14" iBook 1.42 OUTPERFORMS 12" 1.5GHz powerbook!!!

[Chrispy]

You read that right. I was able to get my hands on a 12" powerbook latest revision today and I decided to run a little test. I setup my 14" iBook and the 12" powerbook right next to each other. First thing I noticed was how much brighter and more colorful the sceen was on the 14" ibook. Then I fired up WoW and ran my character to a set location and stood still. I waited a good 30 serconds and recorded the highest and lowest FPS reading I got. Here are the results...

14" iBook with 1.5GB Ram
lowest FPS = 24.7
highest FPS = 30.6

14" iBook with 512MB Ram
lowest FPS = 22.8 FPS
highest FPS = 30.2 FPS

12" Powerbook with 512MB Ram
lowest FPS = 16.4
highest FPS = 19.8

The iBook kicked the crap out of the powerbook (game performance is the only thing being measured here keep in mind). I even played the game for awhile running around and fighting and the iBook still held a consistantly higher framerate than the powerbook. This should be a sign to Apple that they REALLLLLLY need go get the GeForce FX 5200 out of the 12" powerbook!!! Just thought I would share my findings

 

[tekmoe]

yes, but your 14" ibook is also ugly (imo).

let's call it a sleeper. kind of like a '72 mercury marquis stationwagon with a 454 under the hood.

 

[tuartboy]

yes, but your 14" ibook is also ugly (imo).

let's call it a sleeper. kind of like a '72 mercury marquis stationwagon with a 454 under the hood.

fight fight fight

 

[Chrispy]

yes, but your 14" ibook is also ugly (imo).

Wow harsh words haha I will say I think the 12" powerbook is a very very sharp looking computer but I wouldn't say the iBooks are ugly haha.... well unless you don't like white.. then I guess they would be ass ugly

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

GOD! I just hate it, hate it, hate it, and hate it some more! when people say the 14" god damn iBook is ugly!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR... I've gotten REALLY sick of that, litterally. Oh, so you get a bigger screen w/ 1024x768 resolution, ANY 15" laptop i've seen (not widescreen ) has had 1024x768, in fact i have to Toshibas in front of me that do. The image on the screen is NOT blurry, i mean wtf? HOW THE HELL IS IT BLURRY?

I just hate it when people say the 14" iBook is ugly when I just worked my fricken ass ALL SUMMER LONG, ALL DAY, AND....., and you say it's ugly?

wow
sorry if i'm like... going balistic over nothing, it's just people who have the 12" iBook or PowerBook (ITASOR, haha) COMPLETLY criticize the 14".

What the hell do you expect?? It's targeted for educational purposes! Educators/students don't always need top of the line Resolutions!

sorry.. just had to say that

 

[ITASOR]

GOD! I just hate it, hate it, hate it, and hate it some more! when people say the 14" god damn iBook is ugly!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR... I've gotten REALLY sick of that, litterally. Oh, so you get a bigger screen w/ 1024x768 resolution, ANY 15" laptop i've seen (not widescreen ) has had 1024x768, in fact i have to Toshibas in front of me that do. The image on the screen is NOT blurry, i mean wtf? HOW THE HELL IS IT BLURRY?

I just hate it when people say the 14" iBook is ugly when I just worked my fricken ass ALL SUMMER LONG, ALL DAY, AND....., and you say it's ugly?

wow
sorry if i'm like... going balistic over nothing, it's just people who have the 12" iBook or PowerBook (ITASOR, haha) COMPLETLY criticize the 14".

What the hell do you expect?? It's targeted for educational purposes! Educators/students don't always need top of the line Resolutions!

sorry.. just had to say that

Hmm.....12" iB is better.



JUST KIDDING!

 

[Chrispy]

Wow lilstewart92 try not to blow a blood vessel haha. I do agree that it is crazy that people go nuts about how ugly the 14" ibook is. I find the white next to the keyboard a little odd but I LOVE the larger screen (of course this is just my opinion). I do find the powerbook to be better looking but the iBooks (both models) look great too.

 

[Gwendolyn]

Out of curiosity, if your 14" iBook has 1.5 GB of RAM, how much RAM was in the competing 12" PB? It seems to me that comparable amounts of RAM would lead to a more comparable test, and you didn't specify the RAM in your competing machines. So if the 12" PB only had the stock 512 MB of RAM, then the test might be showing us that RAM is good.

(not to say that I don't support a graphics card update for the 12" PB, of course, because I do!)

 

[California]

Uh, my brand new 1.33ghz iBook 14" screen ain't ugly. It's pretty. especially with the blue iSkin protector that matches the blue screen whilst protecting my pearly white keyboard. It's a lot cuter than the ti's or als -- she's actually streamlined, while the pbs look industrial - machine age out of the 40's, the ibooks are Eames era looking, something like a Kartel plastic design of the 70s. Very cool. And she also KICKS BUTT. LOVE it.

 

[Chrispy]

Out of curiosity, if your 14" iBook has 1.5 GB of RAM, how much RAM was in the competing 12" PB? It seems to me that comparable amounts of RAM would lead to a more comparable test, and you didn't specify the RAM in your competing machines. So if the 12" PB only had the stock 512 MB of RAM, then the test might be showing us that RAM is good.

(not to say that I don't support a graphics card update for the 12" PB, of course, because I do!)

Very very good point and I thought of this before running the test. When I first got my iBook I ran WoW for a few days before the upgrade and in open areas I noticed my framerate didn't really change at all. Now, in cities there was a noticable difference. I made sure to go into an open area before running the test since I know that I saw a negligable difference when I upgraded the ram in open areas.

 

[lopresmb]

interesting,

even though you have 1.5 GB Ram, the video card in the 12" pbooks, are pretty old, compared to a 9550 in you iBook, even with less VRAM. And lets not forget that the iBook can physically take 1.5 GB RAM, which is less than you can say for the 12" pbook (max 1.25GB)

congrats on your new, apparently speedy ibook


--by the way, how much ram did the powerbook have?

 

[Chrispy]

Thanks for the kind words. The powerbook had 512MB. I made sure of that to be sure the test would be a fair representation since I knew how the iBook performed at 512 in the given area where I ran the benchmark.

 

[jamie329]

Did you do any other benchmarks besides ones for framerates in games ? I don't play computer games at all and would like to know how they compare in other areas, such as compile times or rendering times in photoshop.

 

[Chrispy]

No the game was all I did. I would imagine the PB would beat out the iBook in things like rendering in Photoshop. The PB has a faster HD, faster system bus and faster CPU.

 

[Ti_Poussin]

That fairly possible, the NVidia 5200 crap in the PB 12' are a total archeologic stuff. At least, they could have put a decent radeon 9600 inside them. Great video card and Apple word never have fit into the same sentence. They use over and over old tech as usual. It's always and still be my main complain about Apple machine, look at the powermac, what a pro machine is doing with a 9650?!? seriously worthless. The worst part is that most Apple machine can't upgrade there video card, make them obsolete before they should. I would have prefer to see Apple focusing on the video card problem than switching to Intel IMO.

 

[AJ Muni]

My ibook completes me...

 

[Sprite]

Wow. This is quite a revelation! I was about to purchase a Powerbook 12" based off of the benchmarks given on macworld.com, but this post has me second-guessing myself.

Does this mean that Mac OS X's interface is faster on the iBook due to the Radeon chip vs. the Geforce? Would this mean that the iBook is better for 3D and 2D graphics work than a PB 12"? I'm a heavy Photoshop/Illustrator/Maya student and user and typically have 10 applications open at once on my Ti Powerbook 867 MHz.

Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks for the kind words. The powerbook had 512MB. I made sure of that to be sure the test would be a fair representation since I knew how the iBook performed at 512 in the given area where I ran the benchmark.

Are the posted iBook specs at 512MB or 1.5GB? Also, what's installed on the PB?

Interesting, anyway. Very interesting. But I'm curious to know more about the specs of the two computers, before I completely agree that the reason is the horsepower of the 9550....

 

[bodeh6]

I love my iBook. It is my powerful portable. For my needs, I find it blazing. Copying stuff to CDs and especially USB drives is much faster on my iBook then my brothers Dell 8600 and sister's 5150.

 

[Chrispy]

Ok here is the scoop on the system specs...

12" Powerbook 1.5GHz Superdrive with 512MB RAM and GeForce 5200 64MB VRAM

14" iBook 1.42GHz Superdrive with 1.5GB RAM and Radeon 9550 32MB VRAM

Due to the concerns about the RAM playing a part in the speed I'm going to remove the 1gig chip from the iBook and run the same benchmark again. Give me about 15 mins...

 

[dubbz]

12" Powerbook 1.5GHz Superdrive with 512MB RAM and GeForce 5200 64MB VRAM

14" iBook 1.42GHz Superdrive with 1.5GB RAM and Radeon 9550 32MB VRAM

Radeon 9550 > GeForceFX 5200

The 5200 has always been a low-end chip. The 9500/9600 (which I assume the 9550 is similar too) is/used to be a mid-end chip.

No wonder the iBook is faster in games.

 

[Fuchal]

My 1.5ghz 12" powerbook destroys the 1.33ghz 12" ibook in xbench. (ie. over 12 points higher)

 

[Chrispy]

Ok for the sake of macrumors science I downgraded my computer for a bit to run this test. I am now running the same iBook as above with 512MB Ram. Benchmark results were the following..

highest framerate = 30.2 FPS
lowest framerate = 22.8 FPS

The RAM really doesn't seem to play a big part in performance in open areas in WoW. It does, however, make a fairly large difference in larger cities. And as far as other types of work goes such as photoshop, FCP and the like I would say you are still better off with a powerbook. As I said, the faster HD, faster bus and increased MHz will serve you well.

 

[Merf]

Crazy stuff. I wonder what the deal with it is.

Merf

 

[eXan]

My 1.5ghz 12" powerbook destroys the 1.33ghz 12" ibook in xbench. (ie. over 12 points higher)

Hmm thats strange... Aren't iBooks' GPUs clocked higher than 5200?