Quadra 700

The Quadra 700 uses a 25 MHz 68040 CPU. Drive is a 700 MB Apple-branded IBM DSAS-3720 formatted with Apple HD SC Setup. System 7.6.1 was installed on the drive. The computer had 20 MB of RAM and VRAM was upgraded from the stock 512 KB to 1 MB.

The drive was not tested with Norton and optimized before benchmarking.

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

Speedometer 3.06

The system was tested on 13 March 2001 using System 7.6.1 and the usual complement of control panels and extensions. Computer attached to a 14" color monitor and tested in 8-bit video mode (other modes caused Speedometer to crash). Results are relative to a Mac SE or Classic, which rates 1.0. Numbers rounded off to two decimal places.

The first set of numbers compares performance at different cache settings. This system cannot use a cache smaller than 96KB.

cache   CPU  graphics  disk   math 
128KB  16.22   17.58   4.71   103.0
256KB  16.37   17.51   5.16   103.0

The cache setting should have little influence on non-disk tests, which these numbers bear out. With this particular setup, cache size makes no appreciable difference.

PowerPC Upgrade

This Quadra 700 came with Apple's Power Mac Upgrade Card, which runs a PowerPC 601 at twice CPU speed. The card has a 1 MB level 2 cache and runs at 50 MHz in the Q700.

cache   CPU  graphics  disk   math 
128KB   6.84   20.45   4.74    76.6
256KB   6.84   20.45   4.77    76.6

Results are virtually identical at both cache settings. Note that Speedometer 3 is not compiled for the PowerPC processor, so some results, particularly the CPU score, are lower than with the original 68040 CPU. Much more impressive and meaningful results were obtained with Speedometer 4, which has PPC code.

Speedometer 4.02

The system was tested on 3 November 1998 under 13 March 2001 using System 7.6.1 and the usual complement of control panels and extensions. Computer attached to a 14" color monitor and tested in 8-bit video mode. Results are relative to a Quadra 605, which rates 1.0. Numbers rounded off to two decimal places.

These numbers compare performance at different cache settings. This system cannot use a cache smaller than 96KB.

cache  CPU  graphics  disk    math
128KB  0.89   1.00    1.89   14.97
256KB  0.89   0.99    2.00   14.98

The cache setting should have little influence on non-disk tests, which these numbers bear out. As above, with this particular setup, cache size makes no appreciable difference, except that the disk score is a bit higher with a 256 KB cache.

PowerPC Upgrade

This Quadra 700 came with Apple's Power Mac Upgrade Card, which runs a PowerPC 601 at twice CPU speed. The card has a 1 MB level 2 cache and runs at 50 MHz in the Q700.

cache  CPU  graphics  disk    math
128KB  2.59   1.28    1.83   86.31
256KB  2.59   1.27    1.84   86.41

As with Speedometer 3, results are virtually identical at both cache settings.

Speedometer 4 can run in either PowerPC or 68k mode. Running in 68k mode dropped CPU performance from 2.59 to 0.44 - about half the performance of the 68040 CPU. However, if you're not running PowerPC programs, there's really no point to the upgrade, which is especially impressive on the CPU and math scores, offering 2.9 and 5.8 times the performance of the 68040 processor.