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 all Mac clones.)

Photoshop 4 and Virtual PC tests:

I finally had a chance to test the X-Force with Photoshop 4 and Virtual PC, with very positive results. I knew from using the X-Force it was much more responsive than any Apple system I'd ever used - actually any Mac I've used period. I came away very impressed with the overall package that POWERtools has created, especially in the area of disk performance.
Large image operations in Photoshop were typically 3 times faster on the X-Force 250 than when run on a 8500 with an identical G3 CPU card. This demonstrates the advantage the X-Force disk configuration provides in actual application use. Software installs from the Wide SCSI hard drive were amazingly fast, and WinTune installed as fast as it did on my Pentium Pro 233mhz system running native Win95. I was impressed to say the least.
The comparison system was my Apple PowerMac 8500, with the PowerForce 250 running at 292mhz, using the stock Apple 2gig (Seagate) disk, which was partitioned into two 1Gig volumes. I partitioned the Apple disk as it resulted in better performance based on the FWB HDT benchmarks. That disk though, is left far behind in the dust by the Fast/Wide drive in the X-Force system.

The X-Force disk is a 9.1 Gig IBM Wide Scsi (not ultra-scsi), configured as a single volume. 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. The X-Force disk speed made applications use a real pleasure, as I always felt the system was waiting on me, not the other way around. The excellent disk performance shows in applications use whenever the disk comes into play (in Photoshop - that's most operations on files of any size).
Since Photoshop tends to use the swap disk very quickly, disk speed has a tremendous effect on many common operations, as the results show. Due to the X-Force having only 80 Megs of RAM, Photoshop was allocated 50 Megs for these tests on both machines. Virtual PC was allocated 64megs (48megs visible to Win95).

Simple Finder Tests

Time to duplicate a 27.4MB Photoshop file in the finder.
Both machines using a PowerForce 250 cpu card
(the 8500 was running 292mhz, the X-Force 285mhz).

Photoshop 4 Tests

Virtual PC Disk Test (WinTune 97)

Summary:

What makes these results most impressive is that the 8500 also had a
PowerForce G3 250 card installed. Had the comparison system been your
average 85/8600, the scores would have been even farther apart.
I will sorely miss this system when it is returned to POWERtools.

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= X-Force Main Review Page =
= X-Force MacBench Disk Tests 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.


(Note: Powertools is no longer in business, due to the elimination of all Mac clones.)
Photoshop 4 and Virtual PC tests:
I finally had a chance to test the X-Force with Photoshop 4 and Virtual PC, with very positive results. I knew from using the X-Force it was much more responsive than any Apple system I'd ever used - actually any Mac I've used period. I came away very impressed with the overall package that POWERtools has created, especially in the area of disk performance. Large image operations in Photoshop were typically 3 times faster on the X-Force 250 than when run on a 8500 with an identical G3 CPU card. This demonstrates the advantage the X-Force disk configuration provides in actual application use. Software installs from the Wide SCSI hard drive were amazingly fast, and WinTune installed as fast as it did on my Pentium Pro 233mhz system running native Win95. I was impressed to say the least. The comparison system was my Apple PowerMac 8500, with the PowerForce 250 running at 292mhz, using the stock Apple 2gig (Seagate) disk, which was partitioned into two 1Gig volumes. I partitioned the Apple disk as it resulted in better performance based on the FWB HDT benchmarks. That disk though, is left far behind in the dust by the Fast/Wide drive in the X-Force system. The X-Force disk is a 9.1 Gig IBM Wide Scsi (not ultra-scsi), configured as a single volume. 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. The X-Force disk speed made applications use a real pleasure, as I always felt the system was waiting on me, not the other way around. The excellent disk performance shows in applications use whenever the disk comes into play (in Photoshop - that's most operations on files of any size). Since Photoshop tends to use the swap disk very quickly, disk speed has a tremendous effect on many common operations, as the results show. Due to the X-Force having only 80 Megs of RAM, Photoshop was allocated 50 Megs for these tests on both machines. Virtual PC was allocated 64megs (48megs visible to Win95).
Simple Finder Tests
Time to duplicate a 27.4MB Photoshop file in the finder. Both machines using a PowerForce 250 cpu card (the 8500 was running 292mhz, the X-Force 285mhz).
Photoshop 4 Tests


Virtual PC Disk Test (WinTune 97)


Summary:
What makes these results most impressive is that the 8500 also had a PowerForce G3 250 card installed. Had the comparison system been your average 85/8600, the scores would have been even farther apart. I will sorely miss this system when it is returned to POWERtools.
= Top of Page = = X-Force Main Review Page = = X-Force MacBench Disk Tests 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.