Apple Power Mac G5 (dual 2.7GHz)

The Power Mac comes with Apple's standard professional software bundle, which is strong in multimedia apps but weak in business ones. It ships with OS 10.4, so you'll get the fun of Dashboard and its widgets as well as the latest versions of QuickTime, the iLife '05 suite (with iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand), Mail, Safari and iCal. Professional designers will like Art Directors Toolkit and Graphic Converter. But Apple seems to think those are the only professionals who would buy a Power Mac, since the meagre remainder of the bundle consists of QuickBooks New User Edition and a 30-day trial of iWork (with Pages, the word processor, and Keynote, the presentation tool).

Adobe Photoshop CS test (in minutes:seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Velocity Micro ProMagix DCX (4.0GHz Intel P4 560; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)*

2:06

Apple Power Mac G5 (dual 2.7GHz PowerPC G5; 4,096MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

2:34

Intel dual-core white box (3.2GHz Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

2:51

Intel P4 Extreme Edition white box (3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

2:56

Apple iMac G5 (2.0GHz PowerPC G5; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

6:05

Apple iTunes 4.7.1.30 MP3-encoding test (in minutes:seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple Power Mac G5 (dual 2.7GHz PowerPC G5; 4,096MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

1:13

Velocity Micro ProMagix DCX (4.0GHz Intel P4 560; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)*

1:53

Intel dual-core white box (3.2GHz Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

2:14

Apple iMac G5 (2.0GHz PowerPC G5; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

2:19

Intel P4 Extreme Edition white box (3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

2:38

Sorenson Squeeze 4.0 video-encoding test (in minutes:seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Velocity Micro ProMagix DCX (4.0GHz Intel P4 560; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)*

3:16

Intel P4 Extreme Edition white box (3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

3:32

Apple Power Mac G5 (dual 2.7GHz PowerPC G5; 4,096MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

3:46

Intel dual-core white box (3.2GHz Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)

4:00

Apple iMac G5 (2.0GHz PowerPC G5; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz)

5:30

Note: * CPU and graphics are overclocked

System configurations:
Intel dual-core white box
3.2GHz Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840; Intel 955X Express chipset; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PCIe; 160GB 7,200rpm Seagate ST3160827AS Serial ATA hard drive; Windows XP Professional SP2

Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition white box
3.73GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition; Intel 955X Express chipset; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PCIe; 160GB 7,200rpm Seagate ST3160827AS Serial ATA hard drive; Windows XP Professional SP2

Apple Power Mac G5
Dual PowerPC G5 2.7GHz; 4,096MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL AGP; 250GB 7,200rpm Maxtor Serial ATA hard drive; Macintosh OS 10.4

Apple iMac G5
PowerPC G5 2.0GHz; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB ATI Radeon 9600; 160GB 7,200rpm Maxtor Serial ATA hard drive; Macintosh OS 10.4

Velocity Micro ProMagix DCX (4.0GHz Intel P4 560; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz)*
3.2GHz Intel Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 overclocked to 4.0GHz; Intel 955X Express chipset; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB ATI Radeon X850 XT PE PCIe; two 74GB 10,000rpm Western Digital Serial ATA hard drives in a RAID 0 array; one 400GB 7,200rpm Hitachi HDS724040KLSA80 Serial ATA hard drive; Windows XP Professional SP2

Edited by Matthew Elliott
Additional editing by Nick Hide

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