Current Power Macs
Past Generation Power Macs
- Dual G4/1.42 - M8841LL/A
- Dual G4/1.25 - M8840LL/A
- Dual G4/1.0 - M8839LL/A
Resources At MacSpeedZone
Resources At MacReviewZone
Power Mac Resources @ Apple
Reviews & Detailed Info
Dual G4/1.42 GHz (August 2003)
Dual G4/1.25 GHz (Winter 2003)
Single G4/1.0 GHz (Winter 2003)
Dual G4/1.25 GHz (August 2002)
Dual G4/1000
Dual G4/867
Additional Resources
Mailing Lists/Discussion Boards
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First Third Party Benchmarks From PC Magazine Back Up Apple's G5 Speed Claims - Isn't this interesting? There was so much controversy over Apple's claims, and here we have a third party PC magazine largely backing up those claims. It's going to be even more interesting to see how the PC fanatics react to this. One thing is certain, and that is that the G5 is fast. More importantly, it seems as if the market place is accepting the new platform, despite the fact that it has a generally higher price tag than the G4 Power Mac models it replaces.
Virginia Tech prepares to deploy Apple supercomputer - Faculty and students hope to set up the 1,100-node Terascale Computing Facility by the end of this week, said Lynn Nystrom, a Virginia Tech spokeswoman. The university thinks the new cluster will rank among the top 10 fastest supercomputers deployed at academic institutions, and among the fastest overall in the world
PowerMac G5: a Desktop or Workstation? - An ongoing debate has been raging since the G5's announcement which asks that we define the G5 as either a "desktop" or "workstation" class computer". Editorial contributor Harry Rider believes that the fact that such a debate exists at all, is a major detractor to the advancement this new computer brings, and that the computer is not either/or, but instead, both a desktop AND workstation.
Are PowerBooks Really Ready to Replace Desktop Macs? - Many of you asked to see more tests comparing the latest PowerBooks with recent G4 and G5 Power Macs. You wrote me that you can't decide which to buy to replace your older Mac. I think some of that confusion is the fault of Apple management when they announce that PowerBook sales are going up while Power Mac sales have gone down
Power Mac G5 1.6GHz - When put to the test, the 1.6GHz Power Mac G5 responded admirably. It's impressively fast for general work, and when used with G5-aware tools it absolutely flies
Virginia Tech PowerMac G5 Cluster Photos - These photos are from the Virginia Tech Supercomputer Cluster composed of 1100 PowerMac G5's.
Apple Power Mac G5: Neck-and-Neck with Intel PCs - After testing a loaded ($4,349 direct, after we opted for more RAM and upgraded graphics) dual 2.0-GHz Power Mac G5 on a range of high-end content creation applications and comparing the results with a similarly configured (and priced) Dell Precision 650 Workstation running dual 3.06-GHz Xeon processors (each with a 512K cache) and outfitted with four 512MB SDRAM SIMMs and an nVidia Quadro FX 1000 graphics card, we see that indeed the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available
Apple G5 shipments slow in Europe, Asia-Pacific - While Mac fans and Apple customers are reporting receipt of shipment details and in-store sightings around the world, some web sites have hinted at hardware glitches that have delayed the release of some machines
PowerMac Dual 2.0GHz PS7Bench Benchmarks [Updated] - With Dual 2.0GHz PowerMacs finally trickling down to end users, one person posted PS7Bench Benchmarks from their brand-new PowerMac Dual 2.0GHz Mac with 1GB RAM (with the G5 Photoshop Plugin)
MacTek Talk: Hands on with a Power Mac G5 - With Apple's latest Power Macintoshes showing up in stores now (except for the dual 2-GHz models), readers have asked about the performance of the new G5. I had one of the $1,999 1.6-GHz models for several days last week, time enough to put it through its paces and see how it measures up while I configured it for a client.
OS X Odyssey 406 - Help With PowerBook to G5 Power Mac "Conversion" - I currently utilize a 17” Powerbook as my main computer, (and am a daily Applelinks reader). However, I ordered a Power Mac G5 2.0 Dual back in June, which I have been led to believe (no snickering allowed) will be delivered within the next ten days. I would like to be able to copy my preferences, Safari Bookmarks, iTunes Library, etc. from the PowerBook to the new Power Mac, but have no firm idea as to how to do this. Is there a book or article that you could recommend that could assist me in this regard?
IBC: Schiller previews G5-optimized Final Cut Pro 4 - Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, demonstrated the company's suite of professional post-production software tools, including a preview of a pre-release version of Final Cut Pro 4 optimized for the Power Mac G5
The SpeedZone: Is a 13% Performance Improvement Worth $400? ... 35 Performance Test Results For the G5/1.6 GHz & 1.8 GHz Towers - As you'll see in most of the test results below the 1.8 GHz G5 Tower bested the 1.6 GHz by about 13%.This mirrors the clock speed difference which is also just about 13%. So from a performance standpoint does a 13% performance improvement merit a $400 price increase (20%)?
Project Bad Apple - The 'Shift-Phase' Change.. - I've been wanting to do a G4 to ATX case conversion for ages now, I really wanted to get a quicksilver case but they are a lot harder to come across. So I settled for a stock G4 case I bought from the US via Ebay. My aim for the conversion was that from the outside there was very little to differentiate it from a Apple G4. This means as little modification to the outside of the case as humanly possible. This case was to be used as my main case so it has to be practical as well
Macworld Lab: First G5 Dual-Processor Test Results Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 is new Mac speed king - Macworld Lab's first test results are in on all of Apple's new Power Mac G5 towers. We've tested all three models, and found them be clearly faster than the previous generation of Power Macs. The two single-processor models are generally as fast or faster than the top-of-the-line dual-processor 1.42GHz Power Mac G4, and the dual-processor 2GHz Power Mac G5 is clearly the reigning Mac speed king by a wide margin.
Mac G5 Just Unveiled Apple Canada presents the world's fastest computer - The look of the new G5 raised the most disparate reactions. Some find it fascinating and perfectly suited to the professional destination of the new machine, some like it but find that the use of aluminum makes it too cold and austere, and some see it as decidedly ugly, resembling a sort of oversize cheese grater.
The Power Mac G5 has landed - Apple resellers around the country are celebrating the arrival of a small supply of 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz Power Mac G5s and the launch of the new 40GB iPod which is scheduled to hit Australian stores in two weeks
G5 PCI misery warning - Apple's decision to usher in a new PCI architecture (PCI-X) with its new Power Mac G5 promises a new era of performance, but may affect Mac users who rely on certain PCI cards
Gentoo is Fast on New G5s - Durin_Deathless writes "According to a thread on the Gentoo/PPC forums , some Gentoo users have installed Gentoo on their new G5s without any problems whatsoever. Benchmarks are extraordinary: compiling kde on a G5 running at half speed takes 15 minutes, while it takes one hour on the fastest P4 available
Laptop vs. Desktop
Power Mac G5 : Benchmarks - Here are the computers that we, and some MacInTouch readers, tested
Power Mac G5 (1.8 GHz): Review - Not since the introduction of the G4 Power Macs has there been so much anticipation about a new Power Mac. In many senses, this is a very new machine, with major internal and external changes, and a very high-performance architecture throughout. The most notable change, however, is the processor chip (CPU)
PowerMac G5 Processor Module Photos - Some PowerMac G5 Processor photos have made their way onto the internet
G5 Drives icon collection now available - The Iconfactory has expanded its freeware G5 Drives icon collection to now include a complete system replacement set
G5 Processor and Bus Slewing - ASpymac thread posted this weekend reveals some screenshots and information about a feature of the new PowerMac G5's called "Slewing". The feature is located in the Energy Saver Control Panel and allows the user to make some modifications to the Processor and Bus performance settings. A concept that is familiar to laptop owners... the G5 can be run in Reduced ,Highest and Automatic performance settings
The SpeedZone: The New 1.8 GHz G5: Nearly Twice As Big ... Is It Twice As Fast? Hard Drive, Processor And Graphics Card Performance - Below we compare the new Towers performance with our base machine ( The dual G4/1 GHz of January 2002 ), and to the last top of the line machine, the dual processor G4/1.42 GHz Tower
Power Mac G4 and G5 versus Pentium 4, Dual Xeon, and Dual Athlon - Welcome to the popular Mac vs PC shootout
Hard Cider: The Layers Dropped Away And She Stood Before Me, Naked In Her Beauty ... A Pictorial Review Of The G5 Tower
No Virtual PC for the G5? Try WinTel - for those that have just purchased a new G5 and must run Windows applications -- they aren't exactly in the dark. OpenOSX has just released WinTel 1.0.1 , and it's completely compatible with the G5. It's basically a Mac OS X user interface for the bochs emulation software, which emulates a Pentium processor, and dual G4 processors can function as either one powerful Pentium or dual Pentiums
Gentoo Linux Runs On The G5 - Anonymous Coward writes "According to this thread on the Gentoo/PPC forums, several Gentoo users have been able to install Gentoo on their new G5 machine without any problem whatsoever. Benchmarks are extraordinary: compiling kde on a G5 running at half speed takes 15 minutes, while it takes 1 hour on the fastest P4 available
Apple reveals G5 teething problems - Apple explains: "Power Mac G5 computers require Mac OS X 10.2.7 (G5), which is made specifically for this computer. Mac OS X 10.2.7 (G5) cannot be installed on other computers, and other versions of Mac OS X 10.2 (both server and client) cannot be installed on the Power Mac G5 computer."
OS X Server Doesn't Work On G5 - X jockey writes "This article on Apples support site was just posted: No version of OSX server is supported for use on the Power Mac G5 , and it then goes on to say that "Mac OS X Server 10.3 will be supported on Power Mac G5 computers."
G5 vs Powerbook, One Tough Call - Now that the G5's are shipping, I've got new computer fever in a bad way. All the symptoms: massive envy, eight gigabytes worth of lust, bugs crawling on my skin. Skip the last one, that's hygiene issue. I don't need a G5 anymore than I need a Hummer . Which is: not at all. But I want a G5, you know, for the coolness factor. Add to the lust inspired by the coolness factor the fact that the G5 is a brand new chip and allow for the extra cool perforated form factor and you've got one salivating Mac user
Windows emulator for G5 announced - OpenOSX today announced WinTel 1.0.1 for Mac OS X Jaguar – which is accelerated for the G5 processor. WinTel is an Aqua-based graphical user interface that controls the open-source Bochs emulation software on Mac OS X. Written in C++ Bochs delivers full x86/Pentium emulation on Macs
Comparative G5/G4 Tests - Bottom line is the G5 2GHz MP has the best bang for your buck, but you might think twice about trading in that dual processor G4 for a solo G5...the G4s hold their own quite well. They also say tests in Panther yielded significant increases in the G5 scores."
Dual 2GHz G5 'best bang for the buck' - I never for a moment considered the lower two, I'm an SMP addict. It truely makes a difference if your O.S. is aware. I first tried SMP with the BP6 dual Celeron mobo a few years ago and then ran Win NT 4 (later 2K), Linux Mandrake, and BeOS back then - my god I never wanted to go back to UP. It makes a difference with responsiveness, just keep tossing tasks at it and click on something - yum
What's So Hot About Apple's Power Mac G5? - Apple's strategy is to introduce new technology at the high end and target their professional markets, and then about a year or 18 months later, "they'll roll the technology into a lower line and try to broaden the market," says IDC analyst Roger Kay
UK Power Mac ads ship - Apple UK has launched a fresh wave of TV advertising in the UK to promote its G5 Power Mac, as early customers begin to take delivery of their new purchases
G5: delivered first in Europe - According to some info from Apple forum, 2 users living in UK have been informed that their 1.8GHz G5 have left Cork Apple Plant in Ireland.
Power Mac G5 officially released to Chinese Mainland - Apple has officially released the G5 at a launch party in Beijing; such launch parties are to continue in ninteen more major Chinese cities starting on September 2, 2003 through September 27. The launch parties kicked off in Beijing
Apple's G5s get sent to school - Apple, which had promised the first customers of the dual-processor 2GHz Power Macs that their machines would ship by the end of August, is now saying it may take until the end of this month for those people to get their machines. The delay is due to the company's attempt to equip colleges and other educational institutions for the back-to-school season
Virginia Tech G5 Supercomputing Cluster - Virginia Tech building a G5 cluster that when completed will be one of the top five fastest supercomputers. Anyone have additional information on this?" Personally, I like the idea of an 1100 node G5 Supercomputer. But, what will they use it for?
Virginia Tech to Build Top 5 Supercomputer? - hype7 writes "ThinkSecret is running a story which might explain exactly why the Dual 2GHz G5 machines have been delayed to the customers that ordered them minutes after the keynote was delivered. Apparently, Virginia Tech has plans to build a G5 cluster of 1100 units. If it manages to complete the cluster before the cut-off date, it will score a Top 5 rank in the Linpack Top 500 Supercomputer List . Both Apple and the University are playing mum on the issue, but there's talk of it all over the campus."
Power Mac G5: PowerPC G5 White Paper - This document provides the PowerPC G5 White Paper in PDF format
Power Mac G5: Performance White Paper - This document provides the Power Mac G5 Performance White Paper in PDF format
Power Mac G5: Technology Overview - This document provides the Power Mac G5 Technology Overview in PDF format
G5 versus G5 versus G5 - Do you need a G5? Maybe. Do you want a G5? Of course! But which one is the best buy? And how do they all compare to the most recent G4 models?
Apple pushes back dual G5 ship date - A number of MacMinute readers report that Apple has changed the expected shipping date for their dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 from "on or before 8/29/03" to "on or before 9/26/03."
TMO Reader Reports Dual His 2 GHz G5 Shipment Delayed Until End Of September - Observer Dion Cautrell wrote in with a short note to say his 2 GHz dual processor Power Mac G5 order has been delayed by almost a month. According to Mr. Cautrell, his order was originally supposed to ship today, but that the shipping date was pushed back late yesterday evening
G5 Pictures - Our store got a 1.6 and 1.8 G5 in on Tuesday. These are pictures of the 1.6Ghz G5. Note only four RAM slots. And Yes, I DO know how to rotate a picture. I choose not to.
Apple 'competitive' at high end - Apple's Power Mac G5s should be a "close match" for the best Pentium 4 and Xeon systems on the "most demanding applications", claims Microprocessor Watch today
Hon Hai building Apple G5 Powermacs - MAJOR TAIWANESE manufacturer Hon Hai won the contract to build Apple G5 computers and started shipping them out as early as June, a report claimed today
G5 FUD from MSNBC - Microsoft said it will not introduce a fix until the next full edition of VPC ships, which is not due until Mac Office v.11 (probably named Office v.X 2004). MS implicitly blamed Apple, finding the problem when they received their first G5 machine a couple of months ago. VPC relies on a certain operating mode, found in G4 and G4 CPUs, which is not found on the G5 chip
Apple issues G5 benchmarks - The results are in line with Intel's historically strong performance in integer performance and PowerPC's equally strong floating point results. But according to Apple the gcc compiler used did not support the AltiVec floating point instructions, and yet the G5 machine managed to trump both Dells on trial, scoring 840 to the Dell Pentium's 693 and the dual Xeon's 646 in the SPECfp_base2000 benchmark
The G5 Has Landed! Shocking Photos! - The New Power Mac G5 arrived today at MacCenter in Fort Lauderdale . Well worth the wait, we think. This is one of several 1.6GHz models that arrived on Tuesday (in lieu of a PowerBook announcement, we guess). While we haven't been able to spend the kind of quality time we would like to, cozying up to a big hunk of aluminum-y processor-filled goodness, here are a couple of quick observations
Apple Issues New G5 Benchmarks - "According to an article in The Register, Apple has issued SPEC benchmarks for the new dual G5 2GHz machines, comparing it to a two-way Dell Xeon and a 3Ghz Pentium 4 machine. The article says the G5 lagged behind the Dells in integer performance, however in 'the parallel "rate" benchmarks, which tax both of the CPUs in the test machines, the G5 edged out the Xeon 17.2 to 16.7 in the integer score and 15.7 to 11.1 in the floating point tests, suggesting Apple makes far better use of its two CPUs than the Xeon machine
Apple releases G5 white papers - Apple has released a host of G5 Power Mac white papers offering information about the processor, performance and technologies used in the new pro desktop Macs
Power Mac G5 'Comes Home' to Taiwan - Given some of the delays, it'll be interesting to see which territories outside North America get the G5s in quantity first: France/Europe has delays; Australia's expecting quantities by the end of this month, while Japanese systems will be delayed about a mont
MacTek Talk: A look at Apple's Power Mac G5s - Currently, Apple's strategy is twofold. Although it clearly aims squarely at consumers with a product lineup featuring the flat-panel iMac, the portable iBook and its iApps, Apple is also now making a bid for entry into more businesses using MacOS X and the just-introduced G5
G5 Speed Evaluation - Where can we expect the G5 to do especially well? The high-bandwidth interconnects should help with some areas of performance. But it's important to understand that bandwidth (like MHz -- or now GHz) isn't everything. DRAM and disk both have the property that they take a relatively fixed time before something happens, but they can stream data rapidly once they get going. Applications which can exploit this kind of streaming behaviour of the G5s should do pretty well. For example, anything which involves playing audio or video should stress the system relatively lightly compared with most competition
Power Mac G5 unveiled ahead of time at Apple's stand at BIRTV Beijing, China - Although Apple will officially show off the G5 at launch parties in twenty major Chinese cities in September of 2003, Apple unveiled the world's fastest personal computer today at the BIRTV (Beijing International Radio, TV & Film Equipment Exhibition) Expo in Beijing, China
G5 2GHz MP Versus G4 1.42GHz MP - Many of you are asking how the Dual 2Ghz G5 compares to the Dual 1.42GHz G4. I've gathered up test results from various sources around the globe (New York, Italy and Germany) along with tests run in our own lab
The 64-bit revolution hits our shores - The first G5s began shipping in the US early last week, making Apple the winner in the race to bring 64-bit computing to the desktop. In second place: the US chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, which is planning to launch the Athlon 64, a 32/64-bit chip for Windows desktop PCs, in September. AMD's much bigger rival Intel has no current plan for a 64-bit desktop chip, but will tweak more performance from the 32-bit Pentium 4 later this year with a new design dubbed Prescott
G5 Power Mac Versus OTHERS - Cinebench 2003 is NOT optimized for the G5... yet. Richard Kurz of the Maxon Mac development lab confirmed that G5 optimizations are planned. He predicts the G5/2GHz MP (after optimizations) could achieve a CB rating as high as 500
G5 attracts new markets - MicroImages and New Mexico Software are two non-Mac software developers preparing to bring their high-end applications across to Apple's new OS
Gimme 5 - Eager users thronged to the Brisbane events to see and touch the dual-2GHz prototype model for themselves, as proof that yes, it really does exist
Japan Watch: Cut Price Power Macs Race up the Sales Charts - Given their pretty good horsepower, the G4 towers are a bit of a steal at the moment.
Apple Computer puts off debut of 64-bit PC by 1 month - Consequently, the Power Mac G5 series -- the first PC equipped with a high-speed 64-bit microprocessor designed as a PC for nonprofessionals -- will debut in Japan in September, Apple said
Summary of Differences Between the G4 and G5 - The PowerPC G5 processor is at the heart of Apple's latest computer models. Beyond the obvious increase in clock frequency from the previous generation of G4 CPUs, a number of significant changes have been made to the core CPU and system architecture that can affect the way programs run on these systems. This document is a high-level summary of the more conspicuous features to keep in mind while (re)targeting your programs to run on the G5
Why the new Power Mac G5 doesn't cut it when it comes to DV editing - The new G5 claims to hold a whopping 500GB internally, WOW! But you only gave me TWO DRIVE BAYS!! Any person that works with DV professionally will tell you that capturing and rendering to your system drive is a bad idea, with or without a partition. When working with DV, you want separate scratch disks because your drive is going to get fragmented faster than a standard drive. If a fragment becomes corrupted and starts to spread, do you want it spreading to your system? There are two types of people in this world; the ones who have experienced a hard drive crash, and those who will
Apple News: PowerMac G5 specs impressive - The PowerMac G5 replaces the traditional single system bus with a Hyper Transport bus. This uses a point-to-point system controller to communicate with each component on a dedicated bus running at the maximum speed for that part of the system. So, while previous PowerMac G4s had bus speeds ranging from 100 to 167 MHz for the entire board, the new G5 PowerMac has a CPU bus that runs at half the CPU speed, or 800 MHz to 1 GHz
PowerMac G5 1.6GHz Benchmarks - Anonymous Coward writes "Chaosmint.com has 1.6GHz PowerMac G5 Benchmarks. The first numbers from an actual production PowerMac G5. Includes XBench and Cinebench 2003 scores." For now it's just raw data, but hopefully we'll have graphs soon on how these match up with the rest of the Macs currently on the market
PowerMac G5 1.6GHz Benchmarks and Photos - Some early benchmarks of the PowerMac G5 1.6GHz have been posted to Chaosmint.com , thanks to David Marcus and James F. Haw
Early PowerMac G5 1.6GHz Benchmarks - These are benchmarks of Cinebench 2003 and XBench on a Single Processor 1.6GHz PowerMac G5
Apple Power Mac G5 The next-generation computer that Mac fans have been waiting for - There are plenty of other more technical arguments on both sides of the fence, and neither point of view is without merit. But the bottom line is that the performance of the Power Mac G5 is certainly in the same ballpark as high-end Intel workstations, something which certainly couldn't be said about its predecessor
G5: Digital Performer 4.1 - Mark of the Unicorn says: "We have been working very closely with Apple over the summer to ensure compatibility with the new G5 machines. DP 4.1, AudioDesk 2 and MachFive 1.0 all run on the new G5s. DP4 takes full advantage of the multi-processor models, as does MachFive when running with DP4 or other multi-processor-savvy hosts."
Will Apple be able to Keep Up with Demand for the G5? - Judging by the AppleStore's sales rankings, the DP 2GHz model is by far the most popular in the line-up. Presumably, that means Apple is producing big numbers of 2GHz editions for shipping later this month
G5s in UK 'this week' - Mac fans looking for a first glance at Apple's new Power Mac G5s should contact their local Apple Centre towards the end of this week, as demo units are reportedly being dispatched to channel
Taking It Slow with a Superfast Chip - Apple's strategy of a fragmented product launch makes perfect sense. Sure, he could have put the new IBM-made ( IBM ) G5 chips into laptops and iMacs. But Jobs wants to bide his time -- and with good reason
Analyst: 'Apple will have problems filling' G5 orders; demand 'will not impact Apple's market position' - Wrolstad continues, "Kay said that while the G5 will not impact Apple's market position, it will provide a fresh start for the company's professional systems target audience. 'This is for existing Mac users who want to upgrade, not for new users, and the performance enhancements should attract professional customers,' he said."
Wireless G5's need extra antennae - With the first of its new Power Macs due to arrive with customers any day now, Apple has published some additional information on using the machine's AirPort and Bluetooth wireless capabilities
Apple Says IBM Doing "A Great Job" In Supplying G5 Chips - C|Net reported yesterday that IBM was cutting some 600 jobs at some of the company's other chip-making operations, a move unrelated to production of Apple's G5. In that story, however, was a short bit on the G5, which began shipping yesterday . Apple VP Greg Joswiak was quoted as saying that IBM had been doing a great job supplying the G5s
Infoworld Likes G5, Says Xserve More Manageable Than Linux, Cheaper Than Windows - That's a nice, solid review for Apple's server offerings, and do we need to mention those very favorable comparisons to Linux and Windows? Not that Linux is the bad guy by any means, but this piece should give Apple some added muscle when talking to corporate buyers. As we have said recently, Apple's battle for market share and mind share in the IT world will be a long one, and in such a battle, slow and steady wins the race
G5 details emerge - The new Power Macs will feature a specially-developed iteration of Mac OS X 10.2.7. This update has a redesigned kernel and system-level math and vector libraries that are specially tuned for the G5. They can also accommodate 8GB of RAM. " Any application that does dynamic linking to those libraries will get an automatic benefit without having to recompile,"
Apple fans snap up 'fastest' Mac - "The Power Mac G5 is a big hit with customers and developers," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. It has already started shipping 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz single-processor models of the G5, ahead of schedule. " We wanted to get those into customers hands as soon as possible, and we're right on track to deliver the dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 later this month," said Mr Schiller.
Apple rolls out 64-bit Power Mac G5 computers Faster microprocessors mark breakthrough for desktop users - The arrival of 64-bit desktop processors signifies a new era of computing -- initially for professionals who are bumping up against the processing limits of existing PCs. Soon afterward, the new chips will affect everyday computer users, for whom a new generation of media machines should offer remarkable improvements in audio and visual effects
Apple G5 Hits the Street - analyst Peter Kastner suggested that Mac users "should run, not walk," to their local store to check out the G5. "It may or may not be the fastest PC, but for the first time in years, Mac buyers can stand tall; they now have what is arguably a performance leader," he told NewsFactor
G5 Will Ship with OS X 10.2.7 - It's been known for a while that the new Apple G5 machines would come out before the next major release of OS X, Panther, would be ready. It's confirmed today, though, that Apple will be releasing a new version of OS X with the G5, a version that has been "optimized to take advantage of the 64-bit technology in the Power Mac G5."
Apple's Power Mac G5 Hits the Street - Analysts said the PowerPC G5 processor , designed by IBM and Apple, will give Mac users dramatically improved performance in the high-end, gaming and graphics markets. " The G5 is a hot box and one which for the first time in several years gives Mac owners some bragging rights versus their industry-standard brethren," Aberdeen Group chief research officer Peter Kastner told TechNewsWorld
Apple ships new Power Mac G5 - Apple Computer on Monday said that it started to ship two models of its Power Mac G5, with a dual-processor version of the desktop computer set to ship sometime this month
Apple's G5: More than a pretty face - Most modern systems look more at home in a construction trailer than in a corporate machine room or cubicle. The burly, breathable aluminum chassis of the Power Mac G5, however, is a welcome respite from ubiquitous drab sheet metal and injection-molded plastic. Still, a few days after buying a pretty machine, the romance is over. If it doesn't prove itself superior in all ways to other systems in its price range, IT won't pen a purchase order for a second one
Dual 2 gig G5 - On Friday I got lucky and got about an hour on a pre-production PowerMac G5 (dual 2 gigahertz) with 2 gigs of RAM and I put it to some tests using Photoshop 7, Final Cut Pro 4 and Soundtrack. I was duly impressed with performance, stability and speed. The machine is huge (think Daystar machine size) but it is very quiet! The model I got access to (and the few others like it, apparently) have to travel around the country with an official Apple rep (like a G5 guard)
MOTU Products & G5 Compatibility - Apple's new Power Mac G5 computers deliver extreme speed increases that greatly enhance both MOTU hardware and software. If you want to take full advantage of the fastest personal computer on the planet, then you've made the right choice in using MOTU products
City Mac to hold G5 event - City Mac of Saint Louis, an Apple specialist and a division of the City Photo Group, will host an event focused on Apple's Power Mac G5 at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 20
G5! The Apple Killing Chip? - It has been bantered about by some that the upcoming G5 could be one decidedly long-lived computer. Friends have opined that your grandchildren will be using the next G5 you buy, even an IBM executive said that the 64 bit G5 was probably overkill for desktops. Then you have any number of sites talking about how the G5 is really a workstation powered computer wrapped up in a pro level desktop
Creative Planet Looks At Digital Content Industry's Take On G5's Speed & Power - Creative Planet has posted an article looking at Apple's new Power Mac G5 and the reaction to it from the multimedia creation community. The article features quotes from leaders of such companies as Digidesign and Steinberg, along with information about the future of multimedia creation on the G5
Will the G5 Tower be a hit for the home user? - “The G5 Tower is larger than, and heavier than, the G4 tower. Given its all metal, minimalist design, will home office users embrace this machine or turn his or her back on it? Seeing one in person makes me worry that Apple may have made a fatal mistake, and this time speed won’t win over design.”
Clear Power Mac G4 - I've made a cool modification to my Power Mac G4. The side panels are now clear. The technique comes courtesy of Guy Kuo/macmod.com 's iceBook
Forbes: G5 orders shipping by the end of the month
Poll: 75% will hang fire on G5 - A quarter of Macworld Online readers will wait until next year before upgrading to the new Power Mac G5, with another 25 per cent saying they can't afford the new machine. Of the remaining 1,593 respondees, 7 per cent don't feel the need for speed, 4 per cent still need Mac OS 9, and 17 per cent will wait for a G5 PowerBook. But 22 per cent are so excited by the G5 they plan to upgrade “as soon as possible”.
The Week Ahead: Aug. 11-15, 2003 - Rumor has it that advance orders have been strong for the company's eagerly awaited PowerMac G5 computer. When the company announced the machine, it said shipping would begin in August. Many Apple customers have been holding back on their traditional upgrade cycles for months, partly in anticipation of the G5
Some G5 Units Ship as Jaguar 10.2.7 Nears Completion - According to sources, several of Apple's larger corporate and government customers began receiving select shipments of single and dual-processor Power Mac G5 configurations a couple of weeks ago. Even more units are said to be rolling off the assembly lines at the computer maker's manufacturing plants as you read this article
New twist in tale of Cube upgrade - Right after upgrading my fabled, if slightly faded, Power Mac Cube with a much larger hard drive, the new disk sputtered, stammered and beeped — enough so to scare even a seasoned user. Fearing a meltdown, I removed the offending item and went back to a Lilliputian 20 GB drive, one-eighth the size of the drive I'd hoped to install.
Just what is the fastest? - Microprocessor Watch, perhaps the most respected technical publication for the microprocessor industry, has weighed in with an analysis of Apple's claims. The verdict of senior editor Peter Glaskowsky: Apple's PowerPC G5 processors have transformed the Mac platform into a "viable competitor" to today's fastest PCs. " Our analysis of the results shows the G5 should be a close match for the best Pentium 4 and Xeon systems on today's most demanding applications," he writes.
CompUSA: 2GHz G5 Power Mac due in mid-Sept - he indicated that the dual-2GHz G5 won't ship for at least seven weeks and the other single processor G5s won't ship for 4-6 weeks."
Geospatial announces TNT v.6.9 will be fully optimized for 64-bit Power Mac G5 - MicroImages, Inc., has announced that their next release of the TNT products (v6.9) in October will be available and fully optimized for Apple's new 64-bit G5-based Power Macs running Panther
Opinion: Why the G5 Will Force You to Upgrade - PowerLogix, Sonnet and Newer Technology keep churning out faster G3 and G4 upgrades. Doesn't matter if your CPU is soldered. Doesn't matter if you need ROMs on your daughtercard. You can flash the new with the old. Until now. Welcome to G5 Macintosh. New processor. New mobo. New RAM. New everything. Even a 'new' OS, designed to take advantage of at least some of the power offered by 64-bit computing
A Second Look at the G5 - I’ll admit I was a little quick to judge the new G5 by pictures alone. After visiting Macworld NY 2003 and seeing the beast (and it is a beast) in the flesh, my opinion has changed. Somewhat. The good? I think I get it. The new G5 is all about power and displaying (and controlling the heat created by) that power. Whereas the old G4/G3 tower design was like a well-designed thermos, containing and hiding the contents within, the new G5 is like the inside of a turbine power plant
G5s 'outstrip PC chips' - Apple's move to PowerPC 970 G5 processors has transformed the platform into a viable competitor to today's PCs, writes Microprocessor Watch .Senior editor Peter Glaskowsky writes: "Macs are once again fully competitive with Windows PCs in performance and have feature advantages that should help Apple expand its market. Not long ago it appeared that the Windows PC had taken an insurmountable lead."
Apple Cube: Alive and Selling - Though discontinued two years ago, Apple's Power Mac G4 Cube commands a strong -- almost fanatical -- following. Used Cubes fetch premium prices on eBay, there's a thriving trade in aftermarket upgrades, and dedicated owners are going to extreme lengths to keep their much-loved machines current
Athens Clip Discusses Similarity to G5 - Brian Weseman writes "A two minute RealPlayer video clip from NWCN (Northwest Cable News; free registration might be required) discussing the new Athens (concept) computer that Bill Gates introduced. Critics of Athens point out that it is very similar to the Power Mac G5 which is already for sale. It appears from this clip, that OS X users already have a lot of the cool features
Apple cuts prices for students, teachers - As part of its efforts to stem a market share decline, Apple Computer is offering college students and teachers larger discounts on new Macs--up to 15 percent more off some models
Senior Apple man lauds G5 - The piece looks at the new features built-in to the G5 PowerPC 970 processor. Boger stresses the importance of its faster floating-point unit performance, which he says is "essential" for high-level scientific and 3D applications
The official G5 Interview - IT-Enquirer had an interesting interview with Apple's Tom Boger, the product manager for the Power Mac range. Boger's official title at Apple is "Director Power Mac Worldwide Product Marketing". He answered willingly to my questions, although to some he would answer like an accused in some legal series: "no comment".
Holy Goodness, the G5 You Don't Need - There's been some controversy about the G5, some folks aver that this is a computer so powerful you're grandchildren will be using your hand me down Mac long after you've reached thermal equilibrium, while others proclaim that developers will soon find a way to tax the G5 to the point where you'll be begging for a G6. Who's right? How would I know,? I'm a pretty bad prognosticator, I picked soap to win the battle against France. Hence I won't make a bold prediction about the longevity of the G5 but I will opine on another issue: If you're spending your own money you don't need a G5, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get on
Power Mac Dual G4 versus Pentium 4 and Dual Xeon - This is another "remake" of our popular Mac vs PC page. Thanks to my new best friend, Peter Ashford, I was able to test two of his custom built Pentium 4 systems and his custom built Dual Xeon. That should make some of you happier who felt the Xeon was slighted in our previous test page
IBM G5 plant 'losing money' - IBM's chip business lost $110 million in the second quarter and is now expected to lose money for the year
I'd like to clear up some of the confusion about my G5 benchmark report circulating in various forums across the Internet (the original report is located at http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/g5/ ). In what follows, please note that these are my words, and not necessarily the words of NASA or the US government (ie, this is an informal, not official, statement).
I'll lay out some common questions/issues I have identified, and attempt to address them below. Let me say up front that I don't have any hidden agendas, and I always use the best computer for the job whenever possible. So I'm not coming from any particular standpoint or bias. My benchmarking report was for technical purposes only
64-bit hits the desktop - Running at clock speeds up to 2 GHz, the G5 RISC processor is based on a redesigned execution core, with added benefits of parallel computation that can deal with 215 “in-flight” instructions, and includes full symmetric multi-processing and two double precision floating point units. 32-bit processors can only use 4 GByte of memory. Any more than that requires the use of slow virtual memory that is swapped onto the hard drive - a irritation to anyone that manipulates scientific data sets or large 2D images. In contrast, the 64-bit machine, as configured in the G5, can access up to 8 GByte (although a 64-bit processor is technically capable of addressing far more that this)
Apple Promotes Financing On New Macs In New Promo - Apple has announced a new promo that touts its financing options on new Macs. The Apple Instant Loan is offering finance rates "as low as 9.99%," much lower than it has been in the past, though the fine print says those rates are not guaranteed, and are subject to change. Accordingly, the company is pushing the ability to buy a new Mac "for as little as US$19 per month."
Apple takes aim at government, defence and media - Apple Computer has signalled its intent to play hardball in courting the Australian government and military space. The vendor has announced Tony King as its new Asia-Pacific managing director as well as a specialist Canberra-based sales unit
Our New Power Mac G4 - My parents' IBM Pentium II PC was getting old and more annoying as the days went by. I talked them into getting a Mac as their next computer, and they decided to wait until after WWDC to see what kinds of deals there were on previous Macs. Their ideal machine would be an eMac, but as we already have a perfectly good monitor, PCI USB card, and a desk oriented for tower-style computers, a G4 tower would be better. Plus, the expandability made it an even better idea
The G5 and Apple's Future: It's All in the Details - I must say that the PowerMac G5 is impressive. It has the performance, the features and the price, not to mention the ruggedly handsome exterior, to be a definite winner in that part of the personal computer market formerly known as workstations. But the more I look at the details of the new machines the more intrigued I become, because hidden beneath the glitzy feature list are some largely unheralded architectural and engineering jewels. These details hold powerful clues to the future of the G5 platform and for Apple itself. Now if you'll just pardon my extravagantly geeky self, I'll give you an example or two...
Poll: G5 beats other techs into ground - Answering the question "What's of most interest in the Power Mac G5?", Macworld readers are firm in their conviction that IBM's PowerPC 970 (dubbed the G5 by Apple) is the most important part of a machine that's stuffed full of next-generation technologies and components. 1,202 of the 1,984 voters - 61 per cent of those polled – said the 64-bit G5 was the most exciting new component
Why laptops shouldn't replace desktops - I was not thrilled last week to see that sales of notebook computers are now larger than the sales of desktops. Not that I don't understand the attraction. Notebooks are, after all, romantic computing--in the sense that notebooks allow you to take your computer to someplace more romantic than your office. That is, as long as it's a romantic place indoors--notebook screens don't work outside, at least not for me
G5 is Scientific Computing editor's choice
The Power of the G5 and the Future of the Mac - The Power Macintosh G5 is probably the most tightly optimized hardware design since the original Macintosh , which cleverly combined a huge ROM with toolbox routines, innovative use of timing to manage sound and video, Wozniak's brilliant floppy controller, extremely high speed serial ports, and asynchronous response to input to squeeze the most out of 7.83 MHz, 128 KB of RAM, a 400K floppy, and a 512 x 342 pixel black and white GUI display
G5 Surround Sound: Pros Look Elsewhere - OS X Audio today discusses the G5’s optical audio I/O today, though most of what’s in their report we initially covered in our June story on the G5’s new TOSlink optical I/O. It’s worth clarifying that Apple’s audience for digital I/O is probably more consumer than pro, at least in terms of pro audio work. On the other hand, there are some useful applications for the port in the pro world that might not be immediately obvious
G5 to make first public appearance at Macworld CreativePro - After unveiling the G5 Power Mac to developers at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) late last month, Apple revealed today that the machines would make their first public appearance at Macworld CreativePro . The tradeshow takes place from July 14-18, 2003 at New York City's Javits Center
G5 SuperDrive Hobbled by Firmware? - Apple really should 'do a Sony' and support both formats for the convenience of its owner-drivers. We can understand why Apple has adopted such an approach; it doesn't want to support DVD+RW and doesn't want to confuse consumers who buy DVD+RWs accidentally and wonder why they can't burn from iDVD
What The G5 Means For the Post Industry: Part 2 - As I began in the first part of this article, Apple has recently been positioning itself as a major player in the high-end post production industry. An industry that has gone through, and continues to go through both a technological and economic upheaval, as the worldwide economy dictates the budgets of everyone (thanks mainly to the knock on effect of the down turn in the Advertising market.) It is somewhat ironic, in this light, that Apple is constantly accused of being too expensive, when in reality, they have done more to bring down the cost of Post Production than any other company in this industry
Apple confronts its lack of speed - Designers and other creative types, Apple's main customer base, have increasingly had to face up to the fact that current Windows PCs are significantly faster than their Macintosh computers. " The main argument not to buy a Power Mac was the relatively slow speed," says Charlie Wolf, an analyst from Needham & Co. "That reason is now gone."
Apple resellers await world's fastest PC - "It is very disappointing that within 24 hours of such a major announcement, associate resellers were advertising that customers could pre-order at cost price," Apple Centre Taylor Square director, Ben Morgan, said. "Why would you do that unless you are trying to buy customers? "These fly by the minute, box-hocking companies are continuing a fine tradition of mass discounting to the customer with immediate deferral of all support. All they want to do is move product and at the first sign of trouble it will be deflected to someone else."
Apple explains Power Mac G4 mobo switch - Priced to start at US$1,299 and available configured in single and dual-processor configurations, the Power Mac G4 is not the same 1.25GHz model that was available a few weeks ago. Gone is FireWire 800, for example, as is AirPort Extreme and built-in Bluetooth support. In fact, the specifications on today's Power Mac G4 look very similar to the systems that debuted last August
G5: NASA evaluation inconclusive - A scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia has been putting Apple's new G5 Power Macs through their paces. NASA uses computers to calculate fluid dynamics of jets, and pitted the top-of-the range G5 against a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 system running Linux, a dual-1.25GHz G4 and a dual-1GHz Xserve
The Power Mac G5 - Of course there are detractors and to a certain extent, they have their points. The new machines do lack some of the polished sexiness that the current mirror-drive G4's embody, instead opting for a sort of industrial elegance that seems almost "euro." With nine fans in the equation, the main goal seems to keep the thing from overheating and thus melting upon itself. Additional criticism regarding the lack of a second optical drive is also valid, even if Apple's demographics showed that not many people use needed the additional slots, especially in the face of three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port and two FireWire 400 ports. From a gaming perspective, perhaps the 64 MB of RAM on nVidia's FX 5200 Ultra graphics seems a bit tepid, but the numbers have yet to come in as to what's sufficient and what needs to be upgraded,
Product managers: G5 '4.3 billion times better than G4' - The PowerPC G5 is the PowerPC 970 chip, which is based on IBM's Power4 processor - which Boger called "the world's most sophisticated processor". The G5 is the size of an adult's fingernail and yet includes 300 metres of wiring; the circuitry is 800 times thinner than a human hair.
Boger was keen to point out that the G5's 64-bit architecture is not merely double that of the previous 32-bit chip builds. As 32-bit means 2 to the power of 32, and 64-bit means 2 to the power of 64, the new architecture is actually 4.3 billion times as expandable
NASA benchmarks Power Mac G5 - MacMinute reader Derek Kent let us know that NASA has apparently benchmarked Apple's dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 at its Langley Research Center in Virginia. "The main purpose of the tests was to compare the G5 to the G4 for 'computational fluid dynamics applications' however they also compare it to the Pentium 4. The test was well documented and concludes that 'the G5 has about 22% better scalar floating point performance per clock cycle than the G4 systems tested and 32% better floating point performance per clock cycle than the P4 systems tested.'"
Panther: Time to Pull the Plug on the Beige G3 - We've all heard how great the new Power Mac G5 is going to be -- and I, just like everyone else on the Mac Web can't wait to try one out. The G5 is a completely new chip, the PPC 970, which of course means that additional hardware support has to be written into the OS to support the CPU as well as the new hardware architecture of the Power Mac G5. Yet another model Apple has to support. Does this mean Apple will start to drop support for more machines? Possibly
Massive Mac - If this were Mission Impossible, Steve Jobs would be chortling "I love it when a plan comes together". And it did, with a bang, at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. It was probably the most important showing of Apple's design and engineering superiority since Jobs returned to restore Apple five years ago. Given the depths to which the firm had sunk, it may even be the biggest event since the first Macintosh in 1984
Is the Mac G5 a PC or a workstation? - IT SEEMS THAT when a hot topic is touched, responses come faster than blisters on the skin from touching a hot stove. The 64-bit Mac analysis was one such piece
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