Review of PowerForce G3 ZIF 466/233

 

Hands-On Review: PowerForce G3 ZIF 466/233

By Bill Fox
May 27, 1999 (Rev. 5/28/99)

PowerLogix. Price: $699 list, Current Special $665 (deal-mac)

Pros: Super-duper speed, adjustable speed, relatively easy to install, good documentation

Cons: Less easier than other CPU ZIFs to install. Just a bit more finicky than other G3 ZIF's tested, possibly due to an out of spec RAM chip.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Exclamation Points: ! ! ! ! !

The PowerForce G3 ZIF 466/233/1MB will make your Beige or Blue & White PowerMac G3 one of the fastest personal computers on the planet! It is the latest in a long line of CPU upgrade cards produced by PowerLogix. The claim to fame of PowerLogix's CPU cards has been that one can tune them for maximum performance, technically overclocking the CPU and backside cache beyond their ratings. Is this safe? I have used a PowerLogix PowerBoost Pro 604e/225 with 1 MB Rapidcache clocked to 250 MHz over two years in my PowerMac 8500. For 18 months, a PowerForce G3 250 cranked up to the max 300 MHz is still cruising along without skipping a beat during daily use in my 9600. That's a sample of two but its two for two so far.

The PowerForce 466/233 ZIF G3 (466/233Z) is rated at 466 MHz and has 1 MB of backside cache running at 233 MHz. The 466/233Z is made for Apple G3 computers that have ZIF CPU slots and works in any of the original beige PowerMac G3s and in the new Blue & White PowerMac Pro G3s. Like all PowerLogix CPU upgrade cards, of course, the 466/233Z has a dial for optimizing CPU performance and comes with software for doing the same with backside cache, another PowerLogix innovation.

PowerLogix loaned me a 466/233Z to review in my new Blue & White PowerMac G3/300.

What You Get¹

The 466/233Z came in a sturdy box with PowerLogix's attractive PowerForce G3 slip cover. It was held firmly in place with top and bottom foam pads so I suspect that any shipping damage is not likely. Also included were an instruction booklet with an addendum for new Blue & White PowerMac G3 (B&W) owners and a floppy disk with PowerLogix's utility software. Hmmm...the B&W doesn't have a floppy disk drive. Fortunately, the software is available for download off PowerLogix's web site. In my case, my other computers with floppy drives are networked anyway.

The 466/233Z is made by IBM and uses the new copper technology. It is about 60% of the size of the Motorola 300/150Z that came with my B&W and that uses aluminum technology. The 466/233Z has a small dial switch with settings labeled from "D" through "F" and "0" through "7" which sets the ratio of CPU to system bus clock speeds. The range in ratio settings is 3.0 up to 8.0 in half steps, i.e. 200-533 MHZ for a beige G3's 67 MHz system bus and 300-800 MHz for a B&W G3's 100 MHz system bus.

The 11-page instruction booklet has a hardware installation guide with eight illustrations and a software guide with two illustrations. It also has a short troubleshooting list and the warranty. The guides adequately cover the subject. I don't think anyone will have a problem installing either the hardware or the software. The troubleshooting list covers the things that the user might encounter that are fixable. PowerLogix offers a good limited 3-year warranty on this product. The addendum covers the CPU speed switch settings for the B&W G3 which are different due to a 100 MHz system bus speed instead of a 67 MHz system bus speed in the older beige G3s.

The floppy disk contains PowerLogix's G3 Cache Control utility and Speedmeter. The Cache Control utility is used to enable and disable backside cache and to adjust the ratio of the CPU speed relative to that of the backside cache in several steps from 1:1 to 3:1. The default value of the 466/233Z is, of course, 2:1. Speedmeter tells one the CPU, system bus and backside cache clock speeds and gives a read-out of internal CPU temperature. The temperature reading provided by the CPU and several utilities is a controversial parameter since in some cases readings given are less that ambient room temperature, an impossibility. I have never had impossibly low or high readings from Speedmeter.

Installation And Setup¹

The relevant specifications for the test computer is as follows:

Apple Blue & White PowerMac Pro G3

• Motorola G3 (PowerPC 750) running at 300 MHz
• 512K of backside cache running at 150 MHz
• 128 MB PC100 RAM
• ATi Rage 128-bit graphics card
• VillageTronic MacMagic 3Dfx Voodoo1 graphics accelerator
• Stock 6GB IBM ATA hard drive, formatted in 1 partition with HFS+
• Mac OS 8.6
• Libmoto extension enabled
• Virtual memory off

Installation of the 466/233Z CPU is a breeze, well, almost. Turn the B&W computer off, pop open the door and lay it out flat. Pop off the heat sink's metal brace with a screw driver, lift off the heat sink, lift the lever and lift the old CPU out. Then insert the 466/233Z after carefully lining up the pins. However, unlike other ZIF CPUs tested, the 466/233's rotary switch ends up under the edge of the ATi Rage 128 video card. Care must be taken to get it under the edge of the video card (or remove the video card) and the pins aligned properly. Re-seat the lever, snap the heat sink in place with the brace and close up. After placing, pulling and replacing cards that use PDS or PCI slots with much difficulty including slot breakage, the ZIF slot for CPUs in the beige and B&W G3s is great.

The 466/233Z came set at 450 MHz (the "0" setting at 4.5:1) the default for the B&W. The great thing about the B&W's case is that it runs with the door containing the motherboard open and laid flat. I started up and using the G3 Cache Control utility enabled the cache at the default ratio of 2:1, i.e. 225 MHz. The B&W ran perfectly.

However, I wanted to see how fast it would go. After all, one of the main features of a PowerLogix CPU upgrade card is the ability to optimize its performance so I changed the setting from "0" (450 MHz) to "1" (500 MHz). The B&W started up fine at 500 MHz with the backside cache disabled so I shut it down, switched to 550 MHz and restarted. No luck, the B&W wouldn't boot up so I reset it to 500 MHz and closed up.

Using the G3 Cache Control utility I set the backside cache at the default 2:1 ratio, i.e. 250 MHz since the CPU was running at 500 MHz and the 466/233Z ran fine. However, if I increased the cache speed (a lower ratio of 3:2), the B&W froze.

Use

The 466/233Z was set at 500/250 in my B&W and used for three weeks as my principal working computer. No problems were encountered with extensive use of Netscape 4.5.1 or 4.6, Outlook Express 4.5, Fetch 3.0.3, Funnel Web 2.0.3, CyberStudio 3.1.1, WordPerfect 3.5.4, Word 8, Adobe PhotoDeluxe 1.1, Virtual PC 2.1.2, Connectix Virtual Game Station 1.2 with Tomb Raider III and other games like Quake, Unreal, Myth II and Nanosaur. In fact, Tomb Raider III on CVGS, like with the 400/200z, appeared as smooth and as quick as on a Sony PlayStation, clearly better than the stock 300/150 G3 CPU.

Then I ran the following performance tests against PowerLogix's 400/200Z and the stock Apple 300/150Z.

Test Scores and Rates (seconds & frames/second)

Test	PL 466/233Z*	B&W 300/150**	PL 400/200Z**
MacBench 5.0 CPU	1618	900	1363
MacBench 5.0 FPU	2086	1247	1863
MacBench 5.0 Disk	1133	1116	1173
MacBench 5.0 Graphics	3027	2263	2894
BYTEMark DR3 CPU	16.1	9.6	14.3
BYTEMark DR3 FPU	10.8	6.4	9.5
Open CyberStudio file (sec)	12	32	25
Virtual PC Launch (sec)	27	49	31
Walker Atrium Spin (fps)	40.0	25.2	36.0
Quake RAVE Demo2 (fps)	66.6	45.1	45.4
Quake 3Dfx Demo2 (fps)	30.5	23.1	31.2
Unreal Software (fps)	17.6	11.3	15.9
Unreal 3Dfx (fps)	24.4	19.3	20.6

*Mac OS 8.6. Optimized to 500 MHz with backside cache set to 250 MHz. Virtual memory off and Libmoto enabled

**Mac OS 8.5.1. PL 400/200Z optimized to 450 MHz with backside cache at 180 MHz, Virtual Memory off and Libmoto enabled.

The raw processor scores, either integer or floating point, for the PowerLogix 466/233Z card were roughly 70-80 per cent higher than the stock Apple card and 10-15 percent higher than the 400/200 running at 450/180. These results are in line with the difference in processor clock speed, although the PowerLogix's cache speed and size were also greater.

Opening a large file that launched CyberStudio until it parsed the file's HTML code was over twice as fast on the PowerLogix 466/233Z card than on the 400/200Z card and nearly 3 times faster than with the stock Apple card. This is truly useful speed and is substantially faster than the increase in CPU and cache speed. The speed increase was proportional for launching Virtual PC. Virtual PC v2.1.2 running Windows 95 was smooth and very quick. The RAVE version of Quake II is incredibly fast on the B&W's new ATi Rage 128-bit graphics card with the 466/233Z, obtaining a frame rate nearly 50 percent faster than either of the other two cards. The other game frame rates are not remarkable except for the 3Dfx version of Quake II which was actually slightly lower for the 466/233Z. Perhaps using Mac OS 8.6 with the 466/233Z instead of 8.5.1 had something to do with these results.

Conclusions

The PowerLogix PowerForce G3 ZIF 466/233Z CPU upgrade card made my Blue & White PowerMac Pro G3 one of the fastest personal computers on the planet! Juiced to 500 MHz, it blows by the performance of Apple's fastest offering today. There was nary a significant problem with any of my regular software under heavy use over the course of three weeks. There seemed to be a bit more freezes and crashes than with the stock CPU or the PL 400/200Z previously tested but there weren't many to know for sure. Launching Speedmeter, however, regularly froze the computer with the 466/233Z. This did not happen with the stock CPU or the 400/200Z tested last month. Perhaps this was due to an out of spec RAM chip that has worked fine otherwise. The 466/233Z was relatively easy to install. However, it needed a bit more care to place it in the socket since the rotary switch is under the edge of the video card. It's easiest to just remove the video card. The documentation is more than minimally adequate. The ZIF CPU upgrade cards make the most economic sense for those who have beige G3s with 233-300 MHz CPU's, especially at the bargain special rate currently offered by PowerLogix. However, by buying the lowend new B&W PowerMac G3/300 at discount for $1,300-1,400, one can upgrade with the 466/233Z to run at 500 MHz. The cost of doing so at PowerLogix's current price with the deal-mac special of $665 is virtually a wash cost-wise with the slower stock 400 MHz B&W from Apple. PowerLogix offers a 3-year limited warranty. Both of my PowerLogix CPU upgrade cards, overclocked to the max and used every day, are still performing like new some 18-24 months later.

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¹Two sections virtually verbatim from Macs Only!'s review of the PowerLogix 400/200Z since most everything is identical except the CPU and cache speeds.

. . [Macs Only!]

Copyright © 1999 by Bill Fox
All rights reserved--no commercial use permitted without attribution.

Of course . . . . . . and I am proud to be an Evangelista! . . .