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Second Class Macs & Road Apples

Performa 600 and Macintosh IIvx

three

Dan Knight - 1998.01.10 - Tip Jar

Road Apples are Apple's most compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they're not completely bad - simply designs that couldn't meet their potential. (On our rating scale, the more brown apples, the worse the hardware.)

The Performa is more deserving of the Road Apple title than any Mac before it, as is it's nearly identical twin, the Mac IIvx. While the "compromised" Macs based on the LC motherboard achieved 70-75% of their potential while running a 32-bit CPU on a 16-bit bus, the IIvx achieved as little as 55% of its potential by running a 32 MHz CPU on a 16 MHz bus. Ouch! And the P600 was even worse, since it didn't include a level 2 cache or support adding one.

One way to make a cheaper computer is to use slower components. Apple designed the IIvx with a 32 MHz 68030 CPU - and a 16 MHz motherboard. A stock IIci with it's 25 MHz 68030 outperformed the IIvx by 30%; adding a level 2 cache (usually 32 KB in those days) made it even faster. In fact, the old 16 MHz Mac IIx outperformed the IIvx on some benchmarks!

The IIvx benchmarked at 2.7. Compare this with 2.9 for the 16 MHz IIx, 3.5 for the 25 MHz IIci (4.3 with cache), and 6.8 for the 40 MHz IIfx. Had the IIvx used a 32 MHz RAM bus, it would have benchmarked at about 5.0. Sigh.

With a few too many compromises, the IIvx was less than expected and a hard sell against the more powerful IIci, at least for those who understood the differences. This is the oldest Mac to earn more than two apples and merit the Road Apple designation.

The best thing about the IIvx/Performa 600 and their 16 MHz sibling, the IIvi, is that they can be upgraded to a Quadra 650 or Power Mac 7100 by swapping the motherboard. LEM

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