Accelerate Your Macintosh! PowerTools X-Force 250mhz G3 System Review

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(Note: PowerTools is no longer in business due to the elimination of Mac clones.)

Updates:

11/24/97- Added link to Photoshop/VPC tests page.

About the MacBench Disk R/W tests:

The following graphs are the result of running MacBench 4.0 Disk Sequential and Random Read/Write tests at various sizes. The comparison system was my 8500, with the PowerForce 250 running at 292mhz, with the stock Apple 2gig (Seagate) disk, which was partitioned into two 1Gig volumes. I partitioned the 8500 disk as it resulted in better performance as reported by the FWB HDT benchmarks.

The X-Force disk is a 9.1 Gig IBM Wide Scsi (not ultra-scsi), configured as a single volume. I would have preferred to have a 1Gig partition for this test, as I feel it would have dramatically increased the Random R/W scores, but did not want to repartiton the loaner system's drive. No attempt was made to optimize the disk - it was ran as supplied by POWERtools. ATTO's disk utilities showed the disk as having peak Read and Write rates as high as 10MB/sec, and sustained Read and Writes of more than 8MB/sec.
* Disk caches were set to 512k and Speed Doubler's "Faster Disk Performance" was disabled *

MacBench Graphs

Sequential Read Tests

Sequential Write Tests

Random Read Tests
(Across 9.1 Gig volume on Xforce, 1 Gig Volume on Apple Disk)

Random Write Tests
(Across 9.1 Gig volume on Xforce, 1 Gig Volume on Apple Disk)

Note: Larger files sizes are more typical of actual application use in Photoshop and other applications. I hope to be able to do further tests soon. In particular, I'd like to be able to partition the disk into a 1 Gig volume, however that is unlikely given it's a loaner system.
Disk performance in actual use is quite impressive. Loading large Photoshop files will be the next test to be run, as it is typical of actual system use, unlike the relatively tiny file sizes used by the MacBench tests. Stay tuned.

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Copyright © , 1997.

No part of this sites content is to be reproduced in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies.
Users of this web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.


(Note: PowerTools is no longer in business due to the elimination of Mac clones.)
Updates: 11/24/97- Added link to Photoshop/VPC tests page.
About the MacBench Disk R/W tests:
The following graphs are the result of running MacBench 4.0 Disk Sequential and Random Read/Write tests at various sizes. The comparison system was my 8500, with the PowerForce 250 running at 292mhz, with the stock Apple 2gig (Seagate) disk, which was partitioned into two 1Gig volumes. I partitioned the 8500 disk as it resulted in better performance as reported by the FWB HDT benchmarks. The X-Force disk is a 9.1 Gig IBM Wide Scsi (not ultra-scsi), configured as a single volume. I would have preferred to have a 1Gig partition for this test, as I feel it would have dramatically increased the Random R/W scores, but did not want to repartiton the loaner system's drive. No attempt was made to optimize the disk - it was ran as supplied by POWERtools. ATTO's disk utilities showed the disk as having peak Read and Write rates as high as 10MB/sec, and sustained Read and Writes of more than 8MB/sec. *** Disk caches were set to 512k and Speed Doubler's "Faster Disk Performance" was disabled ***
MacBench Graphs
Sequential Read Tests

Sequential Write Tests

Random Read Tests (Across 9.1 Gig volume on Xforce, 1 Gig Volume on Apple Disk)

Random Write Tests (Across 9.1 Gig volume on Xforce, 1 Gig Volume on Apple Disk)
Note: Larger files sizes are more typical of actual application use in Photoshop and other applications. I hope to be able to do further tests soon. In particular, I'd like to be able to partition the disk into a 1 Gig volume, however that is unlikely given it's a loaner system. Disk performance in actual use is quite impressive. Loading large Photoshop files will be the next test to be run, as it is typical of actual system use, unlike the relatively tiny file sizes used by the MacBench tests. Stay tuned.
= Top of Page = = X-Force Main Review Page = = X-Force Apps Test Page = = Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM =

Copyright © , 1997. No part of this sites content is to be reproduced in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies. Users of this web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.