Power Macintosh

Power Macintosh G5 (2003)

The World's Fastest Personal Computer

The Power Mac G5 was introduced on June 23, 2003 - the same day Intel officially unveiled the 3.2 GHz Pentium4. In terms of clock speed, that means Intel had a 6.7% speed bump the same day that Apple announced a 40% improvement (from 1.42 GHz to 2.0 GHz).

Specs are those "accidentally leaked" on Apple's site the previous Thursday. Apple is using the 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor from IBM, since Motorola abandoned their G5 development plans long ago. The PPC 970 is based on the same core as IBM's supercomputers.

Both the Power Mac G5 and the PowerPC 970 CPU were designed from the ground up to support symmetric multiprocessing (processing using two or more CPUs). The PPC 970 uses the same Velocity Engine instructions as Motorola's G4 processor, and it's fully compatible with existing 32-bit software.

The motherboard architecture uses the new HyperTransport technology. System memory is so fast (400 MHz on an 800 MHz to 1.0 GHz bus) that there's no need for a level 3 cache.

New to Apple are Serial ATA for internal hard drives, which supports up to 1.5 GBps bandwidth, and USB 2.0, which will give Mac users full speed access to some of the wonderful USB 2.0 peripherals developed over the past year or so. The Power Mac G5 also adopts the new twice-as-fast AGP 8x bus for video cards.

One headphone jack, USB 2.0 port, and FireWire port are located on the front of the G5 for easy access.

The G5 is in a new aluminum enclosure that's vented in the front and back. The case includes four thermal G5 cooling systemzones and 9 fans to handle cooling, each independently controlled for speed. Apple claims the Power Mac G5 is "twice as quiet" as the Power Mac G4. The case is a bit taller and slightly narrower than the Power Mac G4 and just a little deeper. It's also nearly 3 pounds lighter.

The single CPU 1.8 GHz model was discontinued and replaced by a dual processor model selling for $100 more 2003.11.18. This model provides 90% of the raw horsepower of the 2.0 GHz model at 87% the price, making it a better value for those who don't need that last 10% of speed.

Note that the 1.6 GHz model is one of Apple's entry-level G5s, which means it uses 33 MHz PCI slots instead of 100/133 MHz PCI-X, has 4 memory slots instead of 8, and uses a 450W power supply instead of 600W.

You should have the most recent firmware installed in your Power Mac G5. The newest version is Power Mac G5 Uniprocessor Firmware Update 5.1.5f2, which is only for 1.6 GHz G5 Power Macs. Apple recommends removing any third-party RAM before installing this firmware update.

Power Mac G5 Reliability

Reliability ratings are based on statistics compiled by MacInTouch in June 2006, at which time the dual-core Power Mac G5 models had only been on the market for 8 months. Letter grades are based on failure rate: A = 0-6%, B = 7-12%, C = 13-18%, D = 19-24%, and F = 25% or higher. We also note the two components that failed most often.

  • G5/1.6 single (June 2003), D- (24%, logicboard, hard drive)
  • G5/1.8 single (June 2003), D+ (19%, logicboard, video card)
  • G5/2.0 dual (June 2003), F (32%, video card, logicboard)

In each generation, except for the final dual-core one, the fastest model is the least reliable, while the second-fastest is the most reliable. Logicboards are the most expensive component to repair, followed by the power supply. Hard drives, optical drives, video cards, and RAM can be replaced inexpensively using third-party components.

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