>I already have a Firewire/ USB card, video card and commslot 2 ethernet card >firewire drive, CDRW, printer and scanner. So my only cost will be CPU and >memory.
In that case, the 9600 is definitely a superb option. Your current Firewire/USB card and video card will pop right in to the 9600, and the 9600 already has built-in ethernet. (By the way, that Commslot 2 ethernet card is worth more than the 4400 itself, it seems. Back when I was trying to unload my 4400, I had 10 times the offers for the CSII ethernet card than the machine itself! I decided to keep the 4400 though, as a lender machine, and as a weather/astronomy workstation in my camp's nature center.) I would get a barebones 9600 (~$200), put in your current combo & video cards (assuming that video card is a decent one), pump up the memory ($100+), and get a G3 or G4 processor upgrade ($250+). The XLR8 SSE upgrade is what you will most likely want for a 9600, since it handles the six slots in the 9600 without problems. If you do a lot of graphics work, I would also look into an Ultra or Ultra2 SCSI upgrade ($50+ for the card, $120+ for the drive(s)), which will give you superior disk scratch speed and better overall "snappiness." Alternatively, you could go the cheaper route and get an ATA/100 or ATA/133 card and cheaper but larger ATA/100 hard drives. You could easily do all of the above for less than $600, the average cost of a Blue & White these days. Hope this helps! (As a side note, once you get everything up and going, if you are looking to get rid of the L2 G3 upgrade and/or the RAM in your 4400, contact me off list. I would be interested in buying/trading for it, so I can spice up my own 4400 a bit.) -- --Chris PM 7500/604e 200Mhz 4 gig SCSI 256 megs OS 8.6 (This machine rocks!) -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
