capsule review

Power Mac G5/Quad 2.5GHz

Macworld |

At a Glance

  • Apple Power Mac G5/Quad 2.5GHz

The value of the Power Mac G5/Quad-2.5GHz depends on what you do with it. With many applications, it's merely the fastest Mac yet, but not by much, and the difference might not be enough to justify the expense. For users of many high-end media-processing and scientific applications, the Quad adds up to a tremendous advance in Mac power, one well worth the price.

At a Glance

  • Apple adds a dual-core processor -- two processing units on a single chip -- to its Power Mac line. This particular model features two dual-core G5 chips, letting applications take advantage of four 1MB L2 caches, four 128-bit Velocity Engines and eight double-precision floating point units. This desktop also adds PCI Express, a high-performance interface that's particularly appealing to video pros. Also new: a double-layer SuperDrive, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and faster DDR2 RAM.

    Pros

    • Speedy video card
    • Dual Gigabit Ethernet jacks support advanced networking options
    • Huge memory capacity
    • PCI Express expansion slots
    • Two dual-core processors deliver substantial performance gains in many applications

    Cons

    • Cooling fans noisy when system is under heavy load
    • Limited performance gains in many routine office and even Photoshop tasks
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