10-24-2004, 10:27 PM

Hi, I'm a student and have only owned PCs before, but I do use Mac at school, and I absolutely love them. I'm planning on getting a 12" PowerBook G4, now... should I go for the latest model with 1.25/1.33GHz CPU with 256MB RAM or an older model with 865MHz but with more RAM? I mean, in general, which one would affect the performance and speed of the PowerBook more? CPU speed or RAM? Of course it would be ideal to get the 1.33GHz with the most RAM I can get, but since I'm just a student, I need to balance the two... Higher speed CPU with less RAM? or Lower speed CPU with more RAM? Also, I'm not a hardcore user, probably just for regular schoolworks and Photoshop image editing and such...

10-24-2004, 10:39 PM

I would get the higher CPU speed and just upgrade the RAM later.

10-24-2004, 10:44 PM

RAM in general is far more important than process speed. I personally would choose the RAM, especially if you're not doing any hardcore image work.

10-26-2004, 07:14 AM

Yes but don't buy a powerbook yet.... they just came out with new ibook models and their bound to come out with new powerbooks in the following few days/weeks!

go here and check it out: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

They will probabally have more ram and higher cpu on this upgrade.

10-26-2004, 11:37 AM

Actually, as posted in reply to a different thread, Apple has said publicly that the PowerBook will not recieve an upgrade any time before Christmas.

10-26-2004, 12:58 PM

If you can't do what monkey suggests (which I agree with), RAM is the way to go. I just had to step down from 768MB to the stock 256MB for troubleshooting purposes and it's *diabolically* slow :/

RAM = Speed with the Mac, without a doubt.

Buy it from Crucial, don't get the overpriced upgrade option that Apple offer. Don't buy it from just anywhere either.... Crucial or Kingston.

10-26-2004, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by mac_noobie

Yes but don't buy a powerbook yet.... they just came out with new ibook models and their bound to come out with new powerbooks in the following few days/weeks!

go here and check it out: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

They will probabally have more ram and higher cpu on this upgrade.

But according to rumors on the site, Apple is not gonna update their PowerBooks until at least 2005, and G5 is just not gonna happen anytime soon... so i'm still thinking about getting a PowerBook.
Originally I was gonna get an iBook and that's how I started the whole mac laptop looking thing. But a PowerBook seems to have a better upgrade capability and just... better in general. I would've gone with an iBook but it looks kinda cheap... (sorry to all iBook users)

10-26-2004, 02:45 PM

Well, thanks for everyone's input. I've decided to go with a G4 1.25GHz / 256MB RAM / 60GB HDD... and I'm planning on adding a 512MB RAM, which would push the RAM up to 768MB total. Do you guys think that this is enough for just general website designing and photoshop (or maybe some iMovie) work? Also, what other accessories do you guys recommend getting for my PowerBook?
Thanks again for all the feedbacks.