• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

fx vs. si -- which is worth more?

IIfx has a 40 MHz CPU. IIsi had a 20 MHz CPU. There were other differences but the IIsi was very much a cost reduced low quality member of the Mac II family.
 
The only reason a IIsi would be worth anywhere near a IIfx is because some models had the system ROM on a SIMM instead of soldered directly to the board. The Macintosh SE/30 fanatics love to pilfer that SIMM to put in their compact macs so for no real reason other than waving e-peen about they can have 128mb of ram in the SE/30.

Aside from the faster 68030 and full 32-bit support the IIfx isn't worth the money people demand in comparison to the Macintosh IIx, especially given how if you want to bump the ram to ANY capacity above the stock 8mb it's gonna cost you $100 for the famously expensive proprietary ram it took.
 
A IIfx is a much better machine then a IIsi period.

Any software you want to run on an 030 doesn't need more then 32MB of RAM which is cheap enough to get for a IIfx. I removed 128MB from one of my SE/30's because it was just wasted and put in 32MB.
 
I have 128M in my SE/30, for my planned install of A/UX and/or NetBSD on the beastie. It also has a 40Mhz 68030 accelerator in it, so it should make a fun Unix box.

I have a SCSI2SD set aside for it as well, to replace the internal 340MB hard drive it currently has, mostly for reliability, though speed and image handling are good too. I have an external enclosure for the 340 drive, it may end up on my Mac Plus.

I don't think the 24 bit ROM will get in the way of A/UX or NetBSD...
 
IIfx is worth significantly more as a collectable than a IIsi, but the IIsi is one of the few unique machines with a one-off case design, which makes it a little bit desirable as it is a nice looking machine.

The IIfx, however, is very expensive to upgrade (both RAM and CPU), and there're maybe 2 or 3 CPU upgrades that are probably more expensive than the computer itself because they're rare as hens teeth. Stock, it is a much faster and more capable machine than the IIsi. With SIX NuBUS slots, you can throw all sorts of cards in there from ethernet to video.

The IIsi is cheap. Apple cut a bunch of corners on it to make it less expensive, and because of that, it's severely hindered. However, with an adapter, you can install a Daystar 68040 CPU and turn it into a decent 68k Mac. Unfortunately when you do that, it means you can't install a video card, which leaves you with the "vampire" video that's really slow and shares the machine's onboard RAM.

However, for the cost of the CPU upgrade for a IIsi, you could just get a Quadra 700. If you already have a CPU upgrade, then I'd recommend a Macintosh IIci (or IIx, if you can find one.) IIci is relatively low cost and has reasonable expansion with 3 NuBUS slots and up to 128MBs of RAM. A great machine. The Quadra 700 only has 2 NuBUS slots, but it already has a 68040 processor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top