As with the 1997 and 1998 lists, there are a lot of good products that are not mentioned in this article. What is on this list are my ten personal favorites by category, based on what I've tested or general reader and industry reaction during 1999.

Each item mentioned has earned a spot here based on not just from my experience, but also feedback from tens of thousands of other Mac owners that read this site. 1999 was a year that saw incredibly low priced CPU upgrades, the release of 3dfx Voodoo2 and Voodoo3 drivers (allowing Mac owners to finally have access to low-cost, high performance graphics cards at PC prices) and systems based on a new generation of PowerPC CPUs - the G4.

In most cases clicking on the product name in the list will take you to my review of it, where you can learn more of why that particular product was chosen. Otherwise the link will take you to the manufacturers product page. But don't just take my word for what products were best in 1999, see the related links below to search the site's many databases of thousands of owner reports.

1. Mac OS System: Although the new Mac towers featured a G4 CPU and an AGP graphics card (a first in both cases), in most applications the lack of support for its 'Velocity Engine' (Altivec instructions) showed it ran no faster really than a G3 system of the same CPU speed. There's potential there, but with most of the applications available in 1999 (except for Photoshop and a few others), performance was disappointing based on the 'supercomputer' marketing comments. See the main G4 reviews page to see comparisions of my G4/450 AGP system with previous G3 systems, G4 CPU upgrades and CPU upgraded older Macs.

   The iMacDV SE was much improved over the original iMac as noted in my review. The SE model I reviewed in detail features a 400Mhz G3 CPU, onboard Firewire and improved Rage128VR graphics chip. It's probably the most improved Mac model of the year overall based on real world performance tests. The included iMovie software is revolutionary and worked plug and play with my DV camera with firewire inteface as noted in the review.

2. CPU Upgrade Card of the Year: The easy pick for best CPU card of the year was the XLR8 CarrierZIF. The first CPU Card to have a ZIF socket onboard to allow the use of low-cost (even Apple) CPU modules from Beige G3 and later Macs also worked very well with every Mac I tested. See the many reviews on the CPU Upgrades page and hundreds of entries in the Rate Your CPU Upgrade searchable database on this innovate and very popular card. My first review of the CarrierZIF notes it ran rock solid in every Mac I tested (PowerCenter Pro, 9600/350 and Genesis as well as limited tests in my PowerTower Pro). I also wrote an Illustrated CarrierZIF Setup Guide that includes tips for those that buy the card with a bundled ZIF module.
   The CarrierZIF easily earned my 'Best of Breed' CPU Upgrade for 1999.

3. Best ZIF CPU Upgrade: Although G4 CPU upgrades were released in late 1999, the fact most current software does not take advantage of the Altivec instruction set (aka 'Velocity Engine') which is key maximum performance with the G4 made general applications performance no better (MHz/Mhz) than the much lower cost G3 CPU upgrades. When more applications (and the OS) take advantage of Altivec then there may be more incentive to own a G4. The list of applications supporting Altivec is growing (check the FAQ's Apple G4 section for a list) so this situation could change. For Photoshop 5.5 owners and those doing Sorensen video movie-making, the G4 can dramatically improve performance.

   The availability of OEM (originally made for new systems) G3/450 ZIF upgrades in 1999 made them the best values with prices far lower than 'name brands'. Other World Computing sold many of these upgrades and still offers them as of this date. As far as highest performance seen in 1999 with a ZIF upgrade, the PowerForce G3/466 ZIF reached speeds of 533 and 550MHz in tests in my Beige and B&W G3s (but this 'review' ZIF may not be typical of the production batch - see the Rate Your CPU Upgrade searchable database for owner reports on various CPU upgrades including the Powerlogix line). The CPU Upgrades page lists many reviews of G3 and G4 upgrades and related articles.

4. Best Value in Storage: The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus series of drives continued to be a favorite for both price/performance and Mac compatibility (including compatibility with the rev 1 B&W G3 models). was also the first year that Mac compatible PCI IDE controllers were released. See the IDE topics page for a list of reviews, guides and articles on IDE hard drives and controllers.

5. Best SCSI Hard Drive: The Seagate Cheetah drives (now in 15,000 RPM models) again got rave reviews from all owners I know. I was not lucky enough to test one of these screamers but by all reports and reviews I've read they're the fastest drives made to date.

6. Best Game Video Card: The release of the freely downloadable (but officially unsupported) 3dfx Voodoo3 drivers made this category winner a shoe-in. The Voodoo3 was easily the best Mac gaming card for 1999. Although you have to buy a PC version (often under $100) and flash the Mac ROM (included with the driver download) before it will output video (see my Voodoo3 review for a guide to how to do this). For a list of system and game compatibility with the Voodoo3, see the sidebar at my www.mac3dfx.com site. For reviews of many of last year's graphics cards see my video cards page. For discussions on 3Dfx cards and software see my message boards.

7. Best Utility Software: Alsoft's Disk Warrior saved my bacon (and data) several times in 1999, including my web server. It's not cheap but no other utility I've seen is able to repair and optimize directories like Disk Warrior can.

   I still use Micromat's TechTool Pro also, since it offers everything from hardware testing to disk optimization and repair all in one package. It's the Swiss Army Knife of Mac utilities.

8. Best Game: As a beta tester, Mac Unreal Tournament would have been my top pick but it did not ship at retail as of December (it's due at retail in early January 2000). Mac Rainbow Six did ship just at the year's end as is an excellent game. However my pick of games that were shipping in 1999 is Mac Descent 3. This totally new graphics engine features impressive image quality, effects, multiplayer and a very high fun factor. See my Interview with Duane Johnson programmer of Descent 3 for more info. My choices here may be biased, as I'm more of an action game fan than RPG. To see how hundreds of readers rated literally every Mac game title available - search the Mac Game Ratings Database.

9. Best Display: Although out of reach of most of us, the $3999.xx Apple 22" Cinema LCD Display is a stunning example of the future of computer displays. Read more about it in this reader review.

10. Most Innovative Upgrade: The XLR8 CarrierZIF. For reasons why see my Carrier ZIF First Look article

Products to Watch in 2000

Here are my picks for the hottest items to become available in 2000

• Systems: Apple's next generation PowerBook is one Mac I'm very eager to see. Expected to have the fastest available G3 CPU and onboard Firewire as well as a much improved graphics chip.

  The rumors of advanced G4 systems with better motherboard and memory bandwidth may be just a rumor, but would also be welcome. Look for continued improvements in the iBook and iMac lines also and I think Apple will also have a surprise system debut sometime in 2000, perhaps at the summer Macworld New York show.

• Graphics cards: 2000 should see the first release of an 'officially supported' Mac retail graphics card (or several) from 3dfx including a dual processor model. Watch the main www.xlr8yourmac.com news page, my Mac3dfx.com site and of course the Video cards page here for reviews and press releases.

  ATI's next generation graphics card is rumored to be a dramatic improvement over their past line with advanced features to be supported in future versions of Apple's OpenGL drivers. Of course expect these cards to be included in new Mac models from the Apple online store.

• Hard Drives: UltraATA/100 IDE drives will be available and continue to get faster, larger and lower in cost, further closing the gap between SCSI and IDE performance. For 99.99% of owners, there's no comparing the value of a modern IDE drive which is more than fast enough for any need most users have as well as offering twice to four times the storage space per $.

• Rewritable Media Drives DVD RAM drives have very disappointing write performance but I'm hoping the DVD RW models due in 2000 will fare better. Expect faster CDRW drives with rewritable speeds near their CDR (write-once) rating. (This will require new media as current CDRW discs are rated for only 4x speeds.) With more and more Macs having firewire (and the popularity of Firewire PCI cards growing), I expect Firewire CDRW drives to overtake SCSI in popularity in 2000.

• Portables: Expect improvements in Apple's iBook (DVD and Firewire come to mind right away). I'm hoping sometime in 2000 we'll see an ultra-portable with the classy looks of the PowerBook but with one of IBMs lower power/faster G3 cpus currently in development.

• Flat Screens: Costs will hopefully drop for LCD displays make them more affordable. However the supply situation seems to come and go which affects retail pricing.

Related Links: Find out how thousands of readers rated their CPU upgrade, graphics card or games by searching the databases below.

• CPU Upgrade Ratings/Reviews Database
• Mac Game/Video Card Performance Database
• Mac Game Ratings Database
• Mac Drive Compatibility Database

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