Power Macintosh 6400/200 Processor Upgrade And Discussion
Page - Performance Of Latest G3 Processor Upgrades
PowerMac 6400/200 Facts at a Glance
Processor: PPC 603e, 200 MHz
Data Path: 64-bit 40MHz
L2 Cache: 256K
Drive: 2.4GB IDE
CD Drive: 8X
Expansion Bays: 1 (5.25 inch)
Slots: Two 7" PCI, Comm II, TV/FM, Video
Installed RAM: 16MB or 32MB (8MB soldered to motherboard)
Max RAM: 136MB
RAM Slots: 2, 168-pin DIMM
Min RAM Speed: 70 ns
Video RAM: 1MB (Max)
Introduced: 8/5/96
Discontinued: 8/97
Initial Retail Price: $2099 - $2,799
Special Notes
Included 28.8 internal modem
Built-in subwoofer
Video out capable
Mac OS Supported:7.5.3 - 9.x
The Video editing option models provided video in/out
6/3/00
The Performa 6400/200 went on the market in the summer of
1996. Aimed at the consumer market, it was a departure from
recent past consumer offerings from Apple. Past Performas
had been fitted in a standard desktop form factor. The
6400 sported a tower form factor with rounded edges giving
it something of an elegant look (though it was dubbed a laundry
hamper by MacWeek!). Inside the tower there is a 603e processor
(Apple's low end processor at the time) and 16MB of RAM (8MB
soldered to the motherboard and 8MB in one of the two available
DIMM slots). RAM can be expanded up to 136MB. In addition
the motherboard sported two 7" PCI slots, a Comm II slot
(fitted with a 28.8 modem), a video slot (designed specifically
with Apple's Avid Video Card in mind - an-add on option) and
a TV/FM slot for Apple's TV/FM tuner card (also an add-on
option). The machine shipped with a 256K L2 cache. Adding
a larger cache will boost processor performance modestly.
The hard drive on the 6400/200 is a 2.4GB IDE and the CD
ROM drive is 8x. One of the unique features of the 6400 was
the addition of a dual purpose speaker located on the bottom
of the machinešs case. On it's own the speaker richly
reproduces all sounds. However if you plug-in external speakers,
the built-in speaker acts as a subwoofer, sending higher register
tones to the external speakers - pretty clever.
Though considered a machine with a great deal of multimedia
potential the 6400 was hobbled by relative limited on-board
graphics. Video memory was limited to 1MB and is not upgradable,
limiting you to 8-bit color at resolutions higher than 800
x 600 pixels on a 17" monitor. Video performance itself
was considered sluggish. At the time of the 6400's release
there was stiff competition from the PowerBase computers from
Power Computing, which in general received positive reviews
and were substantially cheaper than the 6400.
For Great Prices On Upgrades
Check The Vendors Below
When the 6400's was released its processor
was considered non-upgradable. However clever companies
have figured out how to use the L2 cache slot for processor
upgrades and there are now several companies that have such
L2 cache slot upgrades available.
Below you will find the MacBench 4.0
results for all of the current processor upgrades available
for this machine. Results marked in blue indicate that benchmark
results were done by us. All other results were provided by
the upgrade manufacturer. 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
6400 sported a tower form factor with rounded edges giving
it something of an elegant look (though it was dubbed a laundry
hamper by MacWeek!). Inside the tower there is a 603e processor
(Apple's low end processor at the time) and 16MB of RAM (8MB
soldered to the motherboard and 8MB in one of the two available
DIMM slots). RAM can be expanded up to 136MB. In addition
the motherboard sported two 7" PCI slots, a Comm II slot
(fitted with a 28.8 modem), a video slot (designed specifically
with Apple's Avid Video Card in mind - an-add on option) and
a TV/FM slot for Apple's TV/FM tuner card (also an add-on
option). The machine shipped with a 256K L2 cache. Adding
a larger cache will boost processor performance modestly.
For Great Prices On Upgrades 