Notes: Some explanation of MacBench's scoring system

• Why is the iMac's FPU near the B&W G3/400's score, but the CPU score is much less? This is because MacBench scores systems with 1MB of backside cache (like the B&W G3/400) higher than those with 512KB of cache (like the iMac DV/400). The FPU scores are not as cache affected as the CPU test.

• Baseline Scores: The 1000 baseline score used in MacBench is based on an Apple Beige G3/300 system with 1MB of backside cache running at 150MHz. The iMac DV has a 400MHz G3 CPU with 512KB of backside cache running at 160MHz. MacBench scores are higher with 1MB cache systems, even when tests use the same CPU speed.

• Video Tests: Keep in mind the Macbench 5.0 standard 1000 baseline score is based on a Beige G3/300 with onboard ATI chip at 1152x870 mode, millions colors. The iMac's built-in display has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 at 75Hz. 800x600 tests were run at the default 95Hz.
  

Atto Tools Disk Tests: I like the ATTO Tools built-in benchmark as it shows a graph of disk Read and Write performance across file sizes and displays peak and sustained transfer rates. It also by default does not use the system's disk cache (memory control panel) which should provide a more accurate indication of the actual drive's performance.

The following graph shows the impressive results from the iMac DV SE's 13GB drive which had about 4GB of installed files and was not optimized (defragmented) before the test:

The next page covers the iMac DV SE software bundle. Or you may use the links below to jump to a specific page.