows xp pc with 1.8ghz (single-prozessor) and 2gigs of ram does better performance on ptle...

H.E.L.P. !!

ps.: i run osx 10.5.4

[Phil Ogden]

Originally Posted by 59Cadillac

hey...
i just bought a macbook with 2.2Ghz and boosted it up with 4gigs of ram.
i thought that this was plenty enough of power to run ptle 7.4.2 with the mbox2 interface but the system slows down and drops out when i use more than 1 plugin on one (stereo) track.

in this forum i often read about people who are very satisfied with the performance of their system. they run it through the same macbook like the one that i bought. they say they run up to 10 tracks each with up to 5 plugins without any problems.

what do i wrong? even my windows xp pc with 1.8ghz (single-prozessor) and 2gigs of ram does better performance on ptle...

H.E.L.P. !!

ps.: i run osx 10.5.4

Obviously something very wrong here. Almost certain it's one or more incompatible third party plug-ins causing a CPU spike. If I were you, I'drawl through your plug-ins and check that they all work with Leopard.

http://www.myspace.com/philogg

[59Cadillac]

hi!
thx for the fast reply. now, when i think back there were indeed third-party-plugins when the systems slowed down.
so i guess that when i keep using digidesign plugins (the updated ones!) this should run better?

[Phil Ogden]

Incompatible plug-ins can cause problems even if not instantiated (i.e used in a session). I'd investigate this pronto if you want to get PT running in a useable state.

http://www.myspace.com/philogg

[c.evans]

The macbook or macbook pro will run circles around your dual g4. I have a Core 2 duo 2.16 imac and it is unbelievable how fast it is! I can open 80 SSL Echannels and 4 Trillium Lane reverbs and it doesn't even hit 50% on the CPU meter.

I have been thrilled with the performance and the newer macbooks should be even faster.

Good Luck!

Chad

[JazzyJ]

thanks for all your replys!

It seems that the MAcbooks are the real thing!!!

Looks like I will look to getting one.

Cheers

JazzyJ

[accession]

Originally Posted by 59Cadillac

...but the system slows down and drops out when i use more than 1 plugin on one (stereo) track.

Sounds like possibly a PPC plug-in is in your plug-in folder.

They should *all* be Intel or Universal Binary.

You can check this (albeit slowly) by going through every plug-in file and hitting "Get Info" or [apple]+[i] and checking its type.

Only takes one to bring the whole system down as there loaded up when Pro Tools boots up whether you use that particular plug-in or not.