PowerBook G4 Titanium 800--How Fast Is It?

We picked up our copy of Apple's latest road rocket last week, an 800 MHz Power Book G4 Titanium or TiBook. It replaces the excellent 500 MHz model that we have used for the past year. We have loved the 500's gorgeous 15.2" wide-angle screen, G4 power and light weight even if we do think our previous PowerBook G3 2000 (Pismo) is the best design ever. Thin titanium is cool but black curves are wicked, if thicker, and we like a case that isn't as easily blemished as painted metal. Still, we certainly wouldn't go back because the TiBook 500 took care of business like no other 'Book that we've ever used.

We were first in the media to post a hands-on report on the new 800 MHz TiBook when it came out in April. It's been a long wait to own one and to use it extensively with our own work. But now that we've done so we're even more impressed than we were in April. The first thing we noticed, and raved about, was the clarity and brightness of the 800's screen. The 500's screen is certainly no slacker in this field but the 800's is clearly superior when run side by side. The increase in resolution from 1152x768 to 1280x854 adds a significant measure of sharpness as well as some additional useable real estate. The backlight is brighter on the 800 and the viewing angle is wider to the eye. Altogether, these improvements make a gorgeous screen much better but what superlative is there to describe it?

The exterior, keyboard, trackpad, power button (we still would prefer one that's color coordinated but who are we to argue with Apple's designer Jonathan Ive?), hinges and latch look exactly the same but there are a few refinements when compared with our 500. First, the small rubber bumpers that the screen closes against are much smaller so the lid on the 800 closes tighter. This will eliminate the gap and the appearance of screen bowing that detracts from the first generation TiBooks. Second, there's a grill in the port cover which improves air flow when it's closed. Finally, there's a heat pad on the bottom cover which keeps the area from getting as toasty hot as our 500 does, protecting one's right thigh or knee. Otherwise the new 800 is exactly the same on the outside as our 500. Fortunately, in a year's extensive use and travel our 500 did not suffer any of the hinge cracks, screen attachment cracks or paint peeling issues that we've seen posted on the web.

Our only complaint about the new 800 is that its battery latch still opens easily by sliding from inside to out so the battery can be inadvertently ejected by grabbing and lifting the TiBook by the left hand. [Note that we do not mean the accidental battery drop-out issue through flexing that afflicted the TiBooks when they were first introduced--that was fixed long before we got our 500.]

The other major changes to the TiBook are internal. A refined 800 MHz G4 CPU with 1 MB of DDR L3 cache replaces the 500 MHz G4 CPU with 1 MB of SDR L3 cache. The graphics subsystem got a much, much faster ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 chip set with 32 MB DDR video RAM and 4x AGP interface instead of the ATI Rage 128 with 16 MB SDR video RAM and 2x AGP. The system bus has increased from 100 to 133 MHz. Of course, the optical drive is a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo instead of just a DVD-ROM and the hard drive increased from 20 to 40 GB. Ethernet is now up to gigabit in speed, there is a DVI port in place of a standard VGA port and there is an audio in port.

The infrared port was dropped but the only internal feature that disappoints us is the lack of a built-in Bluetooth wireless capability, especially since the D-Link modules are not available any longer. We can't get along without Bluetooth having used it with our cell phone to access the internet virtually everywhere

AirPort is now included with the top of the line model so we didn't have to crack the bottom cover, a pleasant change. Apple claims to have improved AirPort reception in its newest TiBook series. While there are lots of comments posted to various forums to the contrary, our 800 gets better AirPort reception than our 500, which actually isn't as bad as most complaints. In the far reaches of our global headquarters with the 800 at some 35-40' in a straight line and downstairs from our Apple Base Station 2 (white), we get mostly a solid 4 rings on the menu icon where it used to quiver from 3-4 and occasionally stick on 3. Outside on the deck, some 15' further, we now get mostly 3 rings and occasionally 4 or 2. Subjectively, our reception is a good half ring better with the 800 than the 500. We frequently fiddle with the ABS2's channel to make sure that we always get the best possible reception.

What about heat? The 500-667 MHz TiBooks have been cookers but the 800 runs much cooler. It doesn't get really hot around the power button like our 500 nor on the bottom that rests on our right leg. Both areas are still warm but not painfully hot. The fan in our 500 comes on frequently and it is quite loud. The fan (actually fans) in our 800 rarely come(s) on and it is difficult to hear it (them?).

So how fast is the TiBook 800 in comparison with the 500? We ran a series of benchmarks, some that we've used before with our Mac OS X version speed trials and some that are new. The two new benchmark applications that we used are SpeedRun v1.1 and SpeedX v1.2. SpeedRun is like a mini-MacBench application that times several graphics, hard drive, CPU and RAM actions. SpeedX measures the millions (or billions) of instructions per second (MIPS or BIPS) processed using "typical" instructions and fast integer instructions. We also used Altivec Fractal 1.1, which measures floating operations per second (FLOPS) of the G4's Velocity Engine, and Let1kWindowsBloom, which times how long it takes to open and close 1000 windows in the Finder. Finally, we timed how long it took to launch Mac OS 9.2.2 in the Classic mode of Mac OS X 10.1.5, how long it took to scroll a 100-page document in AppleWorks 6.2.4 and how many frames per second the Quake Arena III v1.30 demo gets when set the way we play it.

Here are the results:

Action	TiBook 800	TiBook 500
SpeedRun (Total Score)	315	247
- Graphics	304	233
- Hard Drive	360	258
- CPU	194	170
- RAM	402	327
SpeedX - Typical (MIPS)	600	469
- Fast Integer (BIPS)	2.3	1.0
Altivec Fractal (GFLOPS)	2.8	1.7
Let1kWindowsBloom (Sec.)	41	71
Launch Classic (Sec.)	50	82
AppleWorks Scroll (Sec.)	16	21
Quake III (Frames/sec)	70	14

The 800 is faster in all respects, just as expected, and is generally impressive. It is surprising, however, that the 800 is not proportionately (60 per cent) faster in more of the tests, especially as measured by SpeedRun where the difference is only 14 per cent. That low is offset by SpeedX's Fast Integer test of 230 percent.

3D graphics are super on the 800. The Quake III frame rate of 70 at high visual detail settings and 1024x768 resolution is not only outstanding for a PowerBook, it beats out many recent Mac desktops and blows away our 500. Because 2D graphics are done on the CPU, the improvement (SpeedRun, Let1kWinowsBloom and AppleWorks) in 2D performance is 24-30 percent.

Setting the benchmarks aside, the 800 in general use is perceptibly but subjectively much faster. Mac OS X and its applications are actually snappy, remaniscent of the classic Mac OSes. The 800 at $3,199 is less than the $3,499 500 when it was king but is more than the most recent king, the 667, at $2,999. We think the new screen, additional speed, less heat, audio in port and DVI video port make the 800 worth the difference. Go for it!