The Power Macintosh 9600 (also sold with additional server software as the Apple Workgroup Server 9650) is a

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

that is a part of

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

Power Macintosh The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Mac (computer), Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''Mac ...

series of

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

computers. It was introduced in February 1997 alongside the Power Macintosh 7300 and 8600, and replaced the

Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (additionally sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in some regions of Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 pro ...

as Apple's flagship desktop computer. The 9600 was replaced by the

Power Macintosh G3 The Power Macintosh G3 (also sold with additional software as the Macintosh Server G3) is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer from November 1997 to August 1999. It represented Apple's fi ...

Mini Tower in Apple's product lineup in November 1997, with sales of the 9600 continuing until March 1998.

Models

When introduced, the Power Macintosh 9600 was available with three processor configurations: single-processor 200 MHz, dual-processor 200 MHz, and single-processor 233 MHz. The line was updated in August 1997 with a single-processor 300 MHz or 350 MHz "Mach 5" 604ev with a larger

L2 cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...

, priced at $4,500 and $5,300, respectively. An updated Workgroup Server 9650 was introduced at the same time with a 350 MHz CPU, and could be ordered pre-configured as an application server,

AppleShare AppleShare is a discontinued product from Apple Computer which implements various network services. Its main purpose is to act as a file server, using the AFP protocol. Other network services implemented in later versions of AppleShare included a ...

server or Internet server, with prices ranging from $6,800 to US$7,500 depending on the software package chosen. The 350 MHz model was initially discontinued in October due to CPU supply problems, but reintroduced on February 17, 1998 when the 300 MHz model was discontinued in favor of the new

Mini Tower. While the G3 was faster, its expandability was only on par with the 8600, so the 9600 was kept available until March for users that required it.

Hardware

Apple 820-0865-A Power Mac 9600 Motherboard-0928

The 9600 came in a new case identical to the 8600, but was internally similar to the 9500 that preceded it, with 12 memory slots and 6

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Prov ...

expansion card slots instead of the 8 memory and 3 PCI slots on the 8600. The 9600 used the new

PowerPC 604e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC microprocessor, processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Som ...

CPU, an enhanced version of the 9500

604 __NOTOC__ Year 604 ( DCIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 604 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe f ...

Like its predecessor, the Power Macintosh 9600 has no built-in video; instead, it shipped with an 8 MB IXMICRO TwinTurbo 128-bit PCI video card installed. The Power Macintosh 9600/350 was the most powerful Mac ever in Apple's four-digit model numbering system, the last multiprocessor Mac for three years, and the last model with six or more expansion slots until the 2019 Mac Pro. No version of OS X was officially supported by Apple on the 9600; its installation and use required the use of the third-party software solution XPostFacto. Mac OS X 10.3 or 10.4 was only possible with a G3 processor upgrade installed, and OS X 10.5 was possible with a G4 upgrade. The 9600 was part of the final generation of Macs to ship with a

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

hard drive as a standard feature; subsequent Macs adopted IDE for the internal hard drive bus.

Technical specifications

Timeline

Notes

References

External links

Power Macintosh 9600
at Low End Mac * EveryMac.com: * Power Macintosh: *

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{{Apple hardware before 1998 9600 9600 Macintosh towers Computer-related introductions in 1997