Power Macintosh 8500

Apple-m3409-power-mac-8500120-tower-computer.jpg

Similar Macintosh models include the Power Macintosh 7200, Power Macintosh 7500 and Power Macintosh 9500. Requires system software version 7.5.2 or later (8500/120), 7.5.3 or later (8500/132 and 8500/150) with appropriate System Enabler, and 7.5.3 Revision 2 (8500/150 8x-CD and 8500/180).

General Information

This is a smaller version of the Power Macintosh 9500.

The Power Macintosh 8500 and Workgroup Server 8550 feature three PCI expansion slots, a removable 604 microprocessor card, and, in addition, the Power Macintosh 8500 features video in and out functionality standard.

CPU

The Power Macintosh 8500 and WS 8550 computers feature the PowerPC 604 RISC microprocessor. The PowerPC 604 microprocessor is installed via a card that plugs into the logic board, allowing for maximum flexibility with future upgrades. Features of this microprocessor include

  • Full RISC processing architecture
  • Parallel processing units: one load-store unit, two integer units, one complex integer unit, and one floating point unit
  • Separate built-in caches for data and instructions, 16 KB each, four-way set associative
  • Advanced branching techniques for improved throughput

Memory

The Power Macintosh 8500 and WS 8550 logic boards have eight DRAM DIMM slots, each with a 64-bit data bus. You can increase the DRAM to a total of 512 MB using 5-volt, 64-bit-wide, 168-pin fast-paged mode, 70 ns DIMMs.

Note: These computers do not have any main memory soldered to the logic board. At least one RAM DIMM must be present for the computers to operate. DRAM DIMMs can be installed individually; however, if you wish to take advantage of the computer’s interleaving capability, which provides maximum performance, you must install the DIMMs in matching pairs and in paired slots (A4 and B4, A3 and B3, and so on).

Expansion

The 8500 offers three PCI expansion slots.

AV

The Power Macintosh 8500 comes standard with an AV module that provides support for: composite video input and output, S-video input and output, audio input (left and right), and audio output (left and right).

SCSI

The Power Macintosh 8500 and WS 8550 computers offer Fast SCSI support on the internal SCSI connector, which provides for significantly enhanced data throughput. The internal SCSI bus on these computers supports transfer rates up to 10 MB/sec.

Cache

The Power Macintosh 8500 features 256KB L2 cache. This was expanded to 512KB for the Workgroup Server model 8550.

Diagrams/Schematics

 

Gallery

See Also