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Photoshop 5 tests- 9600/400 vs Apple G3 PowerForce G3 ZIF CPU Upgrade ixmicro Mac Rocket review Game Wizard Voodoo II Preview PB G3 vs Solo PII - Photoshop Tests G3 CPU Card Owners Rate their Cards More Recent Site Features |
Need Help? Ask the Men in Mac! |
| 08/31/98 - Monday's News: | |
" Mike, love yer site. it's an invaluable resource for all us mac owners. check out: The article states that by applying copper (vs aluminum) mfg technology to
the standard 300mhz design they are able to get speeds of 400Mhz. Future Apple
systems are sure to use the chip, possibly as early as this fall. CPU card vendors are also announcing upgrades based on this chip. But for a peek *now* at at performance you can expect from a 400Mhz G3, see my PowerForce G3/ZIF upgrade review. Carmine's MIM News Feed:
More iMac Comparisons: Mike W. Sobieski sent a note on another iMac vs PC comparison. " http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/firstlooks/9808/f980828a.html I knew this would happen, as PC prices fall and PII 400 system prices approach the iMac price PC mags will compare the two. Totally different markets in my opinion. I also knew the RageII+ onboard graphics chip could be a negative in some tests, as many low cost PCs have much faster 2D/3D chipsets installed, but again I feel the iMac is targeted at a totally different market than the typical PC PII 400 system. A more level comparison would be to use a Apple G3 system in these reviews (one with a RagePro chip) until the PC mfrs produce a machine with the same design goal as the iMac (you can bet it's coming). I also wondered when all the ranting about ByteMark scores would get thrown back in our faces, as they are not indicitive of actual applications performance in most cases. These claims gave the PC magazines easy fodder to fire back at Apple. Although in general I've not seen the huge Bytemark delta show up in actual applications tests, the Macs are faster in graphics apps in general, in many cases by significant amounts. But performance is only one reason we prefer Macs, there are dozens more just as important if not more so. In the heat of the benchmark wars, never lose sight of why we prefer the Mac - ease of use, lower long term cost of ownership, higher productivity and a community of users that the other platforms can only dream of. What I did find interesting was their Benchmark page which shows an amazing improvement in the PC Bytemark integer scores with a heavily optimized compiler version of Bytemark (almost double the iMac's score with any compiler version). I would have liked to see the FPU scores as well. All this demonstrates that you should take Bytemark scores with a grain of salt and put emphasis on what really matters to you - ease of use, reliability, lower long term cost of ownership, productivity as well as application performance. These matter far more than a series of Bytemark scores. The iMac excels at its purpose - a simple, easy-to-use computer that anyone can have up and running in minutes. It has no peers in that area as far as I'm concerned. I invite the PC magazines to do this real world/user 'performance' test - give two new computer users a iMac and a PC. At the end of three months check back to see which is more productive with their machine. That's a far better indication of end user satisfaction and product performance. [12:00 PM Update] You may remember the VideoConferencing problem reported by Apple G3 owners with the video ram upgrade. Some say the rev 2 Apple G3 systems don't have the problem but a reader reports the IXMicro Turbo TV is one solution for owners of rev 1 systems: " hey mike - getting back to you re: the cuseeme prob on a g3 minitower. it is most definitely a problem with the installed video card (and i do have the rage II+) i installed a turbo tv card (only cost $129) myself and my problem is solved. works great!! pass the word on this fairly cheap solution!
VPC 2.0/Voodoo Game Performance: Tyler Perkins of UVA writes with notes on 3Dfx game performance in Virtual PC v2.01 with a first generation Voodoo card: " Mike, Refurb'd Monitor Sale: emarketLive has refurbished/used Radius and Supermac monitors at low prices and you can even make an offer. Make sure you check the specs, I saw a few of the monitors are fixed at 1024x768, 60Hz resolution. Others are much better models. Other Net News:
Speaking of Gateway, read the closing comments in my PB G3 vs Gateway Solo review about my 3 month experience with customer service. If you missed the weekend news, here's a summary: Saturday's News:
Need Help?: If you have a tech support question (News and other items for posting should still be sent to me) please try the new Men in Mac tech support page. It's in beta form and will be improved but I urge readers to use it immediately as a means of getting some expert help on a huge variety of topics covering most every Mac ever made, upgrades, software and more. You might want to follow the tips/steps listed on the Site Guide for Answers to your Questions. A MIM Bio page is also posted that has info on the volunteers that have offered to help provide reader support. My sincere thanks go out to each of them. Give them a try - I think you'll be impressed. Curious how a particular G3 CPU card does in your Mac model? - check the G3 CPU Card Survey Results for many owner comments on all the brands selectable by Mac model. Make a Difference: Be the Difference | |
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