Apple Powermac 8600/250mHz Computer

The Apple Power Macintosh 8600/250, based on the Kansas architecture, features a 300 MHz PowerPC 604e processor, 32 MB of RAM, a 4.0 GB hard

Powermac 8600

drive, an internal Zip drive, graphics acceleration, and built-in 24-bit composite and S-video for near-broadcast-quality video input and output in a well-designed, easy-to-upgrade tower case.

Like the Power Macintoshes 7300 and 9600, the 8600 featured the new PowerPC 604e and 604ev CPU, an enhanced version of the PowerPC 604 used

8600 Motherboard

in the predecessor models 8500 and 9500. It used the same new case as the 9600, but was somewhat less expandable (8 instead of 12 RAM sockets, 3 instead of 6 PCI slots) at a lower price, a distinction that was carried over from the x500 generation.The 8600 was plagued with supply problems from the beginning, and only in June 1997, four months after its introduction, the computer was widely available. The 300 MHz model was also delayed after its introduction, but not as heavily as the original model had been.

Although it used the same cleverly designed case as the 9600, the 8600 was a less costly, less expandable machine. The 250 and 300 MHz versions sometimes had an extra powerful 560W power supply (vs. 390W on the regular 9600) to drive the power hungry 250 and 300 MHz 604e processor. These models also has a 1 MB L2 cache, 64 MB of RAM, and 8 MB of video memory.