Apple's latest entry-level Macs deliver power, performance, and PCI to the masses
Andrew Gore
New Macs
One problem with the Mac's rapid evolution is that the latest, coolest technology is always the most expensive and the hardest to get. Take PCI.
Introduced a year ago, PCI-based Power Macs have been the most powerful -- and the most costly -- in the Mac panoply. Not anymore. Apple has unveiled the new Power Mac 5400/120, the first system to incorporate Apple's high-speed PCI bus at a price that fits entry-level budgets.
The bad news is that the 5400 is initially being offered only through education resellers. The good news is that Apple has said future consumer Macs will also use the new low-cost PCI-motherboard design, code-named Alchemy. Although the all-in-one 5400 design may never be offered in the consumer market, the Alchemy architecture is the future of education and consumer Macs -- and it's a future we strongly endorse.
Alchemy Rules
Apple's new entry-level Alchemy motherboard design has a tough act to follow: For almost three years, the processor-direct-slot-equipped motherboard that first appeared in the 33-MHz 68040 Quadra 630 -- and that was later updated to PowerPC status in the 5200-, 6200-, and 6300-series systems -- has ruled the low-cost roost. Our tests demonstrate, however, that Alchemy totally eclipses its venerable forefather motherboard.
At the heart of Alchemy is a 64-bit-wide 40-MHz system bus that runs throughout the motherboard -- connecting not only the processor, the Level-2-cache slot, and the ROM but also the RAM. This, combined with Alchemy's ability to utilize current 603e as well as forthcoming 603ev chips (which will have a top clock rate of 240 MHz), gives the design enough headroom to ensure viability for some time.
Other important changes have arrived with Alchemy: There's 8 MB of RAM soldered to the motherboard (the previous processor-direct-slot-equipped design had no onboard RAM). The new RAM slots are 64 bits wide and require 70-ns or faster DIMMs (the earlier design used slower, 32-bit SIMMs). The 5400 is the first entry-level Mac to use Apple's high-speed GeoPort-capable technology in its two serial ports. The 5400's audio is full 16-bit, 44-kHz stereo with SRS 3D sound enhancement; previous 630-style Macs had 8-bit audio (except for the 6300 -- but its 16-bit audio was sampled only at 22 kHz).
In short, Apple has taken its high-end PCI architecture and shrunk it to fit on a 630-style motherboard. And, yes, a 5400 motherboard can fit in any 630-style entry-level Mac. However, at press time, it was unclear whether Apple will offer motherboard upgrades for older systems.
Slots, Old and New
In downsizing PCI, Apple didn't throw compatibility out the window. The new PCI slot is based on the same design as its bigger brethren's, with one exception -- there's space inside the cramped quarters of a 5400 for only a 7-inch PCI card. According to Apple, this won't be a problem, since many Mac PCI cards are already that size or can be easily shrunk from the standard 12-inch form factor to fit the 7-inch space.
On the rest of the motherboard, compatibility also outweighs incompatibility. The TV-tuner slot is unchanged. The Alchemy communications slot can still use the same modem cards that worked in the older 630-style systems. Not so with previous Ethernet cards, however; because the communications slot hooks up to the PCI bus, manufacturers will need to rework their Ethernet cards. The only slot that was significantly altered is the digital-audio-video (DAV) slot on Apple's digital-video-input card. The Alchemy-compatible version of Apple's digital-video card uses the full 60-pin DAV connector; previous models had a 34-pin DVA (Digital Video Analog) audio slot that, as the name suggests, didn't support digital audio. Older DVA-slot-equipped digital-video cards, however, work just fine on the new motherboard.
Fast, Full-Featured, and Fun
The 5400 also includes a slot for an L2 cache card -- and we recommend that you fill it. Our MacBench 3.0 Processor test shows that the L2 cache boosts the 5400's speed by about 30 percent. With an L2 cache installed, the 5400 even edges out the L2-cache-equipped Power Mac 7200/120, the low end of Apple's latest mainstream PCI Macs.
On the MacBench Disk Mix and Graphics Mix tests, the 5400 scored higher than any entry-level Mac yet -- on the Graphics Mix test, a 5400 with an L2 cache was almost twice as fast as a 5260/100 without a cache (see the "No Big Deal" sidebar). On the Publishing Disk Mix test, the 5400 fell just a little short of its cheaper cousin, a slippage attributable to the higher-capacity but slower IBM drive Apple ships in the 5400.
However, in comparison to those of the relatively poky 7200/120, the new entry-level Mac's disk and graphics scores fell well short. Here again the 5400 was hampered by a slow drive and by its use of dynamic RAM instead of the faster video RAM, used in the 7200. So, although the 5400 is without a doubt the best of breed for Apple's entry-level education line, it is not likely to steal many sales from mainstream Power Macs.
For $2,299, the 5400 includes a 120-MHz 603e processor, 16 MB of RAM, a 1.6-GB Enhanced IDE hard-disk drive, a 4x CD-ROM drive, a digital-video-in card, a display-video-out connector, a 10BASE-T Ethernet card, and an NTSC-video converter that lets the 5400 use a television as a second monitor. Even factoring in the extra $100 for a cache card -- which Apple Marketing has christened the High Performance Module -- the 5400 remains a good deal. In comparison, the $2,025 7200/120 we tested comes with 16 MB of RAM, a 1-GB hard drive, and a 256K L2 cache -- but that price doesn't include a monitor, speakers, a digital-video-in card, or the extra 600 MB of storage space the 5400 comes with. (The 7200/120 that's sold in the education market has a 1.2-GB hard drive and 16 MB of RAM and costs $2,056.)
Also missing from other Power Macs is the 5400's fun factor: The 5400 has the same compact form factor as its 5200-series predecessors, integrating a 15-inch color display into a tilt-and-swivel all-in-one chassis that makes the 5400 look more like an AV monitor than a computer. Although the speakers sound somewhat tinny, the stereo separation coming out of them is terrific, thanks to the SRS 3D sound processing. Also, the flat shadow-mask display is the sharpest Apple has delivered in an all-in-one design and the monitor supports multiple resolutions -- 16-bit color at 640 x 480 pixels and 800 x 600 pixels and 8-bit color at 832 x 624 pixels.
The Bottom Line
In the ever quickening game of Mac OS-system one-upmanship, it's getting harder to declare a winner based strictly on speed. As we went to press, the 5400 represented the most bang you could get for around $2,300. However, even a month can make a huge difference in a marketplace where processor speed is doubling every year. A 120-MHz 603e may seem slow by this fall, once Motorola begins shipping the 133- or even 166-MHz 603e chips it has on tap.
The potential for processor obsolescence aside, the 5400 is one slick machine. By delivering such a speedy Mac at such a reasonable price, Apple is also keeping its entire line -- not just its high-end systems -- competitive with the best that PC-clone makers can offer.
Andrew Gore is the editor of MacUser.
Apple Power Macintosh 5400/120 Rating: Outstanding/Very Good (4.5 of 5 mice)
Good News: It's fast, inexpensive, and loaded with features, and it includes a PCI slot.
Bad News: You can buy it only through education resellers, for now.
Invest in Cache / new Macs benefit from optional Level-2 cache
One impressed us, the other was a bit disappointing, and both performed far better with an optional Level-2 cache card.
Although the 5260 and the 5400 ship without an L2 cache, we also tested them with a 256K cache card. Buy one -- it's the best $100 power boost you'll ever find.
The MacBench 3.0 Processor test measures overall CPU and memory-subsystem speed. The Floating Point test measures calculations common in tasks such as 3-D rendering. The Disk Mix and Graphics Mix tests emulate how the 12 best-selling Mac applications exercise the hard-drive and display systems. The Publishing Disk Mix test and the Publishing Graphics Mix test emulate Photoshop and QuarkXPress use. All tests were conducted with 16 MB of RAM and with System 7.5.3 or System 7.5 with System Update 2.0 installed (except on the 5200/75, which was tested with System 7.5.1). All MacBench 3.0 scores are relative to those of a Power Mac 6100/60 (with a 250-MB Quantum internal hard drive and with built-in graphics hardware), which is assigned a score of 10.0 in each test.
configuration
macbench 3.0 scores
Processor Floating Point Disk Mix Publishing Disk Mix Graphics Mix Publishing Graphics Mix
Installed Processor Hard-Dis L2 Cache Capacity
Power Mac 5400 / lots of slots in a small package
1 Slide-in motherboard
Although the 120-MHz 603e on the 5400/120's motherboard is soldered on, the entire motherboard slides easily out the back and can be replaced when faster chips arrive.
2 PCI-based communications slot
This custom slot can support any modem card -- but no Ethernet card -- that worked in earlier, 630-style systems. A newly designed 10BASE-T Ethernet card is standard in the 5400/120s sold in the K - 12 market.
3 PCI slot
Among the 7-inch PCI cards that'll fit in the 5400/120's PCI slot is Apple's own Cyrix 5x86-equipped PC Compatibility Card. PCI cards must be plugged into an L-shaped riser connector that holds the card parallel to the motherboard.
4 Video-out connector
Just above the backup battery is a video-out connector that, with a special ribbon cable and port available from Apple, allows a 5400/120 to use a second monitor.
5 ROM slot
Although the motherboard has a ROM card inserted in a special slot, this slot is only for testing. Production units will have two ROM chips soldered into the empty spaces next to this slot.
6 Level-2-cache slot
The L2-cache slot is empty on the 5400/120; speed increases noticeably if you add an L2-cache card. Apple offers a 256K L2-cache card for around $100.
7 DIMM slots
The two 64-bit-wide DIMM slots are independently configurable -- that is, they can accommodate DIMMs of various capacities.
8 Digital-video-in slot
This slot is identical to the slot on the 630-style Macs. Although you can still use an old-style digital-video card, the new cards include a 60-pin DAV slot rather than the 34-pin DVA slot common on older cards.
Accessing the motherboard is as easy as sliding open a desk drawer.
No Big Deal / the 5260 is penny-wise, cache-stupid
If ever there Were a poster child for a Level-2 cache, the new Power Mac 5260/100 is it. The 5260/100 looks to be the last in the line of education Macs based on the Quadra 630 architecture. Like its predecessor, the 5200/75 LC, the 5260/100 takes a PowerPC chip (a 100-MHz 603e) and plugs it into a processor subsystem that offers a 64-bit-wide data path between the CPU, the ROM, and an L2-cache slot. Other than having a faster processor, the motherboard remains virtually identical to that of the old 630-style machines.
Besides the faster processor, the 5260/100's big "improvement" is the departure of a combo slot for both ROM and the L2 cache. As a result, Apple unbundled the L2 cache and sells it for about $100.
Without the L2 cache, the 5260/100 got a Processor score of only 8.7, 13 percent slower than the cache-equipped 5200/75. With the L2 cache, the Processor score jumps to 13.1. The faster processor is a nice idea, but its speed kick evaporates without an L2 cache. Anyone looking to pick up a 5260 should factor in another $100 if they want a system that performs as well as the Mac they could have bought a month or two ago.
Apple Power Macintosh 5260/100 Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Good News: It's inexpensive, and it has 16 MB of RAM.
Bad News: It's slow without the optional $100 L2-cache card, and you can buy it only through education resellers, for now.
BooKmark
For more information on the Power Mac 5400/120 and the Power Mac 5260/100, check out Apple's education Web site at http://www.education.apple.com/.
