Power Mac 5200

The Power Macintosh 5200 was released in April 1995 as the first all-in-one Power Mac design. Like the modular 6200, the 5200 runs a PowerPC 603 CPU at 75 MHz. During the life of the x200 series, Apple used several revisions of the motherboard for both domestic and overseas models. The unit tested had the XXXXX motherboard.

The computer was received with 12 MB RAM and Mac OS 7.6.1 installed. We found that was too little memory for testing the computer with virtual memory off, so we increased physical memory to 36 MB.

Remember that benchmarks are arbitrary. They measure certain types of performance that may or may not reflect the way you work.

Virtual memory was tested, but the difference in scores was insignificant, as much because of Apple's improvements in running virtual memory as the fact that none of these benchmark programs pushed the system to the point where it needed more memory than was installed.

Speedometer 3.06

This computer was not tested with Speedometer 3.

Speedometer 4.02

The systems were tested on 9 September 2001 using Mac OS 7.6.1 with the normal complement of extensions. No third-party software was added. We used the internal 15" multisync monitor and tested in 8-bit video mode at 832 x 624 resolution. Results are relative to a Quadra 605, which rates 1.0. Numbers rounded off to one or two decimal places.

We were unable to run the graphics benchmark, since the 5200 doesn't support 1, 2, or 4 bit video.

These scores compare performance with virtual memory off and different sizes of disk cache.

cache      CPU    disk     math
  96K     3.59    1.53    127.6
 128K     3.59    1.53    127.8
 256K     3.57    1.58    126.5
 512K     3.59    1.60    127.7
1024K     3.58    3.86    127.5
2048K     3.59    4.22    127.5

The closest machine we can compare this with is the Power Mac 6100/66, which produced the following results with Mac OS 8.6 and a 1.2 MB disk cache. Not too comparable a configuration, but that's the way we tested it.

model      CPU    disk     math
no cache  3.40    1.54    116.5
256K L2   3.43    1.73    118.4

This 5200 is just 5.6% faster than a cacheless 6100/66, and only 4.7% faster than the 6100 with a 256K L2 cache. If the 603 and 601 were equally efficient processors, you'd expect a 13-14% improvement. Since the 603 is supposed to be an improvement on the 601, this tells us something is wrong.

Math performance fares a bit better, with the 5200 outperforming the cacheless 6100 by 9.6% and the cached 6100 by 7.8%. Again, this is less than we would expect based on the MHz difference.

The 5200 uses an IDE hard drive, which provides decent performance in this test. Because of the larger disk cache on the 6100, it wouldn't be fair to compare the two machines for disk performance.

Virtual Memory

Our next test was to set virtual memory to 37 MB and run benchmarks. According to the technical information on the x200 series, virtual memory should be detrimental to system performance. Here are our results:

cache      CPU         disk          math      
 128K     3.59         1.53         127.8      
VM/128K   3.57 -0.5%   1.49 -0.2%   126.2 -1.3%
 256K     3.57         1.58         126.5      
VM/256K   3.56 -0.0%   1.55 -2.1%   126.0 -0.3%
 512K     3.59         1.60         127.7      
VM/512K   3.56 -0.8%   1.60 -0.0%   126.5 -0.9%

Speedometer 4 does detect a performance penalty with VM on, but it doesn't measure it as a very large penalty. Similar tests under MacBench 5 show a more significant reduction in hard drive performance.

SCSI

Believe it or not, our tech article on the x200 series says that simply terminating the SCSI bus improves system throughput, particularly for networking. We'll report on network throughput elsewhere, but we did some testing with a terminated SCSI bus (using a standard 25-50 pin SCSI cable and a terminator) and with a terminated SCSI hard drive attached. We only benchmarked disk performance and only with a 256K disk cache. We used the SCSI drive for Virtual Memory:

Virtual Memory   IDE drive   SCSI drive
base               1.583        n/a    
on, SCSI drive     1.555       1.872   
off                1.565       1.912   

We are comparing apples and oranges here - the SCSI drive is obviously a faster mechanism. Results of this test don't show an appreciable difference whether there is a device on the SCSI bus or not.

Different Operating Systems

We partitioned the external Quantum Fireball 2.1 GB hard drive into five partitions. The first (100 MB) was dedicated for use under virtual memory. The other partitions were used for System 7.5.5, Mac OS 7.6.1, 8.1, and 8.6. All tests were performed with the disk cache manually set to 256K for the sake of consistency. Hard drive performance was measured on both the internal IDE hard drive and the second partition on the external SCSI drive.

OS/VM          CPU     IDE    IDE+    SCSI    HFS+     math
7.5.5/off     3.56    1.60    ----    1.95    ----    126.4
7.5.5/on-1    3.57    1.58    ----    1.89    ----    126.6
7.5.5/on-2    3.57    1.59    ----    1.90    ----    126.6
7.6.1/off     3.57    1.58    ----    1.91    ----    126.5
7.6.1/on-1    3.56    1.55    ----    ----    ----    126.0
7.6.1/on-2    ----    1.56    ----    1.87    ----    126.0
8.1/off       3.57    1.36    ----    2.04    2.08    126.6
8.6/off
9.1/off
         
on-1 = VM on IDE drive, on-2 = VM on SCSI drive
IDE+ is an HFS+ partition on the internal IDE drive
HFS+ is an HFS+ partition on the external SCSI drive

MacBench 5

This systems was tested on 9 September 2001 using Mac OS 7.6.1 with the normal complement of extensions. No third-party software was added. We used the internal 15" multisync monitor and tested in 8-bit video mode at 832 x 624 resolution. Results are relative to a Power Mac G3/300 (beige), which rates 1000. Numbers rounded off to two decimal places.

I also tested the 6100/60 with 256 KB L2 cache on 22 November 1999. The only other difference was a 832 x 624 monitor, which also let me run the graphics benchmark.

cache    CPU   math   disk
  92K     88    122    173
 128K     89    118    187
 256K     98    133    209
 512K     88    121    217
1024K     88    128    231
2048K     98    133    243

For comparison, results from a Power Mac 6100/66 tested under Mac OS 8.6 and a 1.2 MB disk cache, both with and without a 256k level 2 cache.

model       CPU  math
6100/66     112   177
w/256L2     135   192

Under MacBench 5, the 5200 actually scored lower than the 6100, where the difference in MHz alone would lead us to expect a 13-14% improvement. Likewise, math scores are significantly lower. This reflects the kind of real world disappointment people experienced with the 75 MHz 5200 and 6200 - they had expected it to outperform the 6100, but it tended to offer similar real world performance.

One peculiarity is the way the CPU and math scores with the 256K and 2MB disk caches were the highest obtained, identical to each other, and generally about 10% higher than at other cache settings.

We also have results from a faster machine based on the improved version of the 603. The SuperMac C500 was benchmarked with both a 200 and 240 MHz 603e CPU. It was also set up with Mac OS 7.6.1, just like the 5200. Here are the results:

speed      CPU   math   disk
200 MHz    273    383    607
240 MHz    293    424    623

We would expect the CPU and math scores at 200 MHz to be 2-2/3 times as high as the 75 MHz 5200 - and we come pretty darn close. Likewise, we would expect 240 MHz results to be 3.2x as high as the 5200, and they again come quite close.

Virtual Memory

Our next test was to set virtual memory to 37 MB and run benchmarks. According to the technical information on the x200 series, virtual memory should be detrimental to system performance. Here are our results:

cache     CPU       math       disk      
 128K     89         118        187      
VM/128K   89         119 +0.8%  178 -4.8%
 256K     98         133        209      
VM/256K   87 -11.2%  133        197 -5.7%
 512K     88         121        217      
VM/512K   99 +12.5%  128 +5.8%  201 -8.0%

Hard drive performance definitely suffers with virtual memory enabled. Suprisingly, CPU performance is at its peak with VM on and a 512K disk cache.

SCSI

Our tech article on the x200 series says that simply terminating the SCSI bus improves system throughput, especially for networking. We'll report on network throughput elsewhere, but we did some testing with a terminated SCSI bus (using a standard 25-50 pin SCSI cable and a terminator) and with a terminated SCSI hard drive attached. For this test, we used the SCSI drive for virtual memory. We only benchmarked disk performance and only with a 256K disk cache:

Virtual Memory   IDE drive   SCSI drive
base                209         n/a    
on, SCSI drive      197         253    
off                 209         269    

We are comparing apples and oranges here - the SCSI drive is obviously a faster mechanism. Results of this test don't show an appreciable difference whether there is a device on the SCSI bus or not.

Different Systems

We partitioned the external Quantum Fireball 2.1 GB hard drive into five partitions. The first (100 MB) was dedicated for use under virtual memory. The other partitions were used for System 7.5.5, Mac OS 7.6.1, 8.1, and 8.6. All tests were performed with the disk cache manually set to 256K for the sake of consistency. Hard drive performance was measured on both the internal IDE hard drive and the second partition on the external SCSI drive.

OS/VM          CPU     math     IDE    IDE+    SCSI    HFS+
7.5.5/off       98      128     209     ---     262     ---
7.5.5/on-1      98      132     199     ---     259     ---
7.5.5/on-2      98      122     200     ---     260     ---
7.6.1/off       98      133     209     ---     269     ---
7.6.1/on-1      87      133     197     ---     ---     ---
7.6.1/on-2      -      ---     197     ---     253     ---
8.1/off         92      160     194     ---     252     n/a
8.6/off
9.1/off
         
on-1 = VM on IDE drive, on-2 = VM on SCSI drive
IDE+ is an HFS+ partition on the internal IDE drive
HFS+ is an HFS+ partition on the external SCSI drive

Go to 5200 profile.