Power Macintosh 9600
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| Release date | February 17, 1997 |
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| Introductory price | $3,700-$4,700 |
| Discontinued | March 17, 1998 |
| Operating system | System 7.5.5-Mac OS 9.1 officially supported, Mac OS 9.2.2 with OS 9 Helper, Mac OS X 10.2.8 if XPostFacto is used for unofficial support, Mac OS X 10.4.11 with XPostFacto and a G3 CPU upgrade, or Mac OS X 10.5 with a G4 CPU upgrade |
| CPU | PowerPC 604e or 604ev @ dual 200, single 200 - 350 MHz |
| Memory | 32 MB, expandable to 1.5 GB (70 ns 168-pin DIMM) |
The Power Macintosh 9600 (Codename: "Kansas"; also sold with additional server software as the Apple Workgroup Server 9650) is a personal computer that is a part of Apple Computer's Power Macintosh series of Macintosh computers. It was introduced in February 1997 alongside the Power Macintosh 7300 and the Power Macintosh 8600, and replaced the Power Macintosh 9500 as Apple's flagship desktop computer. It was the last Macintosh model able to boot and run System 7 natively.
The 9600 came in the same new case as the 8600, but was internally very similar to the 9500 that preceded it, with 12 RAM slots and 6 PCI slots instead of the 8 RAM and 3 PCI slots on the 8600. The 9600 used the new PowerPC 604e CPU, an enhanced version of the 9500 604. On introduction, three processor configurations were available: single 200 MHz, dual 200 MHz and single 233 MHz. In August 1997, they were replaced by two new models, with a single 300 MHz or 350 MHz "Mach 5" 604ev with a larger L2 cache. The 350 MHz model was initially discontinued in October due to CPU supply problems, but reintroduced on February 17 when the 300 MHz model was discontinued in favor of the new Power Macintosh G3 minitower - 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 needed that kind of expandability.
Unlike the 8600, the PowerMac 9600 has no built-in video; instead, it shipped with an 8MB 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 six-slot model to date. However, no version of OS X was officially supported by Apple, its installation and use requiring the use of the third-party software solution XPostFacto and OS X 10.3 or 10.4 only available if a G3 processor upgrade is installed (and OS X 10.5 with a G4). It was also the last Mac to support System 7; subsequent models (G3+) required OS 8 or later.
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