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The Apple G5 in its shiny glory. Speeds up to a dual 2GHz, RAM up to 8MB. It may be the world's fastest personal computer, but perhaps as important is how good you'll look with this bad boy in your studio.
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Inside the G5. The two G5 processor areas house the 64-bit IBM POwerPC 970 processors. Three blazing fast PCI-X slots let you hook in your audio cards.
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Left: The G5 chip. Bow before its greatness.
Right: Up to 500GB of internal storage with serial ATA drives.
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Ins and outs for every aspect of your life.
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All images for this article courtesy of Apple.
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The Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHz Tower. It just sounds good doesn’t it? This sleek new release from Apple, branded as the "world's fastest personal computer", is just what the doctor ordered for us music folks. Let’s take a look inside to see what makes it purr.
Under The Hood
When popping the polished metallic panel and heat/noise shield open, the first thing you’ll notice is not one, but two 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970 processors. As you might think, two is better than one, and the 2GHz Power Mac also has dual frontside busses, running at 1GHz each – very fast indeed. This all-important buss is what passes data through the system, allowing the computer to easily handle massive audio sessions.
Next are the PCI-X slots for our audio cards. The fist offers a 133MHz speed, with the following two slots clocking in at 100MHz. Comparatively, my old G4 has 33MHz slots, and this faster PCI-X setup actually yields more efficiency and useable bandwidth at any clock frequency. Note that since the cards are slotted inside the computer, its not as easy to install them as it was on the side-opening G4 models. Take your time and slot them firmly! I had no problem installing my Pro Tools HD3 setup with my 192 I/O.
Mucho RAM, Mondo Storage
One of the most important audio related features is that the new G5’s can hold up to 8GB of RAM. We all know how fast RAM gets eaten up in our audio applications. With the 2GB I’ve installed, it easily handles memory hungry plug-ins like Atmosphere and Trilogy. That additional RAM capability also helps with the new generation (and next) of soft samplers, such as MOTU’s MachFive. When streaming samplers become more common, the G5 will be ready for them.
Next in importance to me is the massive internal drive storage. Using Serial ATA drives instead of parallel, the G5 can currently handle two internals’ at up to 250G each - giving us 500G’s of potential storage. Each drive also connects to the main system controller with a maximum 150MB per second data rate – again, plenty fast. I’ve loaded up all of my sample and plug–in libraries on a separately partitioned second drive. This provides instant, easy access to my sound library without having to hook up an additional drive. A real timesaver.
Quieter Fans and More Cool Features
Unlike some of the G4’s I know of, the G5 runs remarkably quiet. Apple claims it runs at 35 decibels, and I’ve noticed it to be quieter by far than my last desktop Mac. Interestingly, the G5 actually has nine fans (yes, you read that right) running in four independent ‘thermal zones’. The cooling works intelligently, and you can actually hear the fans kick in the harder you push the processors.
The G5 has several other features that will please audio professionals; USB, Firewire and headphone ports conveniently located on the front of the machine. 5.1 surround capable Digital I/O with Toslink connectors delivering S/PDIF at up to 24-bit/96kHz on the back. Analog I/O via 3.5mm stereo ports and an Airport Extreme Card for wireless network connection. A total of five USB ports (three 2.0 on the computer plus two 1.1’s on the keyboard) compliment the three FireWire ports (2 FireWire 400 plus one FireWire 800) for maximum I/O. The G5 does comes installed with OSX, but will run in "Classic" mode for any programs that need OS9.
Currently, all our software runs in 32-bit mode, but as the apps get developed to run 64-bits, the G5 will be ready. I can only imagine what the future holds. For now, I highly recommend checking out a new G5. It’s a fully professional production machine with no compromises.
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