Apple's New Macintosh Quadra 800 Delivers Quadra Power for Less

MACWORLD, TOKYO--February 9, 1993--Apple Computer, Inc. today introduced a new member of its highest performance line of computers, the Apple Macintosh Quadra  800. As the most affordable Macintosh Quadra ever, the Quadra 800 delivers more than a 30 percent increase in performance over the current entry-level Macintosh Quadra 700, and does so with greater functionality.

The Quadra 800 is powered by a 33MHz Motorola 68040 microprocessor. Featuring a new mini-tower industrial design, the Quadra 800 is highly expandable and is equally at home on the desktop or at the deskside.  With a U.S. suggested retail price of $4,679, the Quadra 800 becomes the lowest cost member of the high-performance Macintosh line, while offering increased performance, built-in capabilities and expansion options for the most demanding personal computer customers.

"We believe the Quadra 800 delivers the key improvements requested by Quadra 700 users--more expansion slots, better RAM expansion, access to 5.25-inch devices, higher levels of performance, and a lower entry price," said Eric Harslem, vice president of Apple's Desktop Products division. "With its built-in features and performance capabilities that equal those of the Quadra 950, the Quadra 800 offers a superior high-speed graphical computing solution and is able to handle the most intensive computing tasks--especially in production-level computing environments for publishing and graphics professionals."

Integration and Speed

The Quadra 800's performance is the result of balanced system integration; specifically, newly developed memory and video subsystems.  The Quadra 800 employs sophisticated engineering that reduces the number of application specific integrated circuits(ASICs) on the logic board from 10 to three, which in turn gives Apple the opportunity to provide its customers with lower pricing.

The Quadra 800 features accelerated graphics capabilities made possible because its video subsystem is directly connected to the 68040 processor bus.  This enables data to travel at high speeds between the processor and the graphics system.  As with all Quadras, the 800 supports all Apple displays.  It offers up to 1MB of VRAM for rendering up to 32,768 colors on displays up to 16-inches and 256 colors on 21-inch displays.  The Quadra 800 also automatically senses which monitor is connected and will configure the monitor to display the proper resolution and color depth.  In addition, the video architecture supports most VGA and SVGA monitors.

Expandability

The Quadra 800 also offers a wide range of standard features and expandability, including 8MB of DRAM expandable to 136MB of interleaved memory.  Users can increase the performance of the Quadra 800 by 5 to 10 percent by interleaving the memory or logically treating two banks of memory as one.  Hard disk options include 230MB, 500MB and 1GB drives.

The Quadra 800 has three high-speed, 32-bit NuBus slots and one processor direct slot (PDS).  The new mini-tower product design provides three standard expansion bays, including one 5.25-inch bay for an internal CD ROM or other removable device, such as a magneto-optical or SyQuest drive.  It also incorporates two 3.5-inch bays for hard drives or removable media and one additional bay for an Apple 1.44MB SuperDrive.

With an optional high-speed internal CD300i CD-ROM drive, full stereo sound-out and mono sound-in, the Quadra 800 makes a premier media-authoring station.  A 32-bit direct memory access (DMA) Ethernet controller is a standard on-board feature. Flexible connections for thick or thin coax and twisted pair cabling are available at affordable prices.

Pricing and Availability

The Quadra 800 will be offered worldwide through authorized Apple resellers.  Pricing and availability may vary outside the United States. U.S. suggested retail prices are as follows:

Configurations                              U.S. SRP    Availability

Macintosh Quadra 800
Quadra 800, 8MB/230 HD, Ethernet             $4,679      Immediate
Quadra 800, 8MB/500 HD, Ethernet             $5,429      Immediate
Quadra 800, 8MB/500 HD, CD, Ethernet,
  1MB VRAM                                   $5,829      Immediate
Quadra 800, 8MB/1000HD, Ethernet, 1MB VRAM   $6,399      Immediate

Macintosh Quadra VRAM Expansion Kit            $159      Immediate

Macintosh Quadra 950               New U.S. SRP  Previous  %change
Quadra 950 8MB/SuperDrive             $5,609      $6,539    -14%
Quadra 950 8MB/230HD                  $6,099      $7,359    -17%
Quadra 950 8MB/500HD                  $6,849        N/A
Quadra 950 16MB/1000HD                $8,149        N/A

Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh are registered trademarks; and Macintosh Quadra and SuperDrive are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

Contact:
Betty Taylor
Apple Computer, Inc.
408-974-3983

or

Pat Kinley
Apple Computer, Inc.
408-974-2589