Three New Power Mac Models Deliver Big-time Features at Small-time Prices.
Kelli Wiseth
The latest nonstop-speed blockbuster isn't a movie starring Keanu Reeves (although a bus does figure prominently in the plot line): It's Apple's new line of Power Macs. Replacing the original Power Mac line (last year's Power Mac 8100, 7100, and 6100) are the ultrafast Power Mac 8500, 7500, and 7200. The new Power Mac line is no mere rehash of last year's models or a low-budget spin-off of the recently announced high-end Power Mac 9500, though. Like any good sequel, the new line offers a few special twists of its own.
Top billing goes to the Power Mac 8500. With its mighty 120-MHz PowerPC 604 processor, the Power Mac 8500 ($3,999 for the base configuration) delivers graphics- and video-workstation performance and better AV capabilities than the original Power Macs. The Power Mac 7500 ($2,699 for the base configuration), although less powerful and lacking some of the high-end capabilities available with the Power Mac 8500, is no slacker. It's less costly and less powerful because it has a PowerPC 601 processor, but it offers a new enclosure that lets you easily negotiate the internal components. In addition, the Power Mac 7500 is outfitted for business '90s-style, with support for computer telephony and videoconferencing.
Finally, everyone who's been waiting for high performance but hasn't wanted to pay Apple's historically high prices can stop eyeing the PC ads with longing: The Power Mac 7200 brings processing power that was top-of-the-line at the Power Macs' debut in 1994 and delivers it at an entry-level price, starting at $1,599. The Power Mac 7200 comes with either a 75-MHz or a 90-MHz PowerPC 601 processor and is housed in the same easy-open case as the Power Mac 7500.
Breakneck Speed
So what about that bus we mentioned earlier? The second-generation Power Macs each sport three expansion-card slots built on the new PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus, which is intended to optimize data handling at PowerPC processing speeds. (There's no point having a rocket under the hood if the drivetrain can't deliver.) Apple has now retired NuBus, which allowed data transactions at a top rate of 10 MHz, in favor of the PCI bus, which runs at 33 MHz in the new Power Macs. PCI, a widely adopted architecture in the PC world, made its Macintosh debut last June in the Power Mac 9500 (see "The Power Macintosh 9500," August '95, page 68).
The price of PCI's speed is the loss of backward compatibility -- NuBus cards won't work in the PCI slots of the new Power Macs. But on an upbeat note, PCI cards are expected to cost less than similar NuBus cards.
The arrival of PCI coincides with another sweeping change in Mac system architecture: Apple has done away with SIMM (single in-line memory module) memory in favor of a new design that uses DIMMs (dual in-line memory modules). DIMMs can be speedier than their predecessors when installed in pairs, which boosts speed via a technique called interleaving (see the "DIMMs 'n' SIMMs 'n' Things" sidebar, August '95, page 76). DIMMs cost about the same as comparable-capacity SIMMs, but they aren't backward-compatible: SIMMs don't fit in DIMM slots.
Lest users begin to feel abandoned with heaps of obsolete hardware, Apple has promised to help out with the transition to the new Power Mac generation. Apple will offer owners of Quadra 840avs and Power Mac 8100-series computers a logic-board upgrade to the Power Mac 8500 later this year (about $2,000 with 8 MB of RAM). No similar option allows upgrades from older systems to the Power Mac 7500 or 7200, but Apple promises a "very aggressive trade-in" program for those who wish to upgrade. Specific details were unavailable at press time; if you're interested, call the Apple Exchange Program (800-447-8723).
Also, look for enterprising third parties to emerge with schemes for extending the usable life of your old add-in hardware: SimmSaver Technology, of Wichita, Kansas, has announced DimmSaver ($79), a converter that promises to let you use SIMMs in DIMM slots. And Second Wave, of Austin, Texas, will offer adapter boxes, starting at $695 list, that will let you use your older NuBus cards in the new PCI-equipped systems.
The Plot Thickens
Some changes in the new Power Macs should bring smiles to most faces: Apple has raised the bar several notches on its base configurations. For example, an internal quad-speed CD-ROM drive (the AppleCD 600i) comes with every one of these new Power Macs. A minimum of 1 MB of VRAM (video RAM) -- sufficient to deliver millions of colors on a 14-inch monitor -- is now standard as well (the Power Mac 7500 and 8500 come with 2 MB each), and all the new models can be upgraded to 4 MB of VRAM, enough to display millions of colors on a 21-inch monitor. (The VRAM on the new Power Macs is of a new design that isn't compatible with older Mac VRAM.)
Hard-drive capacity has also risen, with 500 MB being the new minimum; the Power Mac 8500 boasts a 1-GB drive in its base configuration. In addition to benefiting from the speed inherent in having high-capacity drives, the Power Mac 8500 and 7500 benefit considerably from having Fast SCSI buses for the internal drives. (Besides the factory-installed drive, each machine has a 3.5-inch-drive bay that also connects to the Fast SCSI bus.) Fast SCSI supports data-transfer rates of up to 10 MB per second -- twice the maximum rate of standard SCSI drives. (The external SCSI buses on the Power Mac 7500 and 8500 and all the SCSI buses on the Power Mac 7200 are standard, 5-MB-per-second connections.)
Another stock item new on all models, in addition to Apple's own Ethernet port (AAUI), is the industry-standard port (RJ-45) for 10BASE-T connections, so you can connect to virtually any corporate computer system without requiring any additional hardware.
The new Power Macs are all upgradable too: The processors in the Power Mac 8500 and 7500 are mounted on daughterboards that can easily be swapped out for ones with faster chips (although none are currently available). The Power Mac 7200-series processors are soldered onto the motherboard, but Apple has promised a logic-board upgrade to the Power Mac 7500 as a future option (pricing and availability have not yet been determined). Like the previous Power Macs, each of the new machines has a Level 2 cache slot that can be equipped with up to 512K of RAM, to dramatically increase speed. Three of the four machines we tested (the Power Mac 8500, 7500, and 7200/90) were equipped with 256K of L2 cache memory. In previous tests, we've found that this amount of cache memory has boosted the processing speed by 15 to 20 percent.
Finally, the new Power Mac line gets an overall speed boost, thanks to System 7.5.2, the version of the Mac OS that began shipping with the Power Mac 9500 in June. This system-software version includes the new DR (dynamic recompilation) software emulator, which lets Power Macs run non-native software (programs written for 680x0 Macs). The emulator has been completely redesigned with speed in mind (see the "System 7.5.2" sidebar, August '95, page 74). Also, critical parts of the system software that used to run under emulation -- including SCSI Manager, Resource Manager, and Sound Manager -- are now PowerPC-native.
Direct to Video: Power Mac 8500
One-stop shopping for demanding graphics professionals or corporate-video producers is what Apple has in mind with the Power Mac 8500, which comes equipped with a completely revamped AV subsystem that supports full-motion video capture, display, editing, and output at near-broadcast quality. This new generation of AV technologies has been upgraded in several ways.
First, it's easier than ever to connect video peripherals: Jacks accommodate input from S-video sources, such as high-end camcorders, and composite video, which is used on many consumer VCRs; earlier AV Power Macs required the use of adapters (which were included) for composite video. You can also hook the Power Mac 8500 directly to an NTSC television monitor -- a trick that requires a special video adapter or cable for all other Macs (except the 7500).
The quality of the images with the Power Mac 8500 is also better than those with any earlier Mac: The original AV Power Macs supported video input and output at a maximum color bit depth of 16 bits (thousands of colors). The Power Mac 8500 supports 24-bit video (millions of colors). And as our tests indicate, it has the best-ever video-capture capabilities for an out-of-the-box Mac (see figure 1). The 8500 also has a slot for a DAV 2 expansion card. Like the original digital-audio/video slot on the Quadra 840av and 660av, the DAV 2 slot accommodates third-party video-compression hardware. Original DAV cards won't work in the DAV 2 slots, however, and no DAV 2 cards have been announced yet.
Broadcast-video professionals will probably demand the speed of a Power Mac 9500 loaded with third-party enhancements, but for straightforward corporate training videos and multimedia presentations, the Power Mac 8500 more than fills the bill as a video workstation.
Tell Me, Don't Show Me
Video-editing capability is cool, but for many users, it's downright frivolous. If your computing needs fall more in the category of office user than power graphics user -- but you still want cutting-edge technology -- you'll want to check out the Power Mac 7500.
Priced at over $1,000 less than the Power Mac 8500, the Power Mac 7500 has a 100-MHz PowerPC 601 chip, not a powerhouse PowerPC 604 as in the Power Mac 8500. The Power Mac 7500's unassuming 6.15-x-14.37-x-16.93-inch enclosure may not turn any heads, but when you open it up, you discover the meaning of inner beauty. The redesign includes one of the slickest tricks we've seen in years, a hinged chassis that gives you full access to the motherboard (see the "Interior Design 101" sidebar).
The Power Mac 7500 has no video-output capabilities, but it uses the same video-capture subsystem as the Power Mac 8500. This subsystem is designed not for editing but for futuristic business communications: Bundled software and a few add-on goodies turn the Power Mac 7500 into a videophone that allows users to see and talk with each other and to share a common desktop work window for sketches, notes, graphics, or QuickTime movies (see the "Schmoozing from the Desktop" sidebar).
Apple calls this collaborative computing; all we can think of is George Jetson. To make it happen, you need to buy two extra pieces of hardware: a video camera, such as the color camera in the Apple Media Conferencing Kit (about $200), which you connect to the Power Mac 7500's video-in jacks, and a GeoPort Telecom Adapter (commonly called a pod), which you plug in to a serial port (and your phone line).
If you want to use your Macintosh as a business communications tool but don't want to worry about your appearance while on the phone, the Power Mac 7500 still has something for you -- if you're willing to buy a GeoPort pod. This add-on, plus the included PlainTalk microphone and bundled software from Apple's GeoPort Telecom Adapter Kit, lets you turn your Power Mac into a business phone, fax, and answering machine. Earlier versions of this software have been available since the debut of the Quadra 840av, but many of its key components are now PowerPC-native. In addition, the Express Modem's fax software now supports V.17 high-speed fax, and Cypress Research's MegaPhone telephony software, the choicest part of the bundle, gives you speakerphone capabilities, voice-mail, and automatic call dialing.
Get Those Extras Off the Set!
What if you don't want any of these fancy gadgets? Your work requires processing power and capacity, but you don't expect or want to see a colleague (or your boss) peering out at you from a window on your Mac desktop. And you certainly don't want to pay for such capabilities. If you're in this position, you'll want to look at the Power Mac 7200.
This Power Mac looks exactly like the Power Mac 7500: same nifty hinged enclosure, same three PCI slots. The main difference is in their processors and the machines' rock-bottom pricing. The soldered-in PowerPC 601 processor, running at 75 MHz in the Power Mac 7200/75 and 90 MHz in the Power Mac 7200/90, allows the Power Mac 7200 to perform quite respectably as a business machine compared to the original Power Macs (see figure 2). And the price offers a way to get everyone in the office running a Power Mac. (The accounting department won't even notice the Power Mac 7200's lack of an AV subsystem but will surely appreciate the low price.)
To think of the Power Mac 7200 as low-end misrepresents the case, though. Each configuration boasts a faster processor and greater RAM capacity than the original Power Mac 6100 or 7100. The built-in VRAM lets the Power Mac 7200 support more colors than the original Power Macs too. And like the Power Mac 7500, the Power Mac 7200 ships with telecom software that allows it to work like a phone (if you provide a microphone and a GeoPort pod). Both configurations of the Power Mac 7200 are outstanding performers for price-sensitive (or no-frills) users.
See How They Run
Broadly speaking, the capabilities provided by the new line appeal to two distinct camps: professional-level-graphics and -video producers and mainstream business users. People in the color-publishing business or those who produce training videos, for example, need a system with different strengths from those who mainly use office-productivity applications, such as word processors and spreadsheet programs.
To see how the new machines stack up against last year's crop of Power Macs, we devised two series of tests, one for users of graphics and video applications (see figure 1) and one for business users (see figure 2).
For graphics and corporate-video pros, we put the new Power Macs through a series of application-based tests, using Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Specular's Infini-D, and Adobe Premiere, and grouped the results for tests that specifically tax three critical areas of system performance: processing, storage (including hard-drive input and output), and screen display. We also measured the highest audio-and-video-capture rate possible for those machines with video-in capabilities.
Our business-productivity tests included MacBench 2.0, which provides scores for the raw speed of the processor, the floating-point unit, and the hard-disk and video-display subsystems with common business tasks. We also performed tests with actual applications -- in this case, Microsoft Word and Excel and the Macintosh Finder.
As we expected, the Power Mac 8500, with the zippy new 120-MHz PowerPC 604 processor, was the overall winner in all the speed tests for high-end graphics as well as business productivity -- with one notable exception: The Power Mac 8500's Display scores fell short of the Power Mac 7500's in both test categories. From our investigation, we learned that the reason had to do with bus timing.
PowerPCs run so fast that portions of the logic board (including the buses that link the processor to the memory and video subsystems) cannot keep up with them. The buses can't handle new data with every PowerPC clock cycle, so the processor has historically updated them every other cycle (or at half the processor's clock speed). This trick is used in the Power Mac 7500, which updates its video bus at a rate of 50 MHz (half its 100-MHz clock speed). The Power Mac 8500's 120-MHz PowerPC 604 is too fast for even the half-speed scheme to work, so it updates the video bus every third cycle -- at a frequency of 40 MHz (one-third of its 120-MHz clock speed). So, despite its awesome processing muscle, the Power Mac 8500 has a slower video subsystem than the Power Mac 7500. Hard-core graphics users may want to consider adding an accelerated-video display adapter to speed up such functions as panning and scrolling within image files.
In our video-capture test, the combined benefits of System 7.5.2, Fast SCSI, and the video subsystem in the Power Mac 8500 and 7500 clearly showed their worth: The Power Mac 7500, which has the same processor as the Power Mac 8100/100, beat the latter's capture rate by more than 50 percent; the Power Mac 8500, with its mighty processor, captured the 24-bit, 320-x-240-pixel video at 30 fps -- more than double the rate of the former champion, the Power Mac 8100/110.
The PowerPC-native Sound Manager software contributed greatly to the new systems' scores in our video-capture test: We captured the video signal and CD-quality audio (16-bit sampling at 44.1 kHz) at the same time. That's a very convenient way to create quick video presentations that wasn't practical with earlier-generation machines: Users of older Power Macs achieved higher video frame rates by recording video alone and then dubbing sound in afterward -- a time-consuming step that's no longer necessary in many instances.
But that's only half the story; the other half is about office productivity, and in that regard, the Power Mac 7500 isn't too far behind the Power Mac 8500. For strictly business applications, the Power Mac 7500 is a good, solid performer, nearly matched by the Power Mac 7200/90.
Cut to the Chase
Apple has been dinged a lot over the years by supporters and critics alike, especially for its pricing structure. This second generation of Power Macs should help change that.
For graphics and video applications or if you're in business for yourself and want to run standard business-productivity apps as well as video, you won't be disappointed by the Power Mac 8500. This is definitely the one to get if you're interested in experimenting with high-quality-video and -audio editing and don't want to build your own workstation from the ground up (as you would have to with the eminently expandable Power Mac 9500).
If the notion of a collaborative, interactive distributed work environment is part of your company's vision, the Power Mac 7500 will fit in well today and support the kind of work you'll be doing tomorrow. For any environment in which coworkers are geographically distant but teamwork and face-to-face discussion are critical, the Power Mac 7500 provides, in one package, everything necessary for making the virtual workplace a reality.
The Power Mac 7200, in either configuration, is a fast, capable business tool, with a hefty hard drive, room for enough RAM to run the next hog-of-a-version of Word, and true ready-to-go Ethernet. For a powerful all-purpose business machine, particularly for small-business owners, the Power Mac 7200/90 -- especially with 256K of optional cache memory -- is a good buy. Almost as fast as the Power Mac 7500 in the MacBench 2.0 and application test suite, the Power Mac 7200/90 won't give you as much expandability and upgradability in the long run, nor will you receive even a subset of the AV-technologies suite -- but if you do not require such features, there's really no reason to pay for them, is there? s
Kelli Wiseth is a MacUser contributing editor. Senior project leader Jeffy Milstead managed the testing for this report.
MacBench 2.0 benchmarking software is available online on ZiffNet/Mac. See How to Reach Us for instructions on how to access ZiffNet/Mac.
Interior Design 101 / elegant use of space
IF YOU'VE EVER WORRIED ABOUT vanishing in a blue electrical flash while trying to fish an errant screw from the innards of your Mac, you'll love the elegant new enclosure Apple uses for the Power Mac 7500 and 7200. With its hinged chassis, it gives you complete and easy access to any motherboard component.
To remove the outer enclosure, press two buttons on the front of the case and slide the cover off the base.
Flip the protective flap to the left; extend the chassis's nifty kickstand (on the right); and unclip the two sliding locks, one in the front and one at the back.
Swing the chassis assembly up and to the right.
Stand the chassis on its kickstand, and you've got easy access to the drives, power supply, and logic board.
RAM DIMM slots
VRAM DIMM slots
Level 2 cache-RAM slots
PCI-expansion-card slots
Processor daughterboard
(Power Mac 7500 only)
Hard drive
Spare 3.5-inch-drive bay
Schmoozing from the Desktop / Work Face to Face, Even at Long Distance
WITH THE INTRODUCTION of the new Power Macs, Apple is pushing two technologies. One lets you use the Power Mac 8500 or 7500 for videoconferences over all kinds of computer networks. The other turns your Power Mac into a speakerphone. Each promises to help people work together more easily.
The flashier of the technologies is QuickTime Conferencing (QTC), which Apple announced earlier this year. QuickTime Conferencing is a Mac OS extension. By itself, it gives you nothing, but with the right combination of hardware and software, QTC lets you and others on your network share and manipulate video, audio, text, images, and sound.
It works like this: When you're using QTC with your coworkers, you see their faces in QuickTime-movie windows and hear them via your Mac's speakers. They hear your voice transmitted through your Mac's microphone and see your face in a window on their screens. In addition to the faces, you all see the Shared Window, which can be used to exchange ideas and present information. Any of you can paste images, sounds, and QuickTime movies into the shared work space and then draw in it or type annotations. Each conference participant's comments and drawings appear in an assigned color that makes it easy to track who's saying what. Apart from mission-critical games of hangman, this capability is well suited for design critiques, group editing sessions, and any other give-and-take work effort.
Our hands-on experience with QTC, using beta software and preshipping Power Macs on Ethernet, was impressive but imperfect: The QuickTime movies were decidedly jerky, which made for slightly disjointed conversations, but facial expressions were discernible. Furthermore, although the Shared Window was responsive, users must send their changes to the window when they are complete and if several people are working at the same time, one update can accidentally obliterate another. The experience is a bit like an online chat session or a satellite long-distance call, in which questions and answers sometimes get out of sync. As with those media, you can learn to work around the mildly annoying time lag to get productive work done.
Apple is bundling QTC with various combinations of hardware and software, including the $200 Apple Media Conferencing Kit, which consists of the QuickTime Conferencing system extension, the Apple Media Conferencing application, and a color video camera.
Apple is touting the Power Mac 7500 as "QuickTime-Conferencing-ready," which indicates that it comes with the QTC extension and the Apple Media Conferencing application. And because the Power Mac 7500 contains the input portion of the video subsystem (input ports for S-video or composite video), you can connect a desktop video camera to the Power Mac 7500 and immediately start holding video conferences. The black-and-white Connectix QuickCam, which connects to your Mac's serial port, can also be used with QTC.
QuickTime Conferencing is built on open industry standards, so you will be able to communicate with others over Ethernet, token-ring, TCP/IP, ISDN, and ATM networks. QTC also supports all major video-compression standards.
Answering the Telephony Call
GeoPort technology is Apple's answer to computerized telephony. Supporting speeds of up to 2 MB per second, GeoPort serial connectors have been standard on all Power Macs, so it's no surprise that both serial ports on the latest Power Macs are GeoPorts. One labeled with a printer icon and the other with a telephone icon, they accept external modems and printers just as the original Mac serial ports did -- but things get really interesting when you plug in Apple's GeoPort Telecom Adapter "pod."
The GeoPort and adapter tap in to Apple's Macintosh Telephony Architecture, an open standard supported by AT&T and other big players for integrating telephones and computers. With the right hardware and software, the GeoPort lets your Mac process voice, fax, and data communications through a single phone line. The software automatically recognizes each type of call and directs it appropriately.
The Power Mac 7500 and 7200 include this complete software bundle, the same bundle Apple ships with its $200 GeoPort Telecom Adapter Kit. Part of the bundle is a limited version of Cypress Research's MegaPhone, a screen-based telephone application; limited means that some high-end features, such as the application's call-logging facility, won't be available to you unless you get an upgrade (around $50) from Cypress. Nonetheless, the version that ships with the Power Mac 7500 and 7200 provides automatic dialing, voice-mail, and speakerphone capabilities.
What you don't get, however, is key additional hardware that's required to really make all this telephony happen. Neither the Power Mac 7500 nor the Power Mac 7200 comes with a GeoPort pod, and the Power Mac 7200 even lacks a microphone. So in order to take full advantage of the software that Apple bundles with the Power Mac 7500 and 7200, you need to buy these items and more RAM as well. MegaPhone alone needs 5 MB of RAM, so the standard 8 MB for these machines won't handle telephony very well. Apple apparently wants to whet users' appetites with the bundled software, but the lack of hardware needed to even test-drive the telecom capabilities may end up frustrating Power Mac 7500 and 7200 owners. If you're among the vexed, remember that PC users have been treated like this for years -- getting bargain prices for new systems and then paying a la carte for hardware that Mac users expect out of the box. Maybe Apple really is figuring out how the personal-computer business works.
Explicitly Graphic / testing speed with video and digital images
Business communicators and graphics professionals alike are sure to appreciate the capabilities of the latest Power Macs. Humongous image files open and save fast, and the new system software's PowerPC-native Sound Manager means that CD-quality audio and respectable-quality video can be captured simultaneously. These charts reflect the speed of the tested machines for a series of tests involving the use of Adobe Photoshop, Specular's Infini-D 3-D-rendering software, QuarkXPress, and Adobe Premiere. The first three tests place demands on specific Macintosh OS operations; the results are grouped by operation.
The Processing test measures raw processing power, as required to create transitions in Premiere or compress and decompress image files in Photoshop.
The Storage test gauges speed on transfers of large blocks of data to and from the hard drive; such transfers are common in video and graphics applications.
The Display test, which includes scrolls and redraws of large image files, places demands on the Power Macintoshes' graphics-display subsystems.
For the Video Capture test, we set each machine to its maximum number of colors at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and measured the rate at which we were able to capture 320-x-240-pixel frames while digitizing a color movie and recording its sound track at CD-quality fidelity.
Results for the first three tests are relative to those for a Quadra 630 with an IDE hard drive, which is assigned a score of 1.0 for each test.
Getting Down to Business / office-productivity speed
There is nothing buttoned-down about the speed of the latest Power Macs with general-business applications. Preshipping versions of the new machines screamed in our business-oriented MacBench 2.0 tests and for our business tasks. For all these tests, we used the machines with their maximum shipping RAM. The Power Mac 7200/75 Apple provided had no Level 2 cache memory installed; all the other systems had 256K of L2 cache memory (which comes standard on the Power Mac 8500/120 and costs roughly $200 for the Power Mac 7200/90 and Power Mac 7500/100). Results are relative to those for a Quadra 630 with an IDE hard drive, which is assigned a score of 10 for each MacBench 2.0 test and a score of 1.0 for the business-tasks application tests. Our MacBench 2.0 benchmark software tests Mac speed at the subsystem level, using tasks patterned after those performed by typical office-productivity programs. The business-tasks tests look at overall system performance, using the Mac Finder and Microsoft Word and Excel.
Port Ability/ Plugging in to the New Power Macs
Look at the back panel of the new Power Macs, and you'll see a mix of familiar ports and new options that make it easier than ever to connect networks, peripherals, and even video equipment.
All of the new Power Macs have the same bank of connectors, most of which were available on earlier Power Macs. New in this generation is the RJ-45 connector, for painless connections to 10BASE-T Ethernet networks.
Setting the Power Mac 8500 and 7500 apart among the new machines are their AV subsystems. The Power Mac 8500 allows unprecedented connection to video-recording and -playback equipment, with a full complement of video and audio inputs and outputs. The Power Mac 7500 provides inputs only, in keeping with its design as a videoconferencing workstation.
SCSI connector
AAUI (Apple-standard Ethernet)
RJ-45 connector (10BASE-T Ethernet)
GeoPort serial jacks
Built-in video display
ADB
Audio-in/out
S-video input/output
Composite-video input/output
Stereo line-audio input/output
S-video input
Composite-video input
Stereo line-audio input
Power Mac 7200/75 Power Mac 7200/90 Power Mac 7500/100 Power Mac 8500/120
Video Resolution 1,152 X 870 Pixels 1,280 X 1,024 Pixels 1,280 X 1,024 Pixels 1,280 X 1,024 Pixels
Maximum resolution
at 24-bit color 1,152 x 870 pixels 1,152 x 870 pixels 1,152 x 870 pixels 1,152 x 870 pixels
Internal Fast SCSI * *
AV features
Support for NTSC and PAL monitors * *
DAV 2 slot *
24-bit-video input 2 2
24-bit-video output 2
Stereo line-audio input/output 2 2
Telephone/conferencing features
GeoPort telephony/fax software 2 2 2
Cypress MegaPhone software 2 2 2 2
Apple Media Conferencing software 2
PlainTalk microphone 2 2
*Pricing was preliminary at press time. All systems come with a 4x CD-ROM drive.
Photography / Michael Lamotte; Screen Image / Deneba Software
A single control panel, Sound & Displays, replaces the Monitors and Sound control panels in the Power Mac 8500 and 7500. From within it, you can select from multiple audio and video input sources that feed into the new Power Macs' AV subsystems.
All the new Power Macs have the same bank of connectors, most of which were available on earlier Power Macs. New in this generation is the RJ-45 connector, for painless connections to 10BASE-T Ethernet networks.
