04/27/2005, 8:35am, EDT

Wednesday, April 27th

Apple upgrades Power Mac G5 desktop line

Apple today refreshed its Power Mac G5 desktop line, featuring dual G5 processors running up to 2.7GHz and including Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger". The new desktops, which first appeared on Amazon.com yesterday, offer higher performance graphics options with more memory and built-in support for Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD Display on the 2.7GHz model. The new line also includes larger hard drives, a faster 16X SuperDrive with double-layer support and 512MB of memory in each model. The new dual-processor models will be available this week from the Apple Store, Apple retail stores, and other authorized retailers for $2,000 (dual-2GHz), $2,500 (dual-2.3GHz), and $3,000 (dual-2.7GHz). Apple also said it would continue to sell its single-processor 1.8GHz Power Mac G5 for $1,500.

The new models with 16x dual-layer SuperDrives are available from the Apple Store with a ship time of 1-2 business days:

dual-2GHz G5 (PCI): 512MB/160GB/ATI Radeon 9600 (w/128MB) -- $1,999
dual-2.3GHz G5 (PCI-X): 512MB/250GB/ATI Radeon 9600 (w/128MB)-- $2,499
dual-2.7GHz G5 (PCI-X): 512MB/250GB/ATI Radeon 9650 (w/256MB) -- $2,999

"The Power Mac G5 continues to deliver the ultimate performance for our most advanced customers running bandwidth- and compute-intensive applications," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "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."

All new Power Mac G5 models come standard with dual-display support with either the ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card with 128MB of video memory or the ATI Radeon 9650 with 256MB of video memory. The high-end dual-processor 2.7 GHz Power Mac G5 features built-in support to drive Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD Display, while the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL high-performance graphics card, which can drive up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays, is available as a BTO option on all models.

The new Power Macs ship with a new, faster 16X SuperDrive with double-layer support capable of burning up to 8.5GB on a single DVD, 512MB memory and larger hard drives for up to 800GB of internal storage. The desktops also feature Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, three PCI-X or PCI expansion slots, USB 2.0, optical digital audio input and output, and analog audio input and output.

All dual processor Power Mac G5 systems ship with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

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kerryb

Too expensive!

04/27, 8:54am, EDT

Great machines, but the pricing is too high. I purchased a top of the line G3 300 (the fastest machine in the world at the time) back in 1997 for $3000. In 2002 I picked the middle pro Quicksilver 900 for $2000. Aren't these things suppose to get cheaper with time not the opposite?

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Voch

True

04/27, 9:03am, EDT

They are a bit pricey. But pro folks will buy them.

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JustinD

Yikes.

04/27, 9:09am, EDT

Pretty dreadful. Argh, look at the video card options - umps from a 9650 to a 680 Ultra at $400! What a friggin joke.

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DeepDish

Dual Layer DVD

04/27, 9:17am, EDT

If I wanted to replace the DVD-R in my G5 I bought last fall, and wanted one of put one of these new 16x Dual Layer DVD burners interanally into it, what model number of DVD burner would I buy?

Would it be easy to put in myself?

Are these DVD-R or DVD +/- R?

Thank you kindly,

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testudo

low-end

04/27, 9:20am, EDT

The $1500 low-end model is now a true joke. The $2000 model gets an upgrade on processor, memory, video, DVD drive, etc. The $1500 model? Exactly the same as it was yesterday, including price. Is Apple like deftly afraid to sell a tower computer for $1200 or something?

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fritzw1957

Re: Dual Layer DVD

04/27, 9:23am, EDT

I believe these DVD burners are FULLY compliant with all the known DVD writing formats (DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW - all Dual-Layer) except Blu-Ray... gee just what we need --- another 'emerging standard'.

BETA vs. VHS Anyone? ;-)

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fritzw1957

RE: Dual Layer DVD (again

04/27, 9:25am, EDT

http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html

Look at the OPTICAL DRIVE specs -- all your questions answered there.

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cyngus

The pricing

04/27, 9:27am, EDT

Repeat after me. THESE ARE PRO MACHINES. THESE ARE PRO MACHINES. THESE ARE PRO MACHINES. Why is the low-end so expensive? Its for that person out there who doesn't need a huge amount of processing power, but needs the slots. Apple's machines don't get cheaper because the performance gets better. If you look at a top-of-the-line Intel or AMD workstation, it'll run you about the same price. If you want that kind of performance, you gotta pay for it and perhaps more than raw performance would imply. As with most things features increase linearly and price increases exponentiall beyond a certian point. Don't like it, call it unfair, do whatever you want, but this is how almost every business operates for both economic and business strategy reasons. Many, many industries use the high end (business/prosumer) to subsidize the low-end (consumer), airlines, broadband, nearly everything.

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Tdassel

3 Ghz promised last year

04/27, 9:28am, EDT

Hello,

no big deal upgrade. Won't help the sales much, or am I wrong ? No state of the art ATI card. Some long overdue adaptions like 512 MB and Dual Layer burner. Still no multi core chips and no dramatic price cut either. O.K: the displays have dropped. And if the single 1.8 Ghz model stays, I fear the next Imac upgrade will not be a big one either. Perhaps we will see faster xserves at WWDC ?

Greetings

Thomas

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wings_rfs

7% Faster...wow

04/27, 9:48am, EDT

Oh Boy... we went from 2.5 to 2.7 GHz, a 7.5% speed bump. Better than stagnation I guess, but I'm still in a waiting mode. My next buy will be a dual dual (yeah, quad!) G5 at 3GHz. Whenever that arrives.

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