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.
I wonder if the 7 machines I ordered (BTO thru a purchaser) last Thursday will be bumped up? Shipping time was estimated at 7-10 days when I ordered. Maybe it will be in the queue for the new hardware.
Sorry iLemmings no 3GHz for you. What a lame update, almost a year to overclock the 2.5GHz processor. No dual core and no PCIe graphics, expect continued sharp decline in Power Mac sales.
Last edited by RealityCheck on Wed Apr 27, 2005 10:19 am; edited 3 times in total Reply | Quote
The prices haven't changed. What are you talking about??
Quote
RealityCheck wrote: Sorry iLemmings no 3GHz for you. Also notice the 33% price increase in the base Power Mac to $2K. Since Apple Power Mac sales have collapsed, Apple strategy is to extract the maximum dollars from the Macbots who don't know any better.
"RealityCheck wrote:
Sorry iLemmings no 3GHz for you. Also notice the 33% price increase in the base Power Mac to $2K. Since Apple Power Mac sales have collapsed, Apple strategy is to extract the maximum dollars from the Macbots who don't know any better."
Not that you'd know it...except that macnut quoted RCs knee-jerk spewage before he could retract it.
I'm quoting it as well just to hammer the point.
Regardless, these machines are great. They're fast enough for me and I'm getting one as soon as I can.
RC, you need a little education on what "overclock" actually means. To quote WikiPedia, "Overclocking is the practice of making a component run at a higher clock speed than the manufacturer's specification. The idea is to increase performance for free or to exceed current performance limits, but this may come at the cost of stability." 2.7GHz IS IBM's spec for speed for these parts, so they are not being "overclocked". Also, the 2.7's won't be a cause for instability - we'll leave that for your Windoze box.
RC is right about this being a very small speed increase. At least the prices are the same. The big problem with these small updates are that it seems everyone gets way too excited when the Apple store is down for an update.
I'm sure Dell Computer does a 200 MHz speed increase on one of their systems, and it goes un-noticed. Apple has the same increase, and it brings moans from the collective masses that it's not enough.
We Mac users just need to relax a bit, since most of us don't use the fastest Powermac available anyway.
RealityCheck wrote: What a lame update, almost a year to overclock the 2.5GHz processor.
As opposed to Microsoft, who is only a year away from releasing the software they said they'd release 2003, then 2004, then 2005? And this after stripping out one of the main selling points, WinFS, which they've been talking about since 1992 when it was supposed to debut in Cairo, circa 1994. I guess if Apple couple strip out something important from the PowerMac, say the microprocessor, then they could improve their ship dates too.
Maybe you should go to Ford web sites and tell them how much better Chevy is? Catholic web sites to expound on the virtues of Protestantism? Frend web sites to extoll the superiority of Germany? I wish you had been taught the Golden Rule while growing up, as that might have made you a more tolerant person. Possibly you believe in Microsoft's Golden Rule - "He who has the gold, makes the rules".
I see the boost of all the other components for the same price as a much bigger improvement. The viedo cards, frontside bus, optical drive, and hard drive are great increases! Besides I believe that Tiger will give it a huge speed boost by itself. If you want a 3ghz machine go buy a Dell, I want a well built, fast, well equipped machine so I would go with a G5. Clock speed is sooooooo overrated anyway! This new setup is gonna cook!
Guest wrote: I see the boost of all the other components for the same price as a much bigger improvement. The viedo cards, frontside bus, optical drive, and hard drive are great increases! Besides I believe that Tiger will give it a huge speed boost by itself. If you want a 3ghz machine go buy a Dell, I want a well built, fast, well equipped machine so I would go with a G5. Clock speed is sooooooo overrated anyway! This new setup is gonna cook!
hear hear. basically all the people that whine about the powermac g5 can go kiss my ass. i can say that with some confidence now. yes, apple risks some brand damage because of 'poorer' GPUs but i've come to terms with that now.
lets look at it:
1. dual 2.7ghz compared to dual 3.0ghz
who cares? look at the benchmarks apple posted on the dual 2.7ghz on multimedia processing
2. 512mb ram standard. no worries, just go to crucial.com and load it up to 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, whatever you can afford/whatever gets you off
3. not enough hard disk space? go buy that Lacie 1TB Raid - it's external firewire 800, so guess what, it's portable as well
and *drum roll* finally,
4a. GPU too slow? get an ATI radeon 9800 for about $200+ and use that instead of the 9600/9650 it comes with. sell the 9600/9650 on ebay. GPU still too slow? get your powermac g5 built-to-order with the nvidia 6800 ultra for $500. don't like nvidia? sell the 9600/9650 your g5 comes with and put that extra $500 to an ATI radeon x800 xt...
4b. if you are spending $2-$3k on a very high performance computer GPU is such a total non-issue, you can sort that out for a few hundred dollars if you are really concerned about it.
4c. i realised that GPU is just a nice handy tool for windoze fanboys to whine about the powerMac. i agree this is negative perception that can affect apple's bottom line so maybe apple should address this by puting in a radeon 9800 standard, to boost the image of the powermac g5 and garner more sales. but that is up to apple marketing, i have found my peace on this matter
3. not enough hard disk space? go buy that Lacie 1TB Raid - it's external firewire 800, so guess what, it's portable as well
This reminds me, something that's been ignored by most people is that the internal SATA drives are now available up to 400 GB.
That means you can order this thing with 800 GB of internal space. I was someone who was hoping for more drive bays, but I have to say that short of that happening, this is pretty cool!
Guest wrote: I see the boost of all the other components for the same price as a much bigger improvement. The viedo cards, frontside bus, optical drive, and hard drive are great increases! Besides I believe that Tiger will give it a huge speed boost by itself. If you want a 3ghz machine go buy a Dell, I want a well built, fast, well equipped machine so I would go with a G5. Clock speed is sooooooo overrated anyway! This new setup is gonna cook!
hear hear. basically all the people that whine about the powermac g5 can go kiss my ass. i can say that with some confidence now. yes, apple risks some brand damage because of 'poorer' GPUs but i've come to terms with that now.
lets look at it:
1. dual 2.7ghz compared to dual 3.0ghz
who cares? look at the benchmarks apple posted on the dual 2.7ghz on multimedia processing
2. 512mb ram standard. no worries, just go to crucial.com and load it up to 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, whatever you can afford/whatever gets you off
3. not enough hard disk space? go buy that Lacie 1TB Raid - it's external firewire 800, so guess what, it's portable as well
and *drum roll* finally,
4a. GPU too slow? get an ATI radeon 9800 for about $200+ and use that instead of the 9600/9650 it comes with. sell the 9600/9650 on ebay. GPU still too slow? get your powermac g5 built-to-order with the nvidia 6800 ultra for $500. don't like nvidia? sell the 9600/9650 your g5 comes with and put that extra $500 to an ATI radeon x800 xt...
4b. if you are spending $2-$3k on a very high performance computer GPU is such a total non-issue, you can sort that out for a few hundred dollars if you are really concerned about it.
4c. i realised that GPU is just a nice handy tool for windoze fanboys to whine about the powerMac. i agree this is negative perception that can affect apple's bottom line so maybe apple should address this by puting in a radeon 9800 standard, to boost the image of the powermac g5 and garner more sales. but that is up to apple marketing, i have found my peace on this matter
well, two more things:
5. tiger mac os 10.4 with quicktime 7 and avc/h.264
6. one is free to use a Dell LCD or whatever with the PowerMac g5 ;-p
Have ordered my 2.7 but also ordered the X800 to be fitted. Now wonder if the extra money (compared to the then standard 9600) is going to be worth it now that the 9650 is standard. Anyway have any ideas on comparison of the two cards?
OtherWorld Computing: NewerTech miniStack FW400+USB2 up to 750GB + Built in Hubs. Ultimate in performance storage + saves space with built in FW/USB2 Powered Hubs - all in convenient & sleek 6.5" x 6.5" x 1.5" profile. SPECIALS: 500GB now $219.99; 250GB now $139.99!
MacPro Memory 667Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink 2GB Kit $ 90 / 4GB Kit $140 / 8GB Kit $278 Click to Maximize your Macs...
Mac observers can now play Party Poker for Mac as well as Mac casino games by going to MacPokerOnline.com.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
Cuisinart ICE-20 Automatic Frozen Yogurt/Ice Cream/Sorbet Maker: 49.95 
32 LEDs Bright Flashlight, Aluminum Case with Button Switch and Lanyard: $9.34 Delivered 
Combo Universal USB car & travel charger: $5.95 Delivered 
Plenio 2G 7" Touchscreen GPS Navigation System: $189.99 Delivered 
Western Digital 500GB My Book Home Edition Triple Interface External Hard Drive: $127.99 Delivered 
