Ancestors

Written by Sidde on 2024-11-30 at 13:54

Now after installing #MacOS9 on an #Apple #iBook G3 600MHz I did some benchmark against my #MacMiniG4 also running MacOS9 (via the ROM hacked image).

The #PowerPC G3 in this iBook surprisingly slow. I expected half of CPU performance, of the G4 not less than a third compared to the 1.2GHz #PPC G4 in the Mini. And it's rather close with the built in reference result of a #Powermac G3 300MHz.

The FPU benchmark looks better though...

[#]Retrocomputing #VintageMac #MacBench #Macintosh #screenshot

=> View attached media

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from sidde@bitbang.social

Written by Shyra “Tech Ambrosia” on 2024-11-30 at 17:38

@sidde

Yeah! FPU code in these machines doesn't interact with the L2 cache, so having an integer score so low suggests that there's something going on with it (maybe it's in write-through mode? Maybe it's disabled?)

Just ran a quick comparison with my Pismo PowerBook G3 400, which uses the older style G3 with backside cache instead of on-die cache.

Weird!

=> View attached media

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from shyra@bitbang.social

Written by Shyra “Tech Ambrosia” on 2024-11-30 at 17:38

@sidde

Also looks like you're not the only person who noticed that the iBook G3/600 is unusually slow:

https://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=123421

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from shyra@bitbang.social

Toot

Written by MacLemon on 2024-11-30 at 18:09

@shyra @sidde There‘s a 3x difference in bus speed and memory access. It’s not a surprise that the G4 is less constrained by that limit and hence faster. (Also smaller structural process of later generations.) Also storage speed and latency of those 4.200rpm HDDs constrain the G3 CPUs.

Even the G4’s system architecture was still heavily constrained by bus and memory speed so these CPUs could barely run at their full potential ever.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from MacLemon@chaos.social

Descendants

Written by Sidde on 2024-11-30 at 18:15

@MacLemon @shyra

The disk performance against the Mini G4 is actually the only positive in that iBook performance. And yes, some bus speed difference but there's more probably something with the CPU Cache that holds this G3 600MHz back.

I really feel good not buying one of these back in the days and putting all my money on the 1Ghz Powerbook G4.

And yes, as someone who owned a QS2002 with DP 1.33GHz G4 I have some experience with the overly slow bus speeds on that G4 even with extra cache.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from sidde@bitbang.social