Power Macintosh 9600

Background

The 9600 was packaged in an eye-pleasing new tower design, built to make its insides more easily accessible. It ran on 233, 200 or dual 200 MHz 604e's. Although it looked different on the outside, the logic board was basically the same design as that of the 9500. The 9600 was originally priced at $4,700 U.S. for the dual 200 MHz configuration, $4,200 U.S. for the single 233 MHz, and $3,700 U.S. for the single 200 MHz. In August, the 9600 was "speed bumped" with either a 300 or 350 MHz "Mach 5" chip, a new high speed variant on the 604e. The 350 MHz version barely shipped before Apple took it off the market, partially because of the small supply of 350 MHz chips, but mostly because their upcoming PPC 750-based "Gossamer" Macs (the PowerMac G3) would eclipse it both in performance and price. The 350-MHz 9600 returned several months later to fill out the High-End market. While the G3 was in many cases faster, its logic board had only three PCI slots and three RAM slots. With superior expandability, the 9600 was still the high-end choice for many.