The Power Mac G5

The Power Mac G5 is the world’s fastest personal computer and the first with a 64-bit processor ”€ which means it breaks the 4 gigabyte barrier and can use up to 8 gigabytes of main memory. The new G5 processor ”€ available at speeds up to dual 2GHz with a new ultrahigh-bandwidth system architecture featuring AGP 8X and PCI-X ”€ makes the Power Mac G5 a breakthrough in desktop processing power. And models starts at just $1999.

How fast, is the world’s fastest personal computer?
The new Power Mac G5 throttles past both the fastest Pentium 4 and a dual-processor Xeon workstation when tested using industry standard SPEC CPU 2000 benchmarks ”€ SPECfp_base2000 and SPECint_base2000 measure the speed of a single task ”€ either an floating-point calculation or a integer calculation ”€ executing on a single processor. The “SPEC rate” metrics, which recognize multiple processors, more accurately demonstrate the performance of a dual processor system. The results (see chart below) should make your pulse race just a little bit faster.

Ready for the real world
The PowerPC G5 processor dramatically accelerates performance in real world applications, too. When compared head-to-head against the same PCs, in a large series of Photoshop tests the dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 is 2.2 times faster than the 3GHz Pentium 4-based system and almost twice as fast as the dual 3.06GHz Xeon-based system. Additional performance tests tests reveal similar performance gains for professional music and audio creation, and scientific analysis of genetic research.

Bandwidth to burn
The Power Mac G5’s ultra-high bandwidth system architecture features a 1GHz frontside bus ”€ one on each processor ”€ for maximum throughput. And a point-to-point system controller lets data move directly between subsystems, without affecting processor function.

PCI-X expansion
The Power Mac G5 comes with three PCI-X slots, giving you the benefit of the newest advance in PCI technology. The PCI-X protocol is perfect for high-performance PCI devices, increasing speeds from 33MHz to 133MHz and throughput from 266MBps to 2GBps.

High-speed AGP 8X Pro graphics bus
Compared with the AGP 4X interface, the Power Mac G5’s AGP 8X Pro graphics bus effectively doubles the maximum transfer rate and doubles the amount of data transferred in a single AGP bus cycle. The 66MHz AGP 8X Pro bus strobes eight times per clock cycle, achieving a 533MHz data rate and a maximum bandwidth of 2.1GB per second ”€ ideal for the ultrafast graphics cards it ships with, like the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra.

FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and high-performance I/O
The Power Mac G5 ships with a FireWire 800 port and three USB 2.0 ports (plus two USB 1.1 ports on the keyboard). Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB 2.0 and optical digital and analog audio are all integrated through two bidirectional 16-bit, 800MHz HyperTransport interconnects for a maximum throughput of 3.2GB per second.

Three powerful models
The Power Mac G5 product line comes in three muscular configurations ”€ 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz and a dual 2GHz model. They all feature the legendary SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) as standard equipment across the line. And of course they come with two FireWire 400 ports, three PCI expansion slots, ADC connector, DVI connector, analog audio in, analog audio out, optical SPDIF in, optical SPDIF out, front headphone and speaker jack and built-in Gigabit Ethernet ”€ all as standard equipment. All models are AirPort Extreme-ready, and offer Bluetooth capability as a build-to-order option.

The new 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor
Jointly developed by Apple and IBM, the PowerPC G5 drives the largest gain in processing power in the history of the PowerPC architecture.

64-bit breakthrough
64-bit processors enable the Power Mac G5 to break through the 4GB barrier and support up to 8GB of 400MHz, 128-bit DDR SDRAM ”€ four times more than a typical PC. More main memory and fast 6.4 GBps throughput means you can write large projects to memory 40x faster than to a hard disk.

Performance and Technical Data
The Power Mac G5 blasts past the competition.
- Power Mac G5 Tech Overview
- Performance White Paper
- G5 Processor White Paper

Designed for whisper-quiet operation
The Power Mac G5’s enclosure houses four discrete thermal zones to compartmentalize the primary heat-producing components. Fans in the zones spin at very low speeds resulting in a system three times quieter than the Power Mac G4.

Plugged in
It’s easy to plug printers, scanners and other devices into the Power Mac G5. In addition to sporting a full complement of ports on the back, the front panel has FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 ports, as well as a headphone jack.

4X SuperDrive
Every Power Mac G5 comes with a SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) that lets you burn both CDs and DVDs that can be played in most consumer DVD players. The SuperDrive reads DVD titles at 8x and writes to 4.7-gigabyte DVD-R discs at 4x.

Get a handle on it
The Power Mac G5’s built-in handles will come in handy the day you need to move all your stuff into that corner office you’ve always had your eye on.

Built for Mac OS X
The Power Mac G5 runs all of your software ”€ and runs it faster ”€ with a version of Mac OS X Jaguar specially tuned for the PowerPC G5 processor, providing a seamless transition to 64-bit power.