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Without the crowds of an expo or a developers conference and
with little fanfare, Apple has quietly given their line of
Yosemite G3's a speed bump. Models now range from 350MHz to
450MHz. While this latest round of blue and white towers don't
feature any radical design changes, there have been a few
improvements under the hood. Apple has thankfully standardized
on a full 1MB backside cache on all machines instead of short
changing the low end model with a 512k cache. The CD-ROM drive
was also boosted across the line, from 24x to 32x. Rumors
on the net indicate that Apple will be standardizing on DVD
drives down the road which will be especially welcome in the
gaming community. Think of Riven on one disk and you get the
idea. Graphics are still handled by the high-end ATI RAGE
128 graphics accelerator and 16MB of SDRAM graphics memory
making them appropriate for high-end graphics work and superb
gaming. The G3/450MHz comes with 128MB
of PC100 SDRAM (3.3-volt, unbuffered, 64-bit-wide, 168-pin,
running at 100 MHz) and can be upgraded to 1GB using the 4
provided memory slots. Memory from prior Power Macintosh (EDO
or FPM RAM) computers cannot be used in the new systems. The
Yosemite class machines are the easiest Macs to get inside
produced to date. The side panel easily swings down when a
lever on the side of the machine is pulled - exposing the
innards of the computer. Inside you will find 4 PCI slots,
3 slots running at 33Mhz (64 -bit) and one special high speed
66Mhz, 32-bit PCI slot. The 66MHz slot is filled with the
ATI RAGE 128 graphics accelerator) and one of the 33MHz slots
is filled with a SCSI controller for the hard drive. There
is, of course, no built in SCSI bus or floppy drive. Other
Yosemite innards include 5 internal drive bays with built
in support for the new Ultra ATA drives ( three for 3 1/2-inch
hard drives and 2 for 5 1/4-inch drives - CD ROM, Zip, DVD
etc.). The Yosemite Power Macs come standard with a built-in
slot to accommodate an internal 56K modem that supports both
the 56k flex and V.90 standards. The actual internal modem
is an add-on option.
Apple continues to stick to its guns with the connection
standards introduced earlier. It has eased out SCSI in favor
of two 400Mbps FireWire
ports (for connecting high-speed peripherals such as drives
and video) and continued the abandonment of the serial port
it started with iMac in favor of two 12Mbps USB
ports for connecting low speed devices (such as keyboards,
mice etc). In a nod to the past it included one ADB port on
the machines so you can connect your old mouse, keyboard,
graphics tablet or other ADB device. All machines come with
10/100BaseT Ethernet.
For connecting monitors these machines have moved to the
"PC", VGA port standard. If you want to connect
an older Mac monitor you'll have to use the included
VGA-to-Mac adapter. The ATI RAGE 128  graphics
accelerator supports up to 1,920- by 1,200-pixel resolution
at 32 bits per pixel (millions of colors)
In looks the Yosemite machines take the traditional mini-tower
form factor and cover it all with a iMac type frosting made
of the same bullet-proof plastic found encasing the iMacs.
At each corner is found a sturdy handle making it easy to
move the machines around. If the Yosemite machines aren't
as radical a design departure as the iMac was, they are still
quite stunning in appearance.
MacBench 5.0 Scores
MacBench Scores are relative to the Pre-Yosemite G3/300
Power Mac which is assigned a score of 1000. Longer bars are
better. Click here for more
information on MacBench 5.0
æ
BYTEmark Scores
| Model/Mhz |
Bus Speed
(Mhz) |
RAM |
Backside
Cache |
VRAM |
Expansion
Slots |
|
Yosemite G3/450
|
100
|
128 SDRAM
1GB Max
|
1MB at 225MHz
|
16MB
SDRAM
|
3 PCI slots (2 free) running at 33Mhz (64 -bit)
One 66Mhz, 32-bit PCI slot filled with the ATI RAGE
128 graphics accelerator
Modem Slot
|
Hard
Drive |
CDROM
Drive |
Networking
Modem |
Additional
Features |
Reviews & Information
|
|
9GB Ultra2 LVD SCSI with PCI card
|
32X
|
10/100 Ethernet
|
ATI RAGE 128 accelerated 2D/3D graphics controller
2 USB Ports
2 FireWire Ports
|
MacOSPlanet
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