Apple Introduces Power Mac G5 Quad & Power Mac G5 Dual

October 20, 2005

Apple today unveiled its new Power Mac G5 desktop line featuring the Power Mac G5 Quad, providing quad-core processing with two 2.5 GHz dual-core PowerPC G5 processors. All Power Mac G5 models now feature dual-core processors, a new PCI Express architecture and higher performance graphics options including NVIDIA’s Quadro FX 4500, bringing the industry standard for workstation graphics to the Mac.

The Power Mac G5 Quad suggested retail price is $3,299. The Power Mac G5 Dual will be around $2,499.

“The Power Mac G5 Quad delivers the workstation performance our creative and scientific customers demand,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With quad-core processing, a new PCI Express architecture, and the fastest workstation card from NVIDIA, the new Power Mac G5 Quad is the most powerful system we’ve ever made.”

With two 2.5 GHz dual-core processors, each with 1MB of L2 cache, the Power Mac G5 Quad delivers breakthrough performance on applications used extensively by creative professionals and scientists. For example:

-- Final Cut Pro 5 encodes SD video content up to 60 percent faster on the new Power Mac G5 Quad when compared with the Dual Processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5;
-- Adobe Photoshop runs a series of 45 commonly used filters and actions 43 percent faster on the new Power Mac G5 Quad when compared with the Dual Processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5;
-- Adobe After Effects renders video effects up to 69 percent faster on the new Power Mac G5 Quad when compared with the Dual Processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5;
-- LightWave 3D renders animation up to 59 percent faster on the Power Mac G5 Quad when compared with the Dual Processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5; and
-- The scientific benchmark Bioinformatics Benchmark System (BBS version 3) completes a comparison of genomic sequences up to 39 percent faster on the Power Mac G5 Quad when compared with the Dual Processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5.

The Power Mac G5 line offers leading-edge expansion with industry standard PCI Express architecture, providing four expansion slots to support high-performance video and audio devices and multiple standard graphics cards to drive an array of up to eight displays. The Power Mac G5 delivers up to 16GB of 533 MHz DDR2 SDRAM and now features two Gigabit Ethernet ports—ideal for customers working in an Xsan environment. Providing industry-leading connectivity and high-performance I/O, every Power Mac G5 also includes one FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 1.1 ports, optical and digital audio input and output, and built-in support for AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. The new Power Mac G5 line also includes Apple’s next generation mouse, Mighty Mouse, featuring up to four programmable buttons and an ingenious Scroll Ball that lets users scroll in any direction—vertically, horizontally and even diagonally.

Source: Apple