Apple Power Macintosh 9500

The first second generation PowerMac, the 9500 was introduced in May 1995, and is still most expandable PowerMac ever. It was powered by either a 120 or 132 MHz 604 processor, a second-generation PowerPC chip which was considerably faster than its predecessor, the 601. The big news about the 9500, however, was its 6 PCI slots. It was the first Mac to comply with the PCI industry standard. The 9500 came in a full tower case, and had 7 internal drive bays. Like the old Mac II, the 9500 came with no graphics capability--a third party add-on card was required. The most innovative feature of the 9500 was that it's processor came on a daughtercard, making future upgrades much less expensive. The 9500 cost $5,300, and was "speed bumped" to 150 MHz in April 1996. In August 1996, The 9500 was speed bumped again to a 200 MHz 604e processor and a multiprocessing twin 180 MHz 604e-based 9500 was released. The 9500 was replaced in early 1997 by the 9600.