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Introduction
The revolutionary PowerPC G5 changes everything you know about personal computing.
Suddenly, the next generation of high-performance applications for design and graphics,
media production, and scientific research is possible and practical on the desktop. That’s
because the PowerPC G5 brings a 64-bit architecture to the Mac platform—ushering in
an exciting new era in personal computing.
The introduction of the PowerPC G5 is a product of Apple’s partnership with IBM, lever-
aging the most advanced chip design and manufacturing expertise in the world. The
results are phenomenal: 130-nanometer fabrication technology, 2GHz clock speeds, and
an all-new PowerPC architecture. Together, they put enormous computing power within
the reach of personal computer users:
•The ability to address huge amounts of memory provides ultrafast data access, boosting
performance for 2D imaging, 3D design, and video rendering tasks.
•A high-bandwidth execution core with 12 functional units improves performance by
executing multiple instructions per cycle in parallel.
•An optimized 128-bit Velocity Engine cranks through image editing tasks, high-
definition video transitions, and complex scientific analysis.
•Two double-precision floating-point units accelerate 64-bit calculations for 3D
visualization, research simulations, and multitrack audio creation.
The G5 processor is making its debut in the Power Mac G5, the world’s fastest personal
computer according to industry-standard SPEC benchmarks.
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Now Power Mac users can
tackle projects never before possible on a desktop system—and blaze through their
work faster than ever. In fact, the Power Mac G5 runs Adobe Photoshop more than two
times faster than the fastest Pentium 4–based system.
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Best of all, the PowerPC G5 runs
32-bit code—including existing Mac OS X applications—natively, so the transition to
64-bit power is absolutely seamless.
Welcome to the PowerPC G5, the world’s first 64-bit desktop processor and the heart
of the new Power Mac.
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White Paper
PowerPC G5
Key Features
•64-bit architecture, capable of addressing
18 exabytes of memory
•Clock speeds up to 2GHz
• 1GHz frontside bus for throughput of up to
8 GBps per processor
•Dual independent 1GHz frontside buses in
dual processor systems
• Superscalar execution core supporting up to
215 in-flight instructions
•Velocity Engine for accelerated single-
instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) processing
•Two double-precision floating-point units
for high-speed advanced computation
•Massive three-component branch prediction
logic to increase processing efficiency
•Native compatibility with existing 32-bit
application code
•State-of-the-art process technology
from IBM