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How "futureproof" are macs?
- Thread starter shiek
- Start date
Leopard will "run" on G3 Macs. So yes, in a lot of ways they are futureproof.
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Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2007
- Messages
- 142
As future proof as any machine running intel hardware, which means a year and a half or so.
The era and delay of the PPC chips are over. Since Intel does more processor revisions and updates at a faster rate than Motorola/IBM, you can bet that the Apple line up will change faster than it has in the past, thus things will become out of date quicker.
The question isn't about how a new operating system can run on older hardware, but how much will you be able to do with new programs. Can you imagine running photoshop on a G3 Mac? I couldn't. Leopard may run on a G3 MAC, but that's about all it will do. Don't plan on doing anything important on it.
Windows XP still runs fine on 450 mhz processors fine with enough ram, but don't count on running anything useful on systems that old.
It's a great question of novelty that these old machines still run, but software evolves with the pace of hardware.
The last two revisions of the macbook pro's look very old compared to the new release as of late. While people are still rocking ancient x1600's, the nvidia 8600 blows the graphics capability of the previous generation out of the water.
I guess futureproof depends on what you're asking.
Is it futureproof by meaning you can just run things slowly in the future?
or
Is it futureproof by meaning you'll be able to run the next or 3 generations of software without any hitches?
Unfortunately, anything you buy now will be replaced in 6 months time. That's just the PC Hardware way of things and it will always stay that way. There will be something faster, better and smaller down the line that just kills anything that's out now. New programs will still run ok, but as for new games, the jury is out of that one. If you want to keep up with the latest and the greatest games, you're going to need to upgrade laptops often if you want to game on the mac.
Don't buy something in terms of futureproofing it, buy something in terms in how much use you'll get out of it, because no matter what you buy, it isn't going to be new forever, especially in terms of graphics capability.
The era and delay of the PPC chips are over. Since Intel does more processor revisions and updates at a faster rate than Motorola/IBM, you can bet that the Apple line up will change faster than it has in the past, thus things will become out of date quicker.
The question isn't about how a new operating system can run on older hardware, but how much will you be able to do with new programs. Can you imagine running photoshop on a G3 Mac? I couldn't. Leopard may run on a G3 MAC, but that's about all it will do. Don't plan on doing anything important on it.
Windows XP still runs fine on 450 mhz processors fine with enough ram, but don't count on running anything useful on systems that old.
It's a great question of novelty that these old machines still run, but software evolves with the pace of hardware.
The last two revisions of the macbook pro's look very old compared to the new release as of late. While people are still rocking ancient x1600's, the nvidia 8600 blows the graphics capability of the previous generation out of the water.
I guess futureproof depends on what you're asking.
Is it futureproof by meaning you can just run things slowly in the future?
or
Is it futureproof by meaning you'll be able to run the next or 3 generations of software without any hitches?
Unfortunately, anything you buy now will be replaced in 6 months time. That's just the PC Hardware way of things and it will always stay that way. There will be something faster, better and smaller down the line that just kills anything that's out now. New programs will still run ok, but as for new games, the jury is out of that one. If you want to keep up with the latest and the greatest games, you're going to need to upgrade laptops often if you want to game on the mac.
Don't buy something in terms of futureproofing it, buy something in terms in how much use you'll get out of it, because no matter what you buy, it isn't going to be new forever, especially in terms of graphics capability.
LesterOfPuppets
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2005
- Messages
- 143
One could only hope. OS should be no problemo for the next three years. Some apps in three years may require more juice than your MB can provide. That depends on your usage, however.
The biggest burn to Mac users I've seen is how that iTunes for OS9.x cant see an iPod, pretty harsh if you bought an iMac 350 in 2000 and an iPod in 2003.