[l008com]

What is the difference between these two machines, other than the standard CD ROM drive they come with, I can't seem to find a single difference between them. A assume the same thing goes for the 8600, what were these machines? the X600's?

[zac4mac]

The biggest difference I'm aware of was a change to the memory bus.
From what I understand, the 9600's had a 2x(100MHz) memory bus but still ran a 50Mhz system bus.
Not sure if Apple did this to the 8600 and 7600,too.
Should be able to run Gauge Pro and check memory transfer rate and see a difference.
Also. I think the cases were easier to get into.

[druber]

Don't they have different mobo's? I was quite sure that the X500 series were based on the Tsunami board (as were a few clones) while the 86/9600 series was based on the Kansas board. The Kansas mobo could make use of the Mach5 604ev processors, which cranked up to 350mhz. I don't know that that makes for much of a difference if you're dropping in a G3/G4 card, but it sure was a difference at the time.

[drewman]

The other big difference is the case - the 9600 has the same case as the Beige G3 - making it much easier to get into and change things than the 9500 which is guaranteed to make you bleed to change memory.

drewman

[l008com]

Are the motherboards interchangeable? Do all the slots and stuff line up?