PowerMacintosh 9600 Owners Wanted!

[georgelien]

Hi,

Any of you tried running MacOS X on an upgraded PM9600?

I'm thinking about getting some PM9600s, upgrade them to G3/400 with at least 512MB of RAM to run OS X, but not sure how well it will run, so I came up here to see if any of you have done this before.

Please share your experience with me.

I thank you in advance.

Best Regards,
George Lien

[Arden]

Despite not being a 9600 user, I can assure you that you will see much improved performance with such upgrades in OS X. I'd say go the extra mile and get a G4, or go two extra miles and get a faster G4.

[fryke]

Depending on what you want to achieve... What do you want to use them for?

If they're going to be client machines, think about what applications they will be running. The maximum OS you will be able to install right now is, I think 10.2.6. You won't be able to install Panther.

You might also want to think about just using OS 9.2.2 on them. It's quite a fast operating system for those machines.

But to really be able to give you an advice, we'd have to know what the machines will be used for.

[RacerX]

You would be doing yourself a favor by upgrading the video card if your system came with the one Apple bundled with them.

An ATI Rage 128 would be a good starting point (with 16 MB of VRAM). Mac OS X tries to pass off a lot of work on to the video processor when it can.

I would also second the use of a G4 if possible. Mac OS X also makes use of Altivec for interface features. Considering the slow system bus, every little bit would be helpful (like using another slot for a Sonnet Tempo Trio to add ATA 133, USB and Firewire).

That should still leave you with 4 open PCI slots if that was why you wanted to use the 9600 to start with.

[mindbend]

Warning: I am an upgrade card hater.

Prepare yourself for a completely lackluster, frustrating and money-wasting experience. I have no idea on earth why anyone would want to upgrade a 9600 to be able to run OS X. You simply are not going to be satisfied with the result unless you have the lowest of expectations.

Just so you're aware of my position and how biased it is, I personally find OS X's (GUI) performance barely adequate on even the best G4's. I've got a Power Computing equivalent to the 9600 and did a G3 upgrade and put OS X on it. What was I thinking?! Total waste. I'd sooner use a Vic 20 as a mainframe.

Yes, I imagine a G4 upgrade would indeed be faster. But it's only going to get so good. If your needs are simple, like opening Simpletext in under 30 seconds and typing maybe two or three words, then I say, go for it!

Sorry, just having a little fun. But seriously, I hate upgrade cards. I say do what it takes to get new machines and go from there. Easier said than done, I guess, but still...

[Arden]

The G5's actually have a lot of the features that you would need to buy PCI cards for to use on the 9600, like 100/1000 Base-T Ethernet, DVD Superdrives (the 9600 has a 1.4 MB SuperDrive floppy drive... ), a more-than-decent 8x AGP graphics card, USB 1/2 and Firewire 400/800, and of course something you can't package in PCI: that awesome handles-equipped coolness factor. G5's are plentiful but expensive, so if you can afford it, you should pick up some 1.6's, instead of possibly-hard-to-find-in-quantities 9600's.