Hm. yeah, I don't know what, if anything, would impact the performance. If you used a composite benchmarking application like macbench, an 840 may win with a better GPU or for having better SCSI performance, even though it wouldn't necessarily win at things like gaussian blurs.
Tests would be better performed by someone who has both, ideally with SCSI2SDs as boot devices and relatively simple system software installs. Perhaps even a 7.6.1 install with all relevant enablers so you can confidently say that aspect is common among the machines.
Yeah, it's like comparing a G3 to Performa whatever. G3 (and 4s) were THE high end macs. Or like above kind of said, an SE/30 to a plus. Of course after a few years the low ends will blow past the high ends.
The Performa line got discontinued around that time. I believe the Performa
name was dropped in 1996 or very early 1997 and so among those systems only the 6500 was really contemporary with the G3s, and only for a few months leading up to the introduction of the Beige G3 All-In-One for the education market and the iMac for the home market.
Actually, 1997-1999 was a pretty interesting time in the Mac product line, because after essentially inventing the product category of notebook computers(1) for consumers, Apple had the clearest product line ever. There was a consumer side and a desktop side and on each side there was a desktop and laptop. All of the models had pretty similar performance, it was really just a matter of what form factor you wanted, and it was presumed that the expansion and modularity (external monitor) of the beige and blue-and-white G3s would be preferred by pros.
It was a really great condensing from the mid '90s. In late 1995 or early 1996 there was, in no particular order, the Performa 630, 580, PowerMac 5200, 5300, 6200, 6300, 7200, 7500, 8200, 8500, 9500 (and models of each: such as the different 7500/100 and 7500/132), and PowerBooks 190, 5300, 280, 280c, 2300c, 520, 520c, 540, 540c, and probably one I can't remember - not counting the 1400 introduced in 96.
In 1995 you could literally buy either a 33MHz LC'040 or a 150MHz Power Macintosh, and then buy upgrade cards for that PowerMac. The jump from the 630 to the 6100 or the 6200 is pretty significant, but I think Apple got away with it because there was still a large group of people who wanted a Mac, inexpensively, and for whom performance wasn't particularly important. Running a cd-rom encyclopedia and clarisworks wasn't appreciably faster on a 6100 or a 9500 than a 630.
Anecdotally, I wrote a few dozen pages of what I was hoping would be a novel-length text on my PB180, PM6100/66, 840av, and PB1400/166C using a diskette, MacWritePro, Resolve, and some simpletext files for notes. For that particular workflow, all the systems were fine, but my favorite to use was the 840av, especially once I got that big monitor, and the fastest was definitely the PB1400.
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As a general note about "the forgotten macs" -- it's worthwhile to note that in situ, systems like the SE/30, IIfx, 840, 900/950 and the like basically make up the small minority of Macs that were ever in production use. Setups involving those systems could easily reach over $10,000, not counting the cost of other computing infrastructure (file servers, removable media) and software. Often, these machines started at around $5000 for the machine, TextEdit, and a mouse, so you're not looking at something people were able to bring home(2).
I don't know if there's specific numbers about these, but I'm betting most pro work that happened on Macs happened on the midrange models. In the early '90s that'd be things like the 610/650 and in the mid-late '90s that'd be things like the 6100/7100, 7200/7500. We know from people who post here (Thinking of Trash80-to-hpmini for example) that used and low end Macs were often considered good enough, even for graphics work.
I have 840s because I happened to find them cheap. In the early 2000s there was a retailer near me with piles of 610s, 650s, 800s, and 840s, and they were all almost the same price. I think I paid a $5 premium for my 840 over a 650/800, which is a lot less than the thousand or so premium an 840 would have commanded over a 650 in 1993, so I went for it.
If I had one piece of advice for "everyone" it's that today it's probably worth getting started with whatever you happen to be able to get your hands on it. There's no practical difference today between something like a nice IIsi or IIci or a good LC and an 840 or 950 unless you have very specific desires.
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One comment about "based on" -- the Performa 200/400 series were based on existing Macs, the Classic and LC series in particular. The Performa 500 series was based on the LC500 series. The performa 600 was based on the IIvi/vx.
The Performa 630 was designed as the Performa 630, and then later re-badged as Quadra and LC as an attempt to sell a greater variety of machines. The LCs into education market and the Quadras into office supply stores.
A machine designed as a Quadra or Centris would probably have ended up looking more like the 610/660 or 650. With 20/20 hindsight, it's easy to say that Apple probably should have just built a taller LC475/Performa475 with a 5.25 bay for a CD drive, or done up a cheap Q/C 610-650 variation for homes. Not having had the 630 design to start with later in 1995, the Power Macintosh and Performa 5200/6200 series would likely have been better, perhaps starting from a full PowerPC platform up front.
Anyway, just be aware that this particular machine was explicitly designed to be used in homes and classrooms for clarisworks and cdrom encyclopedias, as opposed to the professional-minded designs of the Quadras or the cost-savings designs of the LCs and Classics.
But that's particularly tangential.
(1) You could probably argue Compaq or Dell got there a year or so before, it would depend on when the Presario and Inspiron notebooks were introduced, but the 1400 was never meant to be a home/consumer computer -- it was a budget conscious business notebook. Same with machines like the 145B and the 150.
(2) That's another revalation of the Beige G3 family, it was one of the first times that the same model the professionals were buying was available pretty reasonably for under $3000 or so. Before that, only the 5000/6000 series and sometimes limited members of the 7000 families were reasonable for families.
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