CompUSA Watch! Posted

CompUSA Watch! Posted: Remember the Apple/CompUSA deal announced November 4th? Well, some readers reported that the Apple stores within CompUSA are going up. Macs Only! will track this transformation on a special page, CompUSA Watch! reached from the link under "Features" on the sidebar to the left. Please keep me informed on the progress in your area.

During the weekend Bob Seaver and I exchanged points of view on CompuServe regarding the new G3 CPU daughtercards, specifically the meaning of Mike Breeden's results on his Accelerate Your Mac page and those contained in my review of the PowerLogix's PowerForce G3 250 in my PowerBase 180. Bob is the Mac-savvy and long-time sysop on CompuServe's Mac Hardware Forum and he has provided me and a zillion others with excellent advice over the years. We discussed the transportability of the test results to other like computers--I think within a very broad range that they are perfectly transportable, he questions that. He also questions the wisdom of overclocking a CPU and system bus and has long cautioned about the procedure--this has been sage advice especially since historically overclocking really didn't get one much in actual performance but it could result in a lot of grief in system stability, mostly with the 680xx CPUs and the early PowerPC CPUs. My perspective changed when I got a PowerLogix PowerBoost Pro 225 for my 8500/120--it has been running optimally overclocked for nearly 4 months without any problems. Granted, it hasn't been years. During our discussion, I realized that the results in my review of the PowerForce G3 250 in my PowerBase did not contain speed benchmarks without overclocking the system bus (40 MHz) and the CPU (250 Mhz). Since the CPU speed is determined by a ratio to the bus speed (e.g. 6:1 or 6.5:1), it can't be set at 250 with the system bus at 40. Therefore, I've included the results with the CPU slightly underclocked (240 Mhz) and slightly overclocked (260 Mhz). Here are the results: