On April 17th, 1997 Accelerate Your Mac! first appeared on the Net. It was basically a cover page describing the site purpose and a review of the XLR8 MACh Speed 180mhz 604E CPU card, the most affordable (and only one I could afford) upgrade at that time. I might never have been able to start this site had XLR8 not entered the market with a product that was hundreds less than the competition. It was one of a series of things that "fell into place" during that period, the first being the availability of low cost PowerMac 8500's. Looking back, the chain of events prior to the site launch seems like fate now. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful to the powers that be who may have been working behind the scenes. ;-)

My original goal was to provide more complete and honest reviews of CPU upgrades to help Mac owners make educated buying decisions. I knew first-hand the frustration at the limited amount of pre-sale information available and the time consuming and costly exercise of trial and error buying from my almost 20 years of computer hardware and software experience, dating back to the first 128K Mac in 1984. My prime purpose was to allow readers to make the best choice the first time, cutting through the hype and fluff to expose the real product underneath. Based on the tens of thousands of mails I've received in the last year I think in general I've succeeded and intend to improve the value of the site many fold in the coming year.

In the beginning I had no idea that the Mac community and manufacturers response would be so overwhelming. The site grew from that one review to covering almost all the popular CPU upgrade cards offered during the year. In addition, I expanded to cover all aspects of Mac performance upgrades including graphics cards, SCSI, Cache, and more. In the Fall I added the incredibly popular message boards that have become a great place for users, developers, and manufacturers to post questions, receive help or announce new products. I'll be improving their utility and scope in the near future. I am frequently working 20 hour days to continue to bring you the best source of Macintosh product information on the Net.

In mid-November I registered the domain name: www.xlr8yourmac.com and started providing daily news updated several times a day. The news page now covers what I consider one of the best mixes of compatibility info/feedback, performance tips, sale notices, hardware and software upgrade news, and reports on product performance from owners around the world. Your feedback has been critical in achieving that goal.

It's been an amazing year that saw a tiny unknown site rise one of the 10 most popular Mac sites on the Net. Throughout the year the site won a continuing series of awards, including best new site of 1997, a Starting Point Hot Site and MacAddict's site of the week. More importantly thousands of reader's comments indicated the site was of great value to them. If that isn't a testament to what one man with a Mac can do I don't know what is. I'd like to summarize the year in review and list some of the highs and lows that I've seen during that time. This page is long, but I hope you find it interesting and informative.

CPU Cards:
I list this category first as it was the most popular item for Mac owners looking for upgrades. To illustrate how much things have changed in the last year, compare the performance from early 1997's lowest cost upgrade - the $599 XLR8 604E-180mhz (MacBench CPU score 455) to the current under $500 PowerLogix PowerForce G3 220/110 (MacBench CPU score of 910) - twice the performance for less money. After years of stagnant prices it's great to finally see the Mac market behave more like the PC in terms of lower prices and higher performance for the consumer. These rapidly changing product offerings makes this site even more valuable in helping you make the right choice. I don't take this responsibility lightly.

Here are some highs and lows in the CPU card area for the year (w/links to reviews):

1997 Highs:

• PowerForce G3 220/110 - first truly affordable G3 upgrade.
• PowerForce G3 250/250 - the first 1:1 cache speed G3 card.
• Newer Tech MaxPowr Pro - first G3 CPU card on the market.
• XLR8 MAChSpeed 180 - the card that started the price wars.

And now the lows (so that you don't think it was all smooth sailing):

1997 Lows:

• So far no low cost Apple G3 ZIF socket based CPU upgrades.
• Newer Tech MP400 - a 5 week nightmare that cost me a gig of data.
• Motherboard destroyed by a rare defect in a CPU card connector. Detailed in my MaxPowr 225 review.

Overall CPU card upgrades were the hottest items of the year, and that shows no sign of changing. With the promise of new G4 CPUs in the Fall and with prices dropping like mad on the fast G3 upgrades it's a great time to own a CPU card slot Mac.

I'd like to thank all the companies that sent CPU cards for review (PowerLogix, Newer Technology, and XLR8, and MacTell). I'd especially like to thank PowerLogix and XLR8 who always promptly sent new products and encouraged users to get the most performance from their products.

Graphics Cards:
I was able to review many of the most popular graphics cards in the under-$1000 price range and provided some of the most detailed comparisons anywhere. The first comparison review was the Imagine 128 vs. Twin Turbo. That article got rave reviews even from several PC magazine publishers and convinced me to continue covering the Mac graphics card scene. Since then I've reviewed most of the more popular cards and there are several more here now under test (and more on the way).

Mac 3D cards became all the rage (no pun intended ATI) in the last year and I'm excited that I'll soon have several new reviews posted of the latest cards in that category. 3D video cards have always been a passion for me on all platforms, and I monitor the entire graphics chip industry news to stay on top of new developments.

1997 was also the year that the 3Dfx Voodoo chipset finally became available for the Mac and allowed many Mac gamers to experience the amazing difference it makes in supported games. ATI also made great improvements in Apple's standard Quickdraw3D RAVE performance, with several low cost, feature rich cards that have been "Best Buys" for some time. Village Tronic developed an amazing combination 3Dfx Voodoo/2D graphics combination card that did the impossible - outputting the full screen only 3Dfx Voodoo video into a window on your 2D screen (and you can still add video I/O modules as well).

Overall it's been a great year for Mac graphics cards and I hope the recent layoffs at Techworks does not dampen developer support, as there is a great number of motivated Mac owners out there looking to reward those companies that produce great products at affordable prices.

Below are some of the highs and lows of the year for graphics cards.

1997 Highs:

• Power3D - 3Dfx Voodoo chipset card comes to the Mac!
• MacPicasso MP540/3D0 - Village Tronic's amazing all-in-one card.
• Vision 3D Pro II - The new 2D speed king delivers 1000+ Macbench score.
• Imagine 128 vs TwinTurbo - face off between the previous high end favorites.
• ATI Rage Pro - I tested the prototype that became the 3D/VR cards.

And now the lows:

1997 Lows:

• Number Nine stops Mac card production.
• Rumors of Radius also getting out of the market.

Thankfully the superb Number Nine Imagine series cards live on in Formac and MacTell versions. My only regret is that I never had a chance to test the high end ($1000+) Glint based cards from Newer Technology and Radius.

I'd like to thank ATI, IXMicro, Number Nine, MacTell and VillageTronic for submitting cards for review.

L2 Cache:
Until the G3 CPU card upgrades arrived with their amazingly fast backside caches, 1997 was the year that awareness of the importance of L2 Cache dimms went public. Early on I read many web pages that stated 256K was the "sweet spot" and there was really no benefit to larger sizes, but as my cache crop page and testing showed, a 1MB cache upgrade was a benefit to not only Macbench performance but also real world applications like Photoshop and Virtual PC.

With the cost of 1MB cache dimms staying stable at about $150, the incredible price plunge of RAM (to about $110 for a 64MB dimm) and the arrival of G3 CPU cards that didn't seem to need any motherboard cache - 1997 was the both birth and death of the large cache dimm in my opinion. As owners look to G3 CPU cards for performance, sales of 1MB cache dimms will continue to drop. Another indication of the volatile state of the computer market.

Here are some highs and lows in the Cache arena for the year:

1997 Highs:

• PowerLogix RapidCache - still the best 1MB cache for fast bus speeds.
• IDT 1MB cache - the first to work consistently in most Macs.

And now the lows:

1997 Lows:

• G3 CPU cards very expensive.
• 1MB cache dimms expensive (and sometimes flaky).

For details on the cache dimms I tested in 1997, see my Cache Crop page.

I'd like to thank PowerLogix for letting me test the first prototype of what was to become the runaway best seller - the Rapidcache.

SCSI Upgrades:
Toward the end of the year I started to focus more on SCSI upgrades, as improving disk I/O speed is important part of the total performance equation. Applications like Photoshop benefit greatly from fast scratch file disks and overall performance is greatly enhanced with a fast, ultra-wide SCSI disk and controller card. However a primary reason for this upgrade is for best results with RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) striping. I was able to achieve incredible results (up to 58MB/sec sustained now) with low cost drives using Raid. Full details are in my SCSI Upgrades listing.

Speaking of RAID, once I started posting my tutorials, test results and commenting on low cost Ultra-Wide SCSI drives in the news the interest in RAID went through the roof. I'd estimate that about 1/3 of all mail is now SCSI or RAID related.

As drive manufacturers increased densities and dropped lower capacity drives from the product line, incredible bargains began appearing. That helped bring more market interest in drive upgrades, along with new, affordable SCSI cards from Initio that bundled the best RAID software I tested (Conley SoftRaid 2) with the card for under $200.

Here are some of the highs and lows in the SCSI area:

1997 Highs:

• Lower Cost UW SCSI cards - the $199 Initio Miles/Conley SoftRaid bundle.
• Low Cost UW SCSI drives - as capacities increased, smaller drive prices fell.
• Adaptec finally upgraded the bios of the 3940UW dual-channel card.

And now the lows:

1997 Lows:

• The Adaptec 2940UW/PowerForce G3 compatibility issues.

Overall it's been a banner year for SCSI. With Ultra2 and Fibre-Channel products things are only going to get faster. But for consumer/mass market - IDE is going to pose a threat to SCSI. BTW: I'm getting 58MB/Sec sustained from a striped set of four 2.2GB drives. The PCI bridge in most Mac models made to date will not sustain much more than that rate.

I'd also like to mention the fine support that MacGurus provided for the massive SCSI tests. Without their loan of SCSI cards and software I would not have been able to do the tests. I'd also like to thank Initio (two Miles Cards), Adaptec (2940UW/Remus Lite), ATTO (ATTO Raid), CharisMac (Anubis Raid), and Conley (SoftRaid 2.0) as well. Your support was invaluable in this effort.

Systems:
You may ask why I saved this for last, well replacing the entire system is usually the most expensive upgrade and may not be the most cost effective solution for owners of CPU card slot Macs. However the last 12 months has been a great period for new Mac buyers, starting with the Power Computing [RIP :-( ] PowerCenter Pro with its fast 60mhz bus, 1MB cache and affordable price and ending the period with lower prices on new Apple G3 line and the PowerBook G3 (but still not very affordable).

Apple's G3 line blew a wide hole in the product pricing structure however, which benefited buyers looking for 8600 and 9600 models whose prices fell through the floor (and continue to drop).

For those of use long suffering 8500/9500 owners Apple introduced the 86/9600 case design which brought tears to the eyes of us who had wrestled with the horrible design of the past. See my 8500 cache replacement tutorial for an indication of what I had to go through over 100 times during the year for cache and ram tests (I can now complete the operation in less than 4 minutes however). The new Apple G3 case is of similar design, but appears to be of lower cost construction.

1997 was also the year Apple killed the best clones on the planet (some would say the best Macs period) - the Power Computing line. Also a casualty was the best clone we never saw - the Motorola CHRP StarMax 6000. These systems were shown to rave reviews at MacWorld, Boston - and died a sudden death shortly thereafter thanks to Apple. I am still a little bitter about this and think it was a mistake. Apple's G3 line would have sold well regardless of these models, and if you look inside an Apple G3 it should be very clear they are making good profit margins on the machines (the price has dropped $600+ in the last few months).

I'm thankful Apple is now on the road to recovery, but I will always miss the innovation, fire and passion that was Power Computing. Their flag will wave proudly here forever. I feel fortunate to have been able to buy two PowerCC machines last October, a PowerCenter Pro and PowerTower Pro. I'd not sell them for twice what I paid and feel I own an important part of Mac history. Let's not forget other casualties of war like POWERtools. I was lucky to review a X-Force before they also were choked out.

Enough of lamenting, here's the highs and lows in systems as I see it.

1997 Highs:

• Apple G3 line and PowerBook G3 - the best consumer Macs Apple's made to date.
• PowerCenter Pro - the budget barn-burner is still one of my favorites (but wish it had memory interleaving).
• PowerTower Pro - the high end Mac of choice for many.

And now the lows:

1997 Lows:

• StarMax 6000 CHIP not allowed to be sold.
• Motorola CHIP notebook not allowed to be sold.
• Power Computing G3/275 not allowed to be sold.
• POWERtools, a company with heart and integrity is choked out of business.

Just writing this depresses me, and my heart goes out to those affected in the wake of Apple's clone killing spree. Those of us who are running the machines you helped build will always own you a debt of gratitude.

Software:
It has been a great year for Mac OS improvements as well as other software. Apple maintained the momentum started during Gil Amelio's reign and continued to improve the OS. OS 8.1, although not perfect, contains major improvements in memory code, faster floating-point math routines, more native code and a new, more efficient disk format called HFS+.

In the last year we've seen great programs like Virtual PC and RealPC, which affordably let Mac owners run many of the (less demanding) applications for Windows 95 and DOS. The latest versions are faster and added support for 3Dfx cards. It might be swell headed of me, but I hope I played some part in this as back in early November I asked for 3Dfx support to be added to Virtual PC, saying it would be a great selling feature. Based on the the reply from the VPC 2.0 team leader (asking what 3Dfx Glide was), I really think it may have helped. I still have that email.

Since this page is getting long, I'll not repeat here what is written all over the net,, I just want to note what I consider some of the best software events of the last year. There are a lot of great products and categories that are not listed here since I did not get a chance to use them.

1997 Highs:

• Mac OS 7.6 and Mac OS 8.1 - major improvements in speed and stability.
• Virtual PC 1.0 - the first affordable PC emulator for the masses.
• Virtual PC 2.0/RealPC 3D - 3dfx support and better performance added value.
• Speed Doubler 8.1 - this must-have utility just keeps getting better.
• Bryce 2/3D - I've still not upgraded to 3D yet but I love this app.
• Infini-D 4.0 - a major upgrade to a great product.
• Ray Dream Studio 5 - a great value overall.
• Korea - 3Dfx support comes to the latest in the great F/A-18 series.
• Quake - finally made it to the mac (thanks MacSoft!).
• Duke Nukem 3D - initial sales proved Mac games can be profitable.

And now the lows:

1997 Lows:

• Mac OS 8 bugs/incompatibility
• Frequently changing OS made many program updates necessary, some still unavailable.

Like many users who had critical work to do I resisted the OS 8.0 upgrade until 8.1 was available. With so many OS changes it is frustrating to keep up with disk utilities that are compatible with the latest version of the OS. I'm still waiting for a HFS+ boot CD version of Norton Utilities and wonder what the cost will be to upgrade. Change is a two edged sword, but overall the OS changes were some of the best events of the least year.

I'd like to thank Connectix for donating evaluation copies of their software to the site and for continuing to provide the best utilities ever made for the Macintosh. (I only wish this had happened before I had already bought them all. :-)

As always has been the rule, don't rush out to buy unless you absolutely must have it now. In general the longer you wait the lower the cost and faster the product. I have a hard time taking that advice and will have to be bound and gagged to not order a new Wall Street the day they are announced. I sold my (first model) PowerBook G3 for just that purpose and having to use a WinTel notebook since then has pushed me to the edge - I can't wait much longer for a replacement. I can plead temporary insanity when Kay hits the ceiling (again).

What I'd like to see: I'll close this long page with what I would like to see Apple add in their new systems in the future.

My suggestions for the future (1998):

• AGP Video Slot: To keep up with the competition Macs need a dedicated video bus that runs at 66mhz and up. AGP is a standard now and it kills me to see the fast, low cost AGP cards on the PC. With the right OS support it can provide much better performance than a 33mhz PCI bus shared with other busmasters that often fight for bandwidth. Tests on the PC with AGP and PCI RagePro chip cards showed that the PCI bus card delivered 1.x fps in the test compared to 17.x fps using the AGP version. 133mhz AGP is possible (the RagePro chip is AGP 2x compatible) by triggering on the rising and falling edge of the 66mhz bus clock. AGP goes direct to SDRAM main memory for textures as well. AGP may not be perfect, but it's a standard that could help avoid delays in a new form factor and design.

• Don't Cripple Systems: The few dollars saved by crippling the first revision Apple G3 systems with 5MB/sec motherboard SCSI and slave-less IDE makes me shake my head. I feel this had more to do with market positioning than cost. Standard SCSI and IDE controllers are cheap now.

• More/Faster PCI Slots: At least give us the option of more slots. 3 is fine for most consumers but too limiting for many of the Mac's target markets (video production for instance). And how about 64bit or 66MHz PCI?

• Affordable Notebooks: From the rumors of new WallStreet/MainStreet pricing you may be addressing this, it's about time. Now that Pentium II notebooks with 14.1" active screens are selling for under $3000 it's time to get serious. You can argue the benefits of the Mac forever but the bottom line has been most PowerBooks are priced too high and have too short a warranty compared to the dark side. I love the PowerBooks and they show off the Mac like no other product - getting into places your ads never will and graphically demonstrating the Mac OS advantage. I've sent at least 5 mails citing the benefits to Apple. No replies. For Apple to thrive and not just survive they have to sacrifice a little bit of what must be huge profit margins on the high end Powerbooks. Here's an idea - try a 90 day special pricing scheme and see how many you sell. With PC notebooks dropping in price there are a lot of people looking - and if you win a notebook sale a system sale may follow.

• Add good 3D graphics chips: This also may be addressed with future models, but please spend a few dollars more and get a decent 3D graphics chip for the new models of desktops and notebooks.

• OS Improvements: Better multi-tasking is needed as the Mac OS trails even Windows 95 in this area. Farther down on the list is my hope for a SMP kernel (Sym. Multi-Processor), especially with the G4 arriving this Fall. But please don't ever let the Mac OS become the convoluted mess that Windows 95 is under the GUI skin.

• Games sell PCs: Apple needs to be more active in assisting game developers for the Mac. I think this is critical to avoid losing more market share in the home and consumer areas. I've read many messages from Mac owners who are buying PCs to run games and the recent Techworks layoff only causes more concern. IMHO, Games sell 60% of the PCs and upgrades - there is no doubt in my mind. I see it at computer shows, hear it at work and read about it on the Net. The consumer market is huge, and they are not buying 400mhz PII's to run Word or Excel. They're buying it to play Longbow 2 and other games. Intel has not missed that fact.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for letting me share my opinions here.

I want to thank each one of you for visiting the site in the past year and invite you to continue to do so for what will be a very interesting and exciting year ahead. Stay tuned!

-Mike
Editor/Webmaster
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com

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