Newest Power Macs Eclipse Fastest Pentium-Based Systems

CUPERTINO, California--January 25, 1995--Apple Computer's newest Power
Macintosh systems outperformed Windows computers based on equivalent
clock-speed Pentium processors by an average of 38%, according to a study
recently completed by Ingram Laboratories. Introduced on January 3, 1995,
the new Power Macintosh systems--the Power Mac 6100/66, 7100/80 and
8100/100--extend the performance leadership established by the first Power
Mac models by offering faster processors and memory cache as a standard
feature.

Key findings from the Ingram Labs report include:

- The Power Mac 8100/110 was the fastest computer in the tests, beating a
PC based on a 100 MHz Pentium--Intel's fastest Pentium--by an average of
45%;

- Graphics and publishing applications performed an average of 84 to 94%
faster on Power Macs than on similar clock speed Pentium-based Windows
systems;

- Scientific and engineering applications on the Power Macs outperformed
Pentium-based PCs by as much as 49%, thus demonstrating the floating point
superiority of the PowerPC processor;

- Power Mac demonstrated a performance edge for office productivity
applications of up to 9% over Pentium-based systems.

In addition, the new study reaffirms previous findings which showed Apples
PowerPC 601-based Power Macintosh computers racing past Pentium-based
systems that run at higher clock speeds:

- The Power Macintosh 7100/80 was an average of 31% faster overall than a
90 MHz Pentium-based computer and 19% faster than the 100 MHz Pentium
system;

- A 66 MHz Power Macintosh outperformed a 90 MHz Pentium system by an
average of 15%.

The Ingram study measured performance on a wide variety of programs
including spreadsheets, word processing, business graphics and document
layout. The 58 tasks measured included opening files, scrolling, spell
checking, spreadsheet recalculations, graphing and a variety of other
tasks. Actual applications tested were the latest versions of Microsoft
Excel, Word and FoxPro, ClarisWorks from Claris, Wolfram Research's
Mathematica, Aldus Freehand, Fractal Design's Painter, FrameMaker from
Frame Technology Corporation, Deltagraph Professional from DeltaPoint and
Vellum 3D from Ashlar.

Specifically, the Ingram Laboratories study found the following:

- The Power Macintosh 8100/110 performed an average of 45% faster overall
than the fastest Pentium processor-based computer tested (100 MHz);

- The Power Macintosh 8100/100 performed an average of 39% faster overall
than the 100MHz Pentium processor-based computer tested;

- The Power Macintosh 6100/66 performed an average of 38% faster overall
than the 66 MHz Pentium processor-based computer tested.

"The recent Ingram Labs study validates how Power Macintosh delivers the
performance advantage of the RISC-based PowerPC processor," said Ian
Diery, executive vice president of Apple's personal computer division.
"We're especially gratified to see significant performance advantages of
Power Macintosh for graphics operations because these functions are
becoming more and more common as computers become more graphical."

This new report also reaffirms the sharp contrast between artificial
benchmarks like SPECmarks and real-world applications tests. SPEC
performance ratings are subject to tuning by manufacturers, and therefore,
are not necessarily representative of actual application- level
performance. Ingram Labs found Power Macintosh overall performance on
applications tested to be much higher than Pentium processor-based
computers running at the same clock speed. Apple expects the performance
of many applications to increase, particularly in the office productivity
category, as manufacturers release second-generation native applications.
Performance can vary from application to application; Apple encourages
customers to perform their own tests.

*** Please see attached fact sheet for more information
    on the Ingram Labs study.

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized pioneer and innovator in the information
industry, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to-use personal
computers, servers, peripherals, software, online services, and personal
digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses and markets products, technologies
and services for the business, education, consumer, scientific &
engineering and government markets in over 140 countries.

Ingram Laboratories reports testing scores as Geometric Mean Index scores.
Apple Computer analyzed the results obtained by Ingram Labs in order to
determine relative performance results as reported in the various
application groups.

Ingram Laboratories, a division of Ingram Micro Inc., is an independent
test facility. Ingram Laboratories has been contracted by Apple Computer,
Inc. to perform a specific suite of benchmarks with industry standard
applications as tested on personal computer systems. The test procedures
are designed to take full advantage of both Apple and Intel-based personal
computer system architectures. Ingram Laboratories closely monitors test
procedures to ensure reproducible system configurations and test results.
However, Ingram Laboratories makes no representation or warranty, either
expressed or implied, that this specific suite of benchmarks performed by
Ingram Laboratories pursuant to this agreement constitute an industry
standard benchmark.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ingram Study: Power Macintosh vs. Pentium-based Systems
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Fact Sheet

Methodology

Relative performance of each computer was determined by measuring the time
needed to complete a set of typical functions using a variety of
applications. The tests were designed to simulate everyday tasks. Ingram
ran a total of 58 tests incorporating 10 applications: Microsoft Excel,
Microsoft Word, Microsoft FoxPro, Claris ClarisWorks, Wolfram Research
Mathematica, Aldus Freehand, Fractal Design Painter, Frame Technology
FrameMaker, DeltaPoint DeltaGraph Professional, and Ashlar Vellum 3D. The
tests included standard functions such as opening a file, spreadsheet
recalculations, scrolling, spell checking spreadsheet, graphing and a
variety of other everyday business-oriented tasks.

AST, Compaq, Dell and Gateway computer models tested were selected to be
representative of Intel processor-based computers. These results should
reflect performance for typical Pentium-based computers, but actual
performance may vary from one manufacturer to another. Also, performance
of both Macintosh and Windows is sensitive to configuration. Ingram
attempted to ensure that machines were comparably configured on both
sides.

The results were normalized so no one test carried more weight than any
other. The Power Macintosh systems were running System 7.5 and the
x86-based PCs were running MS-DOS 6.2 and the version of Windows that is
currently shipping on the various PCs. All systems were configured with
similar amounts of memory and factory installed hard disks. The Power
Macintosh 8100 and 7100 computers included standard Power Macintosh high
performance graphics adapters while the 100 MHz and 90 MHz PCs included
accelerated PCI local bus graphics adapters.

Although there are now patches available to help circumvent the Pentium
processor bug, these testing results reported by Ingram Labs do not
reflect the use of these bug patches as they would have adversely affected
application performance on the Pentium-based PCs.

Overall Performance

The overall application level performance of the systems tested by Ingram
Laboratories was:

        Computer                        Relative Performance*
Power Macintosh 8100/110                          5.81
Power Macintosh 8100/100                          5.57
Power Macintosh 7100/80                           4.79
Power Macintosh 6100/66                           4.23
Pentium 100                                       4.01
Pentium 90                                        3.67
Pentium 66                                        3.06
Pentium 60                                        2.80
486DX4/100                                        2.24
Macintosh Quadra 630                              1.85
486/66                                            1.46
486/33                                             1.00

*In multiples of the performance of a 486/33 PC.

The systems tested:

       System                           Processor/Clock speed
Power Macintosh 8100/110                 PowerPC 601/110 MHz
Power Macintosh 8100/100                 PowerPC 601/100 MHz
Power Macintosh 7100/80                  PowerPC 601/80 MHz
Power Macintosh 6100/66                  PowerPC 601/66 MHz
Gateway P5 100XL                         Pentium/100 MHz
Dell XPS P90                             Pentium/90 MHz
Compaq DeskPro 5/66M                     Pentium/66 MHz
AST Bravo MT P60                         Pentium/60 MHz
AST Bravo 4/100T                         DX4/100 MHz
Apple Quadra 630                         68040/33-66 MHz
Compaq Presario 730 CDS                  486DX/66 MHz**
Compaq Deskpro XE433                     486DX/33 MHz**

**Ingram Labs replaced the standard 486SX processors in these computers
with 486DX equivalents to improve floating point performance.

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