Is this the difference between intel and powerpc?
 

I have a 15" powerbook w/ 2g sdram, and I compared it to an imac.
I was making a movie in after effects on my power book and it took one hour to render. Then I tried it on an imac and it took 6 minutes.
On my power book a half hour dvd can take around 6 hrs to compress in DVD studio pro. On the imac it takes about 45 minutes. Does this sound right? Is there anything I can do for my powerbook to make it faster? I don't know anything about defrag or programs like cocktail, but is there sometype program you can recommend for my powerbook's well being?

Check out the processor speeds of the PowerBook and the iMac. The PB has a PPC single core processor, probably 2 GHz. The iMac (if it's a new one) will have a dual-core Intel processor, probably 2 GHz or more. Also the HD speed comes into consideration. Since the PB is maxed out on memory (2 GB), then there's not much you can do.

Aric,

I don't have exact numbers or benchmarks for you, but what you are observing could be due to the different processors. You are speaking of a PowerBook, which means best case is you have a G4 in it. From there it was a step up to the G5, and from the G5 another step up to the Intel CPU, so yes, one would expect quite a difference.

- Martin

the imac is 1.83GHz with 1gb sdram
the powerbook is 1.5GHz with 2gb sdram
Even if the powerbook is supposed to be 15 times slower than the imac, I'm still wondering if there is sometype of maintenance I should be doing for it. Looks like I should have waited 2 more months before I bought my laptop.

That sounds about right. Remember, not only are the Intel chips considerably more powerful, they're DUAL CORE, meaning there's two of them. Plus, notebook computers in general are not optimized for heavy processing. They have slower memory buses, slower hard drives, and their CPUs are optimized for power conservation, not performance.

Even the very latest dual-core Intel macbooks and macbook pros will be beaten badly in a race with their desktop brethren (although it'd be a better race).

is there absolutely no way that my powerbook could have gotten slower than it used to? and if so is there any maintenance or defragging or cleaning or anything I could do?
Do you do anything with your computer at all to keep it optimized?

How much free hard disk space do you have on each?

Both of them have 2 gigs, but I'd like to change my question. All I really care about right now is how to take care of my computer. Have you ever heard of defragging, cocktail, etc... I just want to know a good way to keep my computer healthy. But since I know NOTHING about it, I can't articulate the question, or search for answers. What do you do?