Adobe to release G4 plug-in AltiVec extensions were installed. The OS 9 AltiVec extensions improved Photoshop scores slightly when the XLR8 AltiVec plug-in was used with Photoshop. No gain in performance was found however with other programs or Photoshop without the plug-in. Each test was performed multiple times to ensure consistency and accuracy. All tests were performed using only current versions of the software each upgrade provided.
Longer bars indicate faster performance.
For evaluation, each G4 upgrade is compared to other upgrades, in addition to a 350 MHz G3 reference upgrade. These tests should give an idea of general performance in relation to each upgrade. As expected, MacBench scores only varied slightly across all products. Each card has unique software and hardware implementation, but share similar G4 hardware. Any variations between upgrade performance will only be slight, and likely due to unique hardware and software implementation.