PowerMac 7200 speed enhancements

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.barefeats.com/7200.html

Looking for Advertisers
To Contact BARE FEATS, Click Here

Which is a better investment for a PowerMac 7200 owner, a graphics accelerator or just more VRAM and L2 cache?
(1 July 1997)

© 1997 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
Gotta Question? Comment? Want to advertise?
Email Rob Art at barefoot@hawaii.rr.com

According to MacBench 4.0, the biggest boost comes from the L2 cache. Based on MacBench scores, adding either the VRAM or Twin Turbo on top of that gives only modest additional gains.

On the other hand, for raw "onboard" QuickDraw power, the Twin Turbo is clearly the champ running 2.5 times the speed of the standard 7200. Yet, let's not sneeze at the 50% gain provided by VRAM.

If scrolling is your thing, the Twin Turbo kicks, but let's hear it for the L2/VRAM "one-two punch." I used WordPerfect 3.5 for this test.

The above graph shows that when it comes to transferring graphics data to and from the graphics controller, it's hard to beat built-in video. It also dramatizes the jump from 32 bit to 64 bit graphics provided when you increase the VRAM from 1MB to 2MB. This test is probably the best predictor of simulation game performance.

OBSERVATIONS & CONCLUSIONS

I have yet to see a PowerMac that doesn't benefit greatly from adding L2 cache. Apple recommends only 256K for the 7200, although many users have had success with 512K L2 cache. I would try the latter since it should give an added 20% boost.
Until a "reader" pointed it out to me, I didn't realize that the 7200 was only running 32 bit graphics when it had only 1MB of VRAM. Adding only one 1MB "stick" of VRAM makes it a 64 bit graphics machine as the test results clearly show. The Apple Tech Library confirms this in the FAQ section on 7200's. Thanks to Jon Rothrock for pointing this out.
If you are on a tight budget and want to give your 7200 a kick in the pants, for as little as $70, you can add both a 256K L2 cache and a 1MB stick of VRAM (see my HotDeals page for where to buy). According to MacBench, those two bargain mods will give your CPU a 34% boost and your 16 bit GRAPHICS a 67% boost. You can spend another $300 on a 4MB Twin Turbo, but the gains don't justify the price.
Whether you have a 7200/75 or 7200/90, you can expect to see the gains recorded above.

TEST PARAMETERS

Test bed was an Apple Power Macintosh 7200
sporting a PPC 601 running at 90MHz
and 24MB of DRAM
System was 7.6.1
Extensions turned on included Apple CD-ROM, Control Strip, Open Transport, QuickDraw 3D 1.5.1, QuickTime 2.5, Shared Library Manager, SystemAV, and required graphics accelerator drivers (Twin Turbo Acceleration or 7200 Graphics Accelerator)
Virtual memory was turned OFF; (NO Speed Doubler & NO Ram Doubler)
An Apple 13" Trinitron (circa 1987) monitor was used set to "thousands" (16 bit) during all testing. All tests were run at the 640 x 480 setting.
Built-in video was tested with 1MB and 2MB of VRAM.
The Twin Turbo 128 had 4MB of EDO VRAM courtesy of MacGurus
Testing was done with and without the 256K of Level 2 cache installed.

RETURN to bare feats main page

© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
Gotta Question? Comment? Want to advertise?
Email Rob Art at barefoot@hawaii.rr.com

Looking for Advertisers
To Contact BARE FEATS, Click Here