To Intel or PPC? That is the Question.

[scwarren1015]

So, I have been using a 15" G4 PPC laptop for the past year. It runs great, but eventually runs out of horsepower. It has 1G of Ram, but either way I have some extra cash and am going to upgrade.

So, do i get a 2.0GHz Intel Duo Core, or a 2.3GHz G5 (ppc). It seems like a no brainer to get the newer model, but then I have to upgrade Reason 2.5, Peak Pro 4, and not to mention a Waves Bundle that I will be ditching (not worth the sticker price).

So do I go Power PC, spend the money on upgrading RAM,

Or do I go Intel, and spend money upgrading stuff I already have???

PS - I am running Pro Tools LE with a Digi 002 and am thinking of jumping on the Cubase bandwagon pretty soon with Cubase 4

[Gm7Cadd9]

I know shelling out more dough for software you already bought is never fun, but the performance increase you will see is spectacular.

Apple may have pledged their continuing support to PPC, but that doesn't mean everyone else will.

To make Universal Binaries software companies have to have at more than one development team, early on no one wanted to develop for Intel, now no one wants to develop for a "dead" platform, it costs money to support PPC. Adobe has already announced that Soundbooth will be Intel ONLY.

Jumping on the Intel bandwagon early I saw that there was almost no recording software/plugins. However now the entire Apple product line is Intel, and every machine is Core Duo minimum.

I had a 17'' Core Duo 1.83 with 1GB RAM and an Mbox 2 that was able to get 56 plugins running!

I have since upgraded to a 24'' Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM, and the performance is unbeatable. I say suck it up now and spend the extra money, otherwise you will you keep putting it off and eventually get really screwed and end up with obsolete software/hardware.


-Roy

[Geert van den Berg]

It all depends on which software you use, you can't do without. See your upgrade as a fresh start and you're going to find out what you really need. I find it refreshing mixing with less plugins, it makes you focus on what's trully important.

In this case I would choose for more CPU power... eventually everything will get ported anyway.

You could upgrade the software which you can't do without, or you could run those older apps you've got on your PPC laptop. I mean it will do some audio, right? If you really need some of the processing of the older plugs you can shift it over ethernet pretty quick, process and be back in business.

[scwarren1015]

Thanks for the reply. You are all right. I have looked into it and the only things I am going to take the cash to update is Reason (which I have been meaning to do) and I can still use Peak on my laptop.

I thumbed through my mixes and the only Waves stuff I use a lot is the L2, which I can add on later. Is there anything that helps compatibility between PPC and Intel?

Also, I may install a Raptor Drive into the Mac Pro while I am at it. Will that give me a significant improvement over my 160G Lacie running on FW800? They are onsale at Comp USA for $130?