Apple Bumps Power Mac G5 to dual 2.7 [UPDATE]

by , 8:55 AM EDT, April 27th, 2005

Apple Computer announced a bump in the Power Mac G5 product line Wednesday, bringing its professional Mac offering to dual 2.7GHz, up from 2.5 GHz. As suggested by Amazon's accidental posting of the upgrade on Tuesday, the high end model now comes with 512 megabytes of memory with a faster 16X SuperDrive, and 250 gigabytes of hard drive space.

The dual 2.7 GHz model also features a front-side bus of 1.35 GHz, which can provide data bandwidth of up to 21.6 giga bits per second. The high-end unit comes with an ATI Radeon 9650 video card with 256MB DDR SDRAM and support for one 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display.

"The Power Mac G5 continues to deliver the ultimate performance for our most advanced customers running bandwidth- and compute-intensive applications," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a statement. "With dual 2.7 GHz 64-bit G5 processors, dual 1.35 GHz front side buses, ATI Radeon 9650 graphics, 16X SuperDrive with double-layer support and Mac OS X Tiger, the new Power Mac G5 is the most powerful and advanced Mac we have ever made."

Apple will also be offering a dual 2.0 GHz and a dual 2.3 GHz model, making three dual processor models in the product line. Both of these models will include the ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR SDRAM, the 16X SuperDrive, and 160GB and 250GB hard drives respectively.

A single processor 1.8 GHz unit is still being offered, as well, with a starting price of $1,499.

A new built-to-order option for all three units is the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL high-performance graphics card that can drive up to two 30" Cinema Displays with the single card. This option is priced at $450 at the Apple Store.

All three units will ship with Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," which ships this week on Friday, April 29th.

The three new configurations are as follows:

The Power Mac G5, with a suggested retail price of $1,999, includes:

• Dual 2.0 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5;
• 512MB 400 MHz DDR SDRAM (4GB maximum);
• 160GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm hard drive;
• AGP 8X Pro graphics slot;
• ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR SDRAM;
• 3 PCI slots (64-bit 33MHz); and
• 16X SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±R/CD-RW).

The Power Mac G5, with a suggested retail price of $2,499, includes:

• Dual 2.3 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5;
• 512MB 400 MHz DDR SDRAM (8GB maximum);
• 250GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm hard drive;
• AGP 8X Pro graphics slot;
• ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR SDRAM;
• 3 PCI-X slots (one 64-bit 133 MHz, two 64-bit 100 MHz); and
• 16X SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±R/CD-RW).

The Power Mac G5, with a suggested retail price of $2,999, includes:

• Dual 2.7 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5;
• 512MB 400 MHz DDR SDRAM (8GB maximum);
• 250GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm hard drive;
• AGP 8X Pro graphics slot;
• ATI Radeon 9650 with 256MB DDR SDRAM and support for one 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display;
• 3 PCI-X slots (one 64-bit 133 MHz, two 64-bit 100 MHz); and
• 16X SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±R/CD-RW).

You can find more information on the Power Mac G5 product line at Apple's Web site, and you can find pricing on the units at the Apple Store.

Apple also dropped the price of its 20" and 23" Cinema Displays Wednesday.