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Loaded 1.67 Powerbook G4? Or a Dell XPS2? - Page 2

post #21 of 31
7/14/05 at 7:21pm
Its basically academic, both machines don't exactly run cool, but ABF is right - the XPS2 is going to be an order of magnitude better than the Powerbook at doing some things (mostly games and graphics heavy work) and has more processing power.

Oh yeah - Dos???? OS/2????
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post #22 of 31
7/14/05 at 7:24pm
powerbooks are fast enough and you can get 128 mb graphics that's plenty for most games (if you can find them for mac) the powerbook is smaller
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post #23 of 31
7/14/05 at 10:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josiah Olson
powerbooks are fast enough and you can get 128 mb graphics that's plenty for most games (if you can find them for mac) the powerbook is smaller
i assume you're new. see, the thing about grapihcs cards is not always just the size of the onboard ram (i am not saying it is not important 128mb is always better than 64, its just not everything). The GPU speed counts quite a bit too. I have an ATI9700 128mb, its a fine card, runs all the games out right now quite well, HL2, FarCry, NFSU2 all run quite well. The problem is that it won't run FUTURE GAMES very well. This is where PCI-E comes into the picture. A lot of it has to do with the connectors since AGP only goes up to 8x, PCI-E starts at 16x making for better communication of data, allowing the clock speeds to get higher for the processing unit (GPU) and thus make the card faster and more efficient, so at the end of the day here are some comparisons:

ATI 9700 128MB > ATI 9700 64mb
ATI 9700 128MB > ATI 9600 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < ATI 9700 128MB "Pro" (slightly OCed)
ATI 9700 128MB > ATI X300 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < ATI x700 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < Nvidia 6600go 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB ~ ATI X600 64mb

so Dell's Nvidia 6800GT 256mb >>> Apple's ATI9700 128mb

this gives you a general picture.
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post #24 of 31
7/14/05 at 11:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf
i assume you're new. see, the thing about grapihcs cards is not always just the size of the onboard ram (i am not saying it is not important 128mb is always better than 64, its just not everything). The GPU speed counts quite a bit too. I have an ATI9700 128mb, its a fine card, runs all the games out right now quite well, HL2, FarCry, NFSU2 all run quite well. The problem is that it won't run FUTURE GAMES very well. This is where PCI-E comes into the picture. A lot of it has to do with the connectors since AGP only goes up to 8x, PCI-E starts at 16x making for better communication of data, allowing the clock speeds to get higher for the processing unit (GPU) and thus make the card faster and more efficient, so at the end of the day here are some comparisons:

ATI 9700 128MB > ATI 9700 64mb
ATI 9700 128MB > ATI 9600 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < ATI 9700 128MB "Pro" (slightly OCed)
ATI 9700 128MB > ATI X300 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < ATI x700 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB < Nvidia 6600go 128mb
ATI 9700 128MB ~ ATI X600 64mb

so Dell's Nvidia 6800GT 256mb >>> Apple's ATI9700 128mb

this gives you a general picture.
Here's what you don't seem to understand- A lot of us could care less about games. I too have the 9700 Pro 128 (desktop, not mobile). Not only does it run every game for me just fine right now (not that I have even played a game in months), but, for me, it will play every game in the near future just fine as well. I don't need super high res graphics when I do play.

Re-read the thread. I am pretty sure almost everyone said that the XPS would be better for his needs. All Josiah said, wether he is "new" or not, is right- the 9700 is fine for most people for gaming.
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post #25 of 31
7/15/05 at 1:33am
i never said that the 9700 is a bad card, in fact i said its pretty damn good, but for the money, you can have BETTER when it comes to gaming. plus, why the hell would you buy a mac for games anyway?
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post #26 of 31
7/15/05 at 12:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf
plus, why the hell would you buy a mac for games anyway?
EXACTLY. Which is why the 9700 is a perfect card for the powerbook. A better card isn't quite neccessary.
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post #27 of 31
7/15/05 at 4:08pm
If you are goign to play WoW heavily get the XPS2, you will almost get no drops in FPS and with the higest setting.

My Friend has the 15" PB with the 9700 Video card and he's running tiger. Before the latest Tiger update and 1.5 Patch his FPS were pretty bad, like 20-30ish, while I was getting 35-45 at 1280x800 with Max and Multisampleing x4.

Basically my X300/128 on my 6000D outperformed his PB in WoW

Anyways the point is, if you want an enjoyable WoW experience and it seems like you'll be playing it ALOT, get the XPS2
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post #28 of 31
7/15/05 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kwick7
EXACTLY. Which is why the 9700 is a perfect card for the powerbook. A better card isn't quite neccessary.
right, re read the fist post. he specfically said he will be playing games (WoW) as well as he will need some software that there is no mac version available on
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post #29 of 31
7/15/05 at 5:30pm
like I said before, I have a 1.67Ghz PB with 1Gig of ram and 128mb 9700 vid card. I play WoW several hours a week and it runs very smooth, absolutely no drop in FPS. If you're having a hard time running WoW on a PB maybe you should get more ram, I don't know, but the PB is more than capable at running it at 1280x854 which is the PBook's max resolution. I know because I've been playing WoW extensively lately.
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post #30 of 31
7/15/05 at 7:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf
does it really? Just speaking from experience of using G4 ibooks they get quite a bit hotter than my bro's Z71v (1.86 dothan). I don't know the hard numbers on voltage and junk...news to be really. Granted the ibooks dont get as hot as my uniwill 258kao (amd64 3200+ running at 82w) or my T23 (not so much the cpu here, but the ram, its 2x512 pc133 config). Maybe its the ram in the ibooks too, i honestly dont know (i never ripped an ibook appart so i wouldn't know where the parts go), but still plenty warm to me.
let me tell you why your asus fan is always running while the powerbooks fan never runs. ANd i mean never runs it only runs when palying a game then 5 min later it shuts off. The case acts as a heat sink too.
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post #31 of 31
7/15/05 at 7:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chile62
like I said before, I have a 1.67Ghz PB with 1Gig of ram and 128mb 9700 vid card. I play WoW several hours a week and it runs very smooth, absolutely no drop in FPS. If you're having a hard time running WoW on a PB maybe you should get more ram, I don't know, but the PB is more than capable at running it at 1280x854 which is the PBook's max resolution. I know because I've been playing WoW extensively lately.
what FPS and settings do you have? you running the newest tiger?
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