If you’re like me, you used to think that your Intel Mac was a pretty powerful computer. With all of those super zippy cores and RAMs and caches and all that, everything does seem to go a lot faster on the newer machines. My JustLooking compiles went from nearly 4 minutes on my PowerBook G4 to about 35 seconds on my 2.33GHz laptop.

But then came all those 1080p MKV files, with their unbelievable (basically unwatchable) jerkiness, and you found yourself questioning the new religious order. Is the machine, perhaps, actually a piece of junk? Was it that hard disk upgrade you did? The new RAM you installed? Leopard? Some awful combination thereof?