The 8600, 9600 and Beige G3 Tower Cases

The 8600, 9600 and Beige G3 Tower Cases

How they are similar, and how they are different.

Introduction

There is a lot of confusion over the difference between the cases used for the Power Macintosh 8600, 9600 and original (beige) G3 Tower. The confusion is because the three look extremely similar. In summary, the Power Macintosh 8600 and 9600 cases are effectively identical, while the Beige G3 Tower is slightly shorter (by 3 PCI slot covers).

Case Front

All three basically look the same from the front unless seen side by side, with the Beige G3 Tower having a more squat / shorter bottom-most section on the left. If you are trying to tell the difference, the Beige G3 panel that has the name badge affixed is wider than it is tall, while the Power Macintosh 8600 and 9600 both have an equivalent panel that is taller than it is wide.

Case Back

Power Macintosh 8600

The following can be found on the rear panel of a Macintosh 8600…

  • Built in Apple style RGB Video (15 pin D-Sub connector with two rows of pins, not VGA)
  • AV connectors with a plastic surround, 2x S-Video, RCA Video in and Out (yellow), and Audio in and out (two pairs of red and white RCA connectors, four total).
  • What appear to be six PCI slots in the case – only the upper three correspond to slots on the logic board, although sometimes you might see something like a Compact Flash adapter, or something fitted to one of the lower ports (like I have!).

Power Macintosh 9600

The following can be found on the rear panel of a Macintosh 9600…

  • A punch-out cover where the Apple style RGB Video would be fitted if this was an 8600.
  • A blank rectangle of blank plastic where the AV would be fitted on an 8600.
  • Six PCI slots in the case, with at least one populated for video.

Power Macintosh G3 (Beige) Tower

The following can be found on the rear panel of a Power Macintosh G3 (Beige) Tower…

  • Three PCI slots, plus a weird, double width card with a mixture of audio ports, video ports and a modem, depending on what options are fitted. If this is an AV variant, the AV ports are not surrounded by a plastic rectangle, but are on a metal plate with a grey sticker on it.
  • No AAUI port.

Interior

This section goes slightly off topic with details more generally on telling the difference between machines (perhaps with a missing case badge or swapped logic boards) more generally.

Processors

The 8600 and 9600 have a CPU with a large heatsink, fitted into an edge connector / slot which can be seen through the internal blue/green handle. On the other hand, the Beige G3 has a CPU under a square heatsink fitted in a PGA socket hidden under the portion of the case that folds out when the two blue/green latches are released. There is a large black bit of plastic fitted as a handle and for controlling airflow on the Beige G3, replacing the blue/green handle on the 8600 and 9600.

Internal Expansion Slots

As mentioned, the 8600 has 3 PCI slots while the 9600 has six. The Beige G3 has three PCI slots, plus a “Perch” or “Personality” slot. There is sometimes a modem plugged into the perch card – if there is a modem fitted, you generally shouldn’t use the external modem serial port at the same time as they both use the same internal hardware.

Memory

The 8600 has eight 5V 168 pin RAM slots, while the 9600 has twelve. The Beige G3 only has three RAM slots. The 8600 has a ROM slot which is rarely used, the 9600 doesn’t have a ROM slot and there is always a ROM SIMM fitted on the Beige G3. The cache slot itself is never fitted on a Beige G3 as the G3 L2 Cache is on its CPU ZIF board, while it is a mixture of fitted or not depending on the exact variant for the 8600. The 9600 seems to mostly have a cache slot fitted but I have a nagging feeling that this isn’t always the case.

Note 250MHz and faster 8600 and 9600s should not be used with a cache SIMM installed, while 233MHz and slower 8600 and 9600s will be exceptionally slow if one isn’t fitted.

The Unreleased 9700

While it was never released, the Power Macintosh 9700 was planned to be released in the same style of case as the 8600 and 9600. The case wasn’t going to be absolutely identical as the rear panel was different, with an opening for a perch card, reordered ports, a high density SCSI-2 style external SCSI port and a few other changes. The case was still a full hight, 6 PCI slot, case.

When found in the wild, these machines often have a blank or missing name badge on the lower front panel.

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