Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: MacPro 8 Core 8GB kit $232 / 4GB kit $116 / 2GB kit $72. New Macbook 2GB DDR3-$65. HARD DRIVES available -- Free shipping / LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, MacBook Pros and more. Optical Drives for Apple iBooks, Powerbooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros in Stock. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: Big Drives, High Performance - Not High Prices! SATA 3.5" up to 1.5TB. Notebook up to 500GB. FW up to 6.0TB. 1.0TB Drive Models from as low as $97.99 www.MacSales.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Beyond MHz and GHz

Dan Knight - 2001.08.30

Selling processors by something other than megahertz speed isn't a new idea. Some companies have used model numbers to mislead the public, while others claim they are helping consumers better understand the real performance of their processors.

There was quite a debate in the 80486/68040 era. Until then, microprocessors ran internally at the same speed they accessed the system bus. With the 486DX design and the '040, the CPU ran at twice bus speed.

Apple stuck with bus speed for quite a while, eventually switching to internal CPU speed when the Wintel world sounded faster. That's why you may see the PowerBook 540c rated as a 33 MHz computer by some source (including LEM) and as a 66 MHz computer by others.

Today we think nothing of rating a CPU by internal MHz speed, not the 66, 100, 133, or 200 MHz but the processor uses to access the motherboard.

From the beginning, we have considered the MHz rating an important indicator of CPU performance. After all, a 40 MHz 68030 ran circles around a 25 MHz 68030. Of course, there were problems with next generation CPUs, such as the 68040 outperforming the 68030 by a factor of roughly 2.5 - in other words, the 20 MHz Centris 610 held its own against the 40 MHz Macintosh IIfx.

Likewise, the G3 turned out to be significantly more powerful than the earlier 604e processor. The G3/233 was roughly equivalent to the 604e/350 - and, as you may remember from the ads, about twice as fast as a Pentium running at the same clock speed.

And that points to the great problem with MHz rating: It doesn't predict performance between different processors.

I recently looked over the various benchmarks for different models, trying to devise a scale that would help quantify the performance difference between the 8 MHz 68000 of the earliest Macs and the G3s and G4s used today. It's not strictly scientific, but here's what I came up with:

  • 1: 8 MHz 68000
  • 4: 16 MHz 68030
  • 6: 25 MHz 68030
  • 10: 40 MHz 68030
  • 15: 25 MHz 68040
  • 40: 60 MHz 601
  • 233: 233 MHz G3

By this scale, we see that a 500 MHz iMac or iBook is roughly 500 times more powerful than the original Macintosh, nearly 100 times as powerful as a Mac IIci, and 25 times more powerful than the Power Mac 6100. These are rough figures, but they'll get you into the ballpark.

Of course, that's all using the same brand of computers. It gets messy when we throw the 603/604, G3/G4, Celeron/Pentium, Duron/Athlon, and Intel/AMD comparisons into the mix. Megahertz will tell you which G4 or Athlon is faster than another G4 or Athlon, but it gives no indication whatsoever how either of these compare with the Pentium III or Pentium 4.

What the computing industry needs is some sort of cross-platform performance rating that indicates how well a particular processor performs inside a computer and under an operating system. That said, it should avoid being software specific - you really can't compare Microsoft Office optimized for Windows with the Mac version, let alone make a meaningful comparison between Office on Windows and an Office-equivalent running under Linux.

I can't say just how the benchmark should work, but it should be general enough that it can be easily ported to Windows, Linux, the Mac OS (classic and X), and any other OS people may want to try. It should be processor oriented, so it should avoid tasking the video subsystem, accessing the hard drive, talking to a network, etc. The performance rating should test the CPU, cache, motherboard, and system memory.

It may be that we'll end up with several different benchmarks, just as the SPEC benchmarks floating point and integer performance. One test should emulate number crunching in a spreadsheet, another might work with a large memory-based database, another might simulate word processing, and yet another might specifically look at how well the system rips MP3s or video.

Whether all that will help you get a better price is hard to say, but at least prospective buyers will know exactly what you have without having to await feedback from the seller.

Such a set of performance ratings wouldn't just level the playing field in Mac vs. Wintel comparisons. It would help Mac users quantify the difference between the various G3 and G4 processors; help Intel differentiate the Celeron and Pentium lines; let performance junkies better compare Athlon, Pentium III, and Pentium 4; and possibly answer some of the questions of Mac OS 9 vs. 10 and Linux vs. Windows performance.

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.