ComputerWiz disassembles the new and old Airport Extremes

After all the trouble they had with their Airport Extreme, ComputerWiz did exactly what any sane person would do with a computer they didn't understand, and took it apart. No? That's not what you would do? It's what I would do.

Anyway, the main goal was to find out if the new Airport's Gigabit speeds could have just been accomplished by upgrading the firmware of the old Airport Extreme, so CW ripped them both apart and took lots of pictures. All the watermarks make it a little hard to see, but what's clear is that the two different Airports use two different chips-- the earlier one uses the Broadcom BCM 5325, while the latest, Gigabit-speed Airport Extreme uses a BCM5395 chip.

What does this mean to you, as an Airport Extreme user? Not much. But it does mean that the Airport update is firmly hardware based-- you can't, for example, use an expander or a software update to speed up your old Airport Extreme unit. On the other hand, thanks to CW, you can get a look at the innards of both units, without having to take them apart yourself and that's always fun.

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Source: http://www.computerwiz.com/?p=80

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Hardware Odds and ends Internet

After all the trouble they had with their Airport Extreme, ComputerWiz did exactly what any sane person would do with a computer they...

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Simon Arch

Speaking as someone who doesn't read Engadget on any kind of a regular basis, I appreciate the post, but not the whinging. If you guys are so unhappy with the content, why are you here in the first place? Why haven't you banded together to form your own, superior Mac blog?

August 21 2007 at 4:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

artifex

If the whiners keep coming back, either their whines are not serious, or they are even more pathetic than whatever or whoever they take issue with.

August 21 2007 at 11:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

pangelav

I'm still pissed they didn't include it in the first place!

August 21 2007 at 10:55 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dogzilla

"Disassembles", not "dissembles", which means "to lie". Jesus, you people get paid to write for a living? My first language was Spanish and I speak your language better than 90% of you do. Have some pride for chrissakes.

August 21 2007 at 10:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Aaron

Couldn't agree more. It doesn't help things that the majority of TUAW staff seems to lack any detailed knowledge of the computing, IT, or gaming industry, in addition to completely lack of technical understanding of Apple software, hardware, and development. Only noticeable exception being some interesting iPhone hacking posts.

August 21 2007 at 9:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

This was on Engadget days ago. You guys should really monitor your sister site more closely. With lowered Apple news and the increasing popularity of Apple products, they out-Apple TUAW so often now that it's ridiculous.

August 21 2007 at 8:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply