What is the benifit of a 9600 over 9500?

[Vaughn Skow]

I will Soon be upgrading my PT III system to PT 24 and then , maybe MIX. I've made up my mind to go from my beloved 8500 to a 6 slot beige machine, as I will undoubtedly need the extra slots (video capture card, dual monitor support, etc).

My question is this, can I go w/ a 9500 instead of a 9600. They seem to sell for so much less, and offer the same level of upgradeability (G-3 cards, extra ram, available bays, etc). What are the actual benefits of a 9600 over a 9500?

[Rail Jon Rogut]

It's sooooo much easier to do anything inside the 9600 -- the 9500 makes it a pain just to add more RAM.

With a 9600 greater than the 200 I believe you get a better PCI chipset.

Rail

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Recording Engineer

[slickrick]

The 9600 is a great machine. We've got two 9600/300 units here, and they are superb, hence the resale value. With their 6 PCI slots, you can have a reasonably beefy machine (farm card wise..we use 3 per machine) without expansion chassis' cutting in. One thing to look out for, however...the cards don't terminate properly when screwed in because of some pea-brained machining, hence they're best terminated by pushing 'em in and leaving the screws out. Get one quick, though...my dealer continually asks whether I want to sell mine!

Cheers

Rick

[Vaughn Skow]

So far,no one has really pointed out the advantages of a 9600 over a 9500... at twice the price there must be more than easier access to the RAM. If not, I think I'll limit my search to a 9500, load 'er up w/ram, and put in the fastest upgrade processor I can find and "rock-on".

Any other opinions...?

[Disco_Doctor]

As Rail said, you get better a better PCI bridge chip - which is important. You will have less problems with high bandwidth heavy automation sessions. This also means it's much more likely that the 9600 will continue to be compatible with future hardware upgrades.

If you haven't tried to install RAM, PCI cards, or hard drives into a 9500, then that is why you don't see how big of a deal this is - the 9500 is an installation nightmare. Go with a 9600 or a PowerTower Pro if you can find one.

[HoosierSnd]

A local pal and I both have 9500s with Newer G3 300 upgrades.
While working inside them is truly a pain
(the pci card installation clips are really poorly designed!) we don't really need to get into them after initial installation, so that isn't really -much- of a concern.

The price was really right, and in fact, we probably wouldn't have made it into 24bit PT systems (one is a Mix one plain PT24) without the availability of these inexpensive platforms.

fwiw...

steveV

[Cawbaby]

Vaughan, I've been running a 9500
for maybe three years thru PT3 to 24mix
and have upgraded processor cards twice
and ram maybe three times. It's no huge deal.
It may be alot easier on a 9600 but it's
very doable on a 9500. I'm still very happy
with it.

[nipple]

My 9500 works flawlessly with my PT mix plus and 2 old farms. This computer has far outlived my wildest expectations. The 9600 is a great machine though and much easier to change stuff in. Just adding ram to a 9500 is a major PITA. I also have a UMAX S900 which I believe is based on a 9600 but haven't tried it with Pro Tools. Anybody know if this will work?

[Bruce JF]

Just want to make sure of something. I have a 9500 and am thinking of getting a New Technolgies card to soup it up to 466MHz.

I have a PT 24 system now, but hope to get a Mix or Mix Plus system soon. Is this going to work? Is the compatibility flawless?

If so, it sure seems like a lot cheaper way to go than a G3 or G4.