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 5-7-01
At Macworld Tokyo last February, Apple unveiled its latest
revision to the iMac line. The new iMacs represent the 7th
major revision to the iMac line and yet another, this time
more radical, shift in the color scheme. Gone are the deep
"Sage" and "Ruby" colors and the stark
"Snow." Only the most popular colors, "Indigo"
and "Graphite" survived the cut. The two new color
schemes, for lack of a better description, are "Blue
Dalmatian" (pictured on the left) and "Flower Power."
'60's psychedelic colors aside, how do the latest iMacs compare
to their predecessors?
Apple trimmed the available iMac configurations
from four in the previous generation down to three. The new
lineup consists of a G3/400, G3/500 and G3/600 costing $899,
$1,199 and $1,499 respectively. Our astute readers will note
that the low end iMac has gone up in price by $100. This is
because apple has added several features not found on the
previous low end iMac, specifically: a faster processor, slightly
larger hard drive, FireWire ports, AirPort slot and the ability
to hook up an external monitor. The G3/500 and G3/600 both
sport CD-RW drives as well as IBM's 750CX
G3 processor that made its debut in the iBook. The 750CX
processor does away with a backside cache in favor of a smaller
256K, on chip cache that runs at full processor speed.
The 512K backside cache on the low end iMac runs at 160 MHz
or a 2.5:1 ratio. IBM claims that the faster speed of the
on chip cache more than compensates for its smaller size.
Our benchmark results below
confirm this claim. All three machines continue to make use
of ATI's RAGE 128 graphics card, but the G3/500 and G3/600
use the RAGE 128 Ultra with 16MB SDRAM while the G3/400 continues
with the RAGE 128 Pro and 8MB SDRAM.
For this review, we ordered up the following
machines: G3/400 indigo (the only color choice), G3/500 "blue
dalmatian" and a G3/600 "flower power." After
their initial release, we had heard that the oft maligned
flower power iMacs looked much better in person than they
appear on the web. This is not the case in my opinion. The
good news is that when you are sitting at the computer you
can't see the multi colored pattern except as a desktop pattern
which is easily changed. Others who saw the flower power iMac
sitting on my desk loved it, so to each his or her own...
The blue dalmatian is far more subdued with enough funk to
still make a statement, but I personally would lean toward
the remaining solid color options, indigo or graphite.
Documentation: The "Setup Manual"
simply consists of 6 photographs, outlining what to plug in
where. While this plays well on commercials, the novice user
would probably appreciate some accompanying text. The "User's
Guide" is also laden with graphics (primarily screen
shots) and has just enough explanatory text to get you started
surfing the web or using applications like AppleWorks. The
user guide, however, should be thought of as the barest of
introductions which should be backed up by reference books.
The "Visual
Quick Start" series from Peachpit Press is a good
starting point.
Being iMacs, setup of all three was a breeze.
I was pleased to discover that iTunes was pre-installed along
with 670MB of MP3 files. The files included a healthy mix
of licenced songs and spoken word files. While they are no
substitute for a good set of external speakers, the iMac's
internal speakers produce amazingly decent sound that is fine
for casual use.
Performance: We were curious how the 750CX processor
would hold up under our suite of tests. The ideal comparison
would be between a 750 and 750CX at the same clock speed,
but this was not an option of course. Even so, it appears
that IBM's claim of equal or better performance over the 750
is correct. Our benchmark scores below show that the 750CX's
performance is right where you would expect a G3/500 and G3/600
with a 512K cache to fall. apparently the speed of the cache
(along with other improvements) balance out the smaller size.
All three machines felt sprightly during mundane day-to-day
tasks, but the performance differences became quite apparent
during our processor intensive tests, Photoshop filters, QuickTime
encoding and log analysis to name a few.
Conclusions: Given Apple's new emphasis on Macs
as a "digital hub," we are glad to see FireWire
make it to the low end iMac along with AirPort capability
and VGA out. It is regrettable that Apple chose to exclude
the CD-RW drive from the G3/400, but this may have been necessary
to keep the price down. This complaint aside, we believe that
most people would, in fact, will be quite happy with the low
end machine. A RAM upgrade is a must for both the 400 MHz
and 500 MHz models but RAM is running pretty cheap as of this
writing. Many stores are also bundling
RAM and other items with the iMacs.
If you do a lot of processor intensive tasks
or want the best game frame rates possible, consider one of
the faster machines which use the RAGE Ultra 128 with 16MB
SDRAM. The larger drives will also be appreciated by folks
working with large graphics or iMovie files as both tend to
eat up drive space quickly.
Below, we outline the major differences in the
iMac lineup and compare it to the previous generation. For
a comparison of all iMacs from the original Bondi to the Blue
Dalmatian, visit our iMac
Specifications and Features Page.We also welcome your
questions or comments on our iMac discussion thread below.
iMacs at a Glance
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G3/400/160/512K
64MB RAM (1 gig max)
10GB Ultra ATA hard drive
Slot loading 24X CD-ROM drive
ATI RAGE 128 Pro with 8MB SDRAM
MSRP: $899
MSRP: $899
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Common Hardware Features
2 FireWire ports
2 USB ports
Internal 56K V.90 modem
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
AirPort slot
VGA output port (15-pin mini D-Sub connector)
Common Software Bundle
Mac OS 9.1, QuickTime, iMovie 2, iTunes
(either bundled or available via download), AppleWorks
6, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook Express,
Netscape Communicator, Quicken Deluxe 2001, Palm Desktop,
FAXstf, Cro-Mag Rally, Bugdom, and Nanosaur.
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G3/500/500/256K
64MB RAM (1 gig max)
20GB Ultra ATA hard drive
Slot loading 8x4x24 CD-RW drive
ATI RAGE 128 Ultra with 16MB SDRAM
MSRP: $1,199
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G3/600/600/256K
128MB RAM (1 gig max)
40GB Ultra ATA hard drive
Slot loading 8x4x24 CD-RW drive
ATI RAGE 128 Ultra with 16MB SDRAM
MSRP: $1,499
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"Real World" Tests
The tests below are from our suite of real world application
tests. These tests feature a diverse selection of applications
commonly used by the Mac community. The test suite was designed
to render an accurate and well rounded picture of a machine's
performance. All of the tests below (with the exception of
the Quake III & Cinebench 2000 tests) were timed with
a stopwatch. The times are then converted to percentages relative
to our base Blue & White G3/350 machine which is set to
100%. For all scores, higher numbers are better. Absolute
scores for most tests can be found below
this section.
When reviewing the scores below, you should note that the
G3/400 iMac uses a 512K backside cache running at 160 MHz
(a 2.5:1 ratio) while the G3/500 and G3/600 use a 256K "on
chip" cache running at full processor speed. Our base
machine, the G3/350 has a full 1MB backside cache running
at 175 MHz. The G3/400 also has 8MB (video) SDRAM whereas
the others have 16MB.
Finder Tests
It is interesting to note that the G3/400 handily out performed
the other machines in the folder copy test, but returned a
score you would expect when copying a large file. Perhaps
the 512K cache comes into play when copying a large number
of small files.
AppleWorks 6 Tests
Quake III Tests
These scores are relative. Actual frame rates for all machines
below this section.
Photoshop 6 & Other Data Crunching Tests
Encoding/Decoding Tests
Current iMacs Reviews & Information
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