A Look at the VPower G3/366 - Power to the People!
General
Impressions: The Vpower G3/366 is the second PCI card we have
tested from Vimage. Click here
for a review of the Vpower G3/300. Like its predecessor, we
tested this card in our trusty 9500 and were very pleased with
the improved responsiveness of our machine. The finder acted
like someone had slipped it a triple espresso and all of our
processor demanding programs gained
new life and vigor as well. With Apple's recent release of the
"Yosemite" machines we had developed a serious case
of G3 envy. While the Vpower card didn't turn our case translucent
blue it did give us a glimpse of how the other half lives performance
wise... Below you will find benchmark results from MacBench
5.0 as well as results from our "Real World" tests.
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Installation: The evaluation card we received came with virtually
the same manual as the Vpower G3/300 we reviewed a while back.
This was not a big issue but don't be alarmed if the card
pictured looks different than the one you got. Vimage has
discarded the fan in favor of the heat sink for a cooling
system. Other than that the manual does a nice job of illustrating
the installation process for the various target machines.
If you plan on installing the card yourself be sure to heed
the manual's abundant warnings about static and use the included
grounding strap. Even on our 9500 with its challenging case
design we had the card installed in under 10 minutes. Software
consists of an extension to activate the backside cache as
well as the "VpowerInfo" application to verify the
processor and cache speeds of the new card. Unfortunately
the application falls short of telling you the processor's
operating temperature. This information is common on other
similar applications and is helpful for diagnostics.
Stability: We had the Vpower G3/366 in our 9500 for several
weeks. We used it for a variety of day to day site maintenance
tasks as well as for the occasional game. We didn't encounter
any problems or unexpected freezes the whole time we had this
card installed. We actually noticed improved stability in
one of our programs that was notorious for crashing during
FTP transfers.
Conclusions: While it won't significantly improve the performance
of fixed devices like your hard drive (see tests below) the
Vpower G3/366 does an admirable job revitalizing your aging
Power Mac at a reasonable cost. This should eliminate any
G3 envy you may be suffering and tide you over until you buy
that new G4 down the road...
MacBench 5.0 Results
Processor
FPU
Disk
Graphics
"Real World" Tests
(Shorter bars are better)
Photoshop 5.0.2 Test Results
(Shorter bars are better)
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