New G5 Power Macs "Fastest Desktop In The World"

In the hardware part of his keynote address at WWDC, Jobs officially introduced the G5-based computers previously leaked on the Apple store. The new G5 machines, with the IBM 970 processor, use the "world's first 64-bit desktop processor" (and the "fastest 64-bit processor ever") but run both 64-bit and 32-bit apps natively, and run up to 2GHz. The bus is 1GHz ("fastest ever") and it is designed for dual processing and full symmetric processing.

Beyond the many numbers, the bottom line is that the new machines have a new architecture, and that the memory speed is now the bottleneck, not the processor or bandwidth speeds. So they can have up to 8GB of 128-bit DDR RAM, as it is efficient to keep data in memory. The memory bandwidth is one of the most talked-about features of the new architecture.

USB 2.0 is now included, as are FireWire 400 and 800, Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme, and digital audio in and out. The 4x SuperDrive is now standard, and it can house up to 500GB of internal storage.

For video, the GeForce FX5200 is standard on low-end models, Radeon 9600 Pro on high-end models.

The case of the new machines is redesigned too, from the ground up, focusing on decreasing noise and heat. It is an aluminum enclosure, with ports for FireWire and USB on the front, and a door on the side to get into the box. It has four distinct "thermal zones" with computer-controlled cooling with its nine (yes, nine) independent fans. And it is much quieter than its predecessor.

The G5 is 10 percent slower than the P4 and Xeon in SPEC int scores in single-proc units, but 20 percent faster in FPU scores, and the dual-proc G5 beats the dual-proc Xeon in all SPEC scores.

The models are a single 1.6 GHz ($1999), single 1.8GHz ($2399), and dual 2GHz ($2999). They will ship in August. A 3GHz processor will be available from IBM in 12 months.

Apple notes that recompiling apps for the 64-bit architecture is easy, and in some cases can be done in minutes.

There was no word about the heavily anticipated redesign of the 15" PowerBooks.

Comments

I don't know about you guys

[teamhasnoi]

but I have a huge apple-shaped boner right now.

I'm trying to see who wants to buy my pc as we speak. Windows is so 1984.

In other news, Apple is going to ship these with a no-button mouse, simplfying the input device to ease new users into their new faster-than-thought systems, as well as pissing off /.ers everywhere.

Re:Photoshop, for one thing

[autopr0n]

My dual G4/450 with 1.5 GB RAM and Radeon 9000 already gags on that enough so that it's a hassle when I have to design and edit that kind of stuff. Believe me, I'm going to be first in line as soon as I scrape together the $2500 or so for a new G5 system with added RAM (the more RAM, the merrier -- Photoshop is VERY hungry for RAM).

450mhz? Nevermind that you could have droped a grand and gotten a much faster PC for a long time.