Revealed: New Power Mac G5, iMac G5, eMac Specs

Highly reliable sources have confirmed the specifications of Apple's forthcoming revisions to its Power Mac G5, iMac G5 and eMac systems, expected to start shipping within a few days of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's April 29th release.

New Power Mac G5 systems, code-named Q87, will top out at 2.7GHz, sources said, while video cards are being upgraded with double the SDRAM. All models will feature SuperDrives offering dual-layer DVD+R support, as well as DVD±RW/CD-RW compatibility.

I can't wait for multicore Power PC processors...

Imagine a Mac utilizing a Cell processor with 8 "cores", each of which can execute two instructions at a time...

For simple things like word processing, it won't matter all that much.. But for rendering 3-D, compressing/decompressing audio/video, games, it will revolutionize desktop computing...

For now, we will have to live with dual cores...But soon, things will be multicore.. (Multicore means a single processor die contains several processors, in various arrangements and configurations..)

The first multicore consumer product will hit the shelves this year... The XBox 2 (360/xenon) will feature a three core (64bit) processor, each core running at 3.5 ghz, each core capable of executing two instructions at a time, and each core capable of hyperthreading. (Hyperthreading acts as a virtual second processor, so each core can act, in certain circumstances, as two processors).

Effectively, the XBOX 2 will virtually have six processors, each of which can execute two instructions per cycle. What this means in english is that the Xbox2 can, in certain circumstances, have the power to execute six instructions every cycle. (It can't execute 12 instructions per cycle, the hyperthreading allows execution when the processor would normally skip the execution cycle, from what I understand)

What does this mean? It means that the XBOX can design one hell of a virtual environment -- providing video games one step closer to realistic detail..

Next year Sony will release the PS3, which promises to have "a bit more under the hood" than the XBox2.. Sony will use a similar chip (Both of which are made by IBM) known as the "Cell Processor"...

Not sure about the new Macs,

But the XBOX 2 uses an unreleased ATI chip-- which will eventually make it's way into the PC cards.

For raw performance, my money is on the Sony PS3..

However, the XBOX will have enough performance to make the differences somewhat insignificant....

From a marketing perspective, my money is on MS..

First to market a next gen machine WITH game developers behind it, wins..

I'll be buying an XBOX 2 AFTER Christmas -- no need to rush or have to pay extra....

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.