The PowerMacintosh 7300 replaces the 7200 and brings to it's feature list one important 7600-class qualitiy; the CPU is on a daughtercard, allowing future upgrades. There are no video in or out capabilities built in, nor are there RCA stereo audio jacks. The system does have a dual SCSI bus and a 2 GB hard drive on the Fast SCSI internal bus. The 7300 is the first Mac in a long time to distinguish itself from its fellow PowerMacs by its design and expansion capabilities rather than by its speed. Pushing in on the 8600 and 9600's territory, the 7300 is a fine choice for satisfying the need for speed within a realistic budget. A 180MHz 7300 is available. The 7300/200 typically ships with 32 MB RAM.
Advantages
Power
The 7300/200 equals Apple's fastest clocked machine at the time of its release. The 604e processor is the fastest desktop computer chip at the 7300's introduction.
Graphics
2MB of accelerated VRAM is expandable to 4MB.
Expandability
The 7300 design offers a second (lower) drive bay, 8 DIMM slots and three full length PCI slots.
Access
A slightly redesigned case from a 7200, the 7300 allows easy access to internals while providing a security lock.
Service
Apple has an established service network worldwide that makes buying an Apple MacOS system easy.
Networkability
7300's have built-in AAUI and RJ-45 ethernet as well as Appletalk capability.
Drawbacks
Price
The 7300/200 is close to an 8600 in price.
Video
The video input ports of the 7600 are dropped from the 7300. However, better video capabilities can be added for a nominal fee via PCI slots.
The United Computer Exchange index reflects average sales prices of new and used Macs. For more pricing information on these and other models, visit http://www.uce.com.