The
Power Macintosh G3/266 was part of the first generation of
machines from Apple based on the new 750 PowerPC or G3 processor
and came in two flavors, the desktop and the minitower. For
an additional $600 the tower configuration offered better
storage capacity with a larger hard drive (6GB vs. 4GB) and
an internal Zip drive for hauling those weighty graphics files
around. Both machines came with a propriatary "Personality
Card" which added functionality to the machine. The personality
card in the desktop model provides 16 bit stereo sound in
and out as well as a connector for an internal modem. The
tower personality card offered these features as well as 24
bit video in and out.
When
the G3/266 was first released MacAddict pitted it against
an 8600/300, a machine with a 604e processor running at 300MHz.
They found the G3/266 completed a suite of Photoshop functions
78% faster than the 8600. NortonUtilities gave the G3 a score
roughly 30% higher than the 8600. These scores reflect the
advantages of the G3 over the 604e chip. The G3 chip found
in the 266Mhz desktop model was a faster version of the PowerPC
processor. It's speed was enhanced because the L2 cache resides
on a dedicated backside bus running at 133Mhz between processor
and cache. Previously L2 cache performance was limited by
the speed of the main logic board bus which runs at a much
slower speed.
The processor and cache reside in on a removable card that
fits into a PC type Zif socket making it easy to replace with
a faster processor. The main system bus of these G3 machines
runs at 66Mhz (previous Macs ran at 50Mhz). The G3/266 comes
with 32MB SDRAM, expandable to 768 MB using the 3 DIMM sockets
(standard profile 128MB DIMMs will not fit in the desktop
machine). The graphics controller is the ATI 3D Rage II+ and
the machine come standard with 2MB SGRAM graphics memory which
allows for millions of colors (32-bit) at up to 832 x 624
resolution. Graphics memory is expandable to 6MB which will
allow millions of colors at higher resolutions and faster
3D performance. There are 3 PCI slots for add on cards and
a proprietary slot for the included personality card. The
drive is a 4GB EIDE on the Desktop and 6 GB on the Tower,
and the CD ROM is 24x. The Tower machine has one free 5.23"
drive bay (the other is filled with the internal Zip drive)
and both machines have external SCSI connectors (5Mbytes per
second). The machine case is easy to get into and the simplicity
of the new logic board design make upgrades a snap.
For
Great Prices On Upgrades Check The Quality Vendors Below
Index of all
online Macintosh hardware and software reviews
Below you will find the MacBench 4.0 results for most of
the processor upgrades available for this machine. These results
are what the individual manufactures publish for their cards.
In other words the speed trials were run by the manufacturer.
For an independent evaluation of these cards check the Processor
Upgrade Page to see if we have results available. The
bar graphs below express results as a percentage of improvement
over the base machine, which receives a score of 100%. Further
down the page you will find a table with the actual MacBench
score.
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The
Power Macintosh G3/266 was part of the first generation of
machines from Apple based on the new 750 PowerPC or G3 processor
and came in two flavors, the desktop and the minitower. For
an additional $600 the tower configuration offered better
storage capacity with a larger hard drive (6GB vs. 4GB) and
an internal Zip drive for hauling those weighty graphics files
around. Both machines came with a propriatary "Personality
Card" which added functionality to the machine. The personality
card in the desktop model provides 16 bit stereo sound in
and out as well as a connector for an internal modem. The
tower personality card offered these features as well as 24
bit video in and out. 
When
the G3/266 was first released MacAddict pitted it against
an 8600/300, a machine with a 604e processor running at 300MHz.
They found the G3/266 completed a suite of Photoshop functions
78% faster than the 8600. NortonUtilities gave the G3 a score
roughly 30% higher than the 8600. These scores reflect the
advantages of the G3 over the 604e chip. The G3 chip found
in the 266Mhz desktop model was a faster version of the PowerPC
processor. It's speed was enhanced because the L2 cache resides
on a dedicated backside bus running at 133Mhz between processor
and cache. Previously L2 cache performance was limited by
the speed of the main logic board bus which runs at a much
slower speed. 
For
Great Prices On Upgrades Check The Quality Vendors Below
