Apple 15-inch PowerBook G4

Performance of Apple 15-inch PowerBook G4

The 1.25GHz 15-inch PowerBook smoked the older 1GHz 15-inch PowerBook in CNET Labs' application tests. The results were in line with what we expected, considering the new PowerBook sports a G4 processor that is 25 percent faster than the original.

CNET Labs used two applications (iMovie 2.0 and iTunes) to test Apple's notebook performance. In iMovie, we convert a large movie file into QuickTime, and in iTunes, we convert a music file into MP3, timing each procedure.

Thanks to its faster processor, the new 1.25GHz PowerBook beat its older 1GHz sibling by 27 percent in iMovie 2.0. This performance trend continued with iTunes, as the newer 1.25GHz PowerBook saw a 28 percent performance increase over the older 1GHz PowerBook.

Performance analysis written by CNET Labs assistant lab manager Eric Franklin.

iMovie test  (Shorter bars indicate better performance) Time, in minutes, to convert a movie to QuickTime

PowerBook G4 1.25GHz 15-inch 1.9  PowerBook G4 1GHz 15.2-inch 2.5

iTunes test  (Shorter bars indicate better performance) Time, in seconds, to convert a CD track into an MP3 file

PowerBook G4 1.25GHz 15-inch 42  PowerBook G4 1GHz 15.2-inch 59

System configurations:

Apple PowerBook G4 1.25GHz
OS X 10.2.7; PowerPC G4 1.25GHz; 512MB DDR-333 SDRAM; ATI Radeon 9600 64MB DDR; 80GB 4,200rpm

Apple PowerBook G4 1GHz
OS X 10.1.2; PowerPC G4 1GHz; 512MB DDR SDRAM; ATI Radeon 9000 64MB; 60GB 4,200rpm