Andrew Pavey

Since its introduction, Apple has received over 100,000 orders of the Power Mac G5, which features a 64-bit processor and significant speed increases over previous desktop Macs.

Andrew Shipton will be bringing the first of the new models, the 1.6GHz, single processor version along to the September meeting. The 2GHz dual processor model, as is often the case with Apple's major model changes, won't be available for a while yet.

As is usually the case Apple is trumpeting the fact that this is the fastest PC on the planet, although on some tests barely so. Judge for yourself on Apple's published figures. Apple G5 site

Apple claims "The Power Mac G5 runs all of your software — and runs it faster", so they haven't caught up with Microsoft's embarrassing admission that Virtual PC won't run on the G5, and will need a lengthy re-write. This little debacle is attributed to problems with 'pseudo little-endian mode' features built in to the G3 and G4 chips. The G5 is apparently 'bi-endian'. The core of the problem is that the significant bytes in Intel chips are in the opposite order to a Mac, this strikes at the heart of what VPC sets out to achieve ie emulation of an Intel chip on a Mac. The slow speed of earlier versions of VPC is attributed to the lack of an easy way to deal with the byte reversal, which was incorporated into the G3 and G4 chips. Ain't computers easy to understand?

The G5 features a new case design, in Aluminium, and the internals are quite different to the old Quicksilver models, although the very useful handles remain. The G5 sports 9 fans, each monitoring it's own litle space inside. This is oviously a reaction (even an over-reaction) to the (merited) criticisms of the last G4 model, dubbed WindTunnel by annoyed users, which was very noisy.

Apple says "Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered seven of the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. And Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4."