Apple release ground breaking Power Mac G5

Wednesday June 25, 2003

Apple have laid claim to the title of the world's fastest personal computer with the release of the Power Mac G5, the first PC to utilise 64-bit processing technology.

"The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again," according to Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "The new Power Mac G5 combines the world's first 64-bit desktop processor, the industry's first 1 GHz front-side bus, and up to 8GB of memory to beat the fastest Pentium 4 and dual Xeon-based systems in industry-standard benchmarks and real-world professional applications."

The PowerPC G5 processor that powers the new Mac is a result of the strategic relationship between Apple and IBM. The G5 runs at clock speeds up to 2 GHz and IBM's next generation POWER architecture is capable of virtually addressing 18 exabytes (18 billion billion bytes) of memory.

The G5 provides enough bandwidth to deliver a typical full-length motion picture in less than one second according to IBM.

To achieve this performance, ultra-thin 130 nanometer circuitry (nearly 800 times thinner than a human hair), IBM has crammed 1,131 feet of copper and 58 million transistors. Compare this with 42 million transistors in the Pentium 4 and 29,000 in the first home computing microprocessor - the Intel 8080 - an 8-bit chip introduced in 1974.

The Power Mac G5 supports memory expansion up to 8GB and advanced 64-bit computation, while running existing 32-bit applications natively.

The Power Mac G5 line will be available in August in three different configurations ranging from of AUS$3,599 inc GST to AUS$5,599 inc GST.

The release coincides with a preview of the Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther", the next major version of Mac OS X that will ship by the end of 2003.

Follow the links below for further information and full-specs of the Power Mac G5.