Power Mac G5
Technology Overview
October 2005
Contents
Page 3 The Power of Four
Inside the Power Mac G5
Outside the Power Mac G5
Page 6 Quad-Core Processing
Two Dual-Core PowerPC G5 Processors
Bidirectional Frontside Bus
64-Bit Processor Architecture
Eight Double-Precision Floating-Point Units
Four Velocity Engine Units
Multiple Cores and Mac OS X
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
2
Page 10 PCI Express Architecture
533MHz DDR2 Main Memory
PCI Express Graphics
PCI Express Expansion
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
High-Performance I/O
Page 15 Workstation Graphics
Advanced Graphics Options
Apple Cinema Displays
Support for Multiple Displays
Page 20 Real-World Advantages
Film and Video
Science and Technical Computing
Design and Print
Music and Audio
Page 29 Confi gurations and Options
Page 31 Technical Specifi cations
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
The Power of Four
3
The new Power Mac G5 Quad delivers
groundbreaking performance compared
with the fastest previous Power Mac.
1
Creative application performance
After Effects
Rendering
Final Cut Pro
SD encoding
LightWave 3D
Rendering
Photoshop
45-action test
Final Cut Pro
SD rendering
Dual 2.7GHz
Power Mac G5
69% faster
60% faster
59% faster
43% faster
40% faster
Baseline
Technical computing performance
Xcode
Project build
BBSv3
Genomics analysis
Mathematica
MathematicaMark
Dual 2.7GHz
Power Mac G5
22% faster
40% faster
76% faster
39% faster
Baseline
Power. It gives your creativity room to play. It takes the edge o∂ supersized projects
and looming deadlines. It challenges you to seek more demanding work and gives
you the confi dence to execute with brilliance.
Introducing the Power Mac G5 Quad. Now you can blaze through your work, deliver
ahead of schedule, wow your clients, even transform your business—because this
quad-core system really moves. It runs creative applications up to 69 percent faster
than the fastest previous Power Mac, the 2.7GHz dual-processor Power Mac G5.
1
Quad-core processing
With two dual-core processors, the Power Mac G5 Quad doubles the computational
power of its dual-processor predecessor. Do the math: Quad-core processing means
four 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor cores, four Velocity Engine units, and eight doubleprecision fl oating-point units for blistering performance of up to 76.6 gigafl ops. That
means you can manipulate mountains of images or miles of footage. Crunch enormous
data sets. Encode HD video or audiophile-quality music. All at speeds you never
imagined possible.
PCI Express architecture
An all-new PCI Express architecture opens up a world of high-performance peripherals
to the Mac platform. This modern industry standard allows you to customize your
Power Mac G5 to the special needs of your workfl ow—providing tremendous power
and productivity in a single system. As your needs change, you’ll have the fl exibility to
add emerging solutions for networked storage, digital signal processing (DSP), video
management, data acquisition, and more.
Workstation graphics
Graphics assume a new level of realism with the latest PCI Express graphics cards. The
optional NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500—the fi rst workstation graphics processing unit (GPU)
for the Mac—accelerates 3D content creation, special e∂ ects, animation, and scientifi c
visualizations. How much reality can you handle? Try adding up to eight all-digital
Apple Cinema HD Displays to your Power Mac G5 and enjoy a veritable dreamscape.
You can even experience full-screen stereo 3D for immersive game play or stereo-in-awindow for scientifi c workfl ows.
Quad-core processing, PCI Express architecture, and workstation graphics are only the
beginning. Find out how the new Power Mac G5 can streamline your work, unlock
opportunities, and deliver results that exceed your grandest expectations.
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Inside the Power Mac G5
The Power Mac G5 is loaded with state-of-the-art technologies that translate into
blistering performance. Take a tour of this power-packed interior.
4
SuperDrive with double-layer support
The SuperDrive built into every Power Mac G5
reads and writes a wide variety of DVD and CD
media. You can even author media or archive
data on double-layer (DVD+R DL) discs capable
of holding up to 8.5GB of data.
Serial ATA storage
Two Serial ATA hard drive bays with a 1.5-Gbps
interface provide up to 1TB of fast internal
2
—ideal for video, audio, and high-resolu-
storage
tion graphics. Software RAID in Mac OS X allows
you to stripe the drives for increased performance
or mirror them for high reliability.
PCI Express expansion
Three PCI Express expansion slots with four or
eight lanes allow you to add PCI Express cards for
video capture and playback, audio DSP, and other
special tasks. For massive storage, just add an
Apple Fibre Channel PCI Express Card and Xserve
RAID, Apple’s high-performance storage system.
Up to 16GB of main memory
Eight DIMM slots hold up to 16GB of fast new
533MHz DDR2 SDRAM. For mission-critical
and compute-intensive environments, you now
have the option of ECC (Error Correction Code)
memory for automatic correction and detection
of data errors.
Dual-core PowerPC G5 processor
Two independent cores on one processor, each
with 1MB of L2 cache and running at clock
speeds up to 2.5GHz—it all adds up to awesome
power in your choice of confi gurations, including
the groundbreaking quad-core Power Mac G5
Quad, which runs key applications up to 69
percent faster than the fastest dual-processor
Power Mac G5.
1
PCI Express graphics
The 16-lane PCI Express slot holds your choice
of the latest consumer and workstation graphics
cards. The new standard for high-performance
graphics, PCI Express delivers throughput of up to
4 GBps—twice that of its AGP 8X predecessor—
for ultrafast 3D, glorious onscreen details, and
immersive visualization.
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Outside the Power Mac G5
Handsome good looks combine with a user-centered design that includes convenient
ports and an easy-to-open (and easy-to-lock) side panel. All confi gurations of the new
Power Mac G5 come with a comprehensive suite of integrated innovations.
5
Easy-open side door
A removable side panel provides
quick access to slots and bays, so
you can install additional memory,
a second hard drive, or a PCI Express
card. To secure internal components,
simply add a lock to the panel latch.
PCI Express slots
Connect your choice of 16-lane PCI
Express graphics cards to one or two
displays, and install up to three PCI
Express expansion cards to add
cutting-edge devices to your Power
Mac G5 system.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports
Two Gigabit (10/100/1000BASE-T)
Ethernet interfaces allow you to
connect the Power Mac G5 to both a
public and a private network—ideal,
for example, for simultaneous access
to the Internet and an Xsan network.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet also enables
server-class features such as support
for VLAN tags, jumbo frames, and port
aggregation.
SuperDrive
Read and write to most types of CD
and DVD media using the built-in 16x
SuperDrive with double-layer support.
Antenna for wireless connections
A built-in antenna and optional
AirPort Extreme
nologies make wireless networking
easy. Create or join AirPort wireless
networks, exchange fi les wirelessly
with another AirPort-equipped Mac,
or connect to Bluetooth-enabled
mobile phones, PDAs, and printers—
and to Apple’s wireless keyboard
and mouse.
3
and Bluetooth tech-
Analog and optical digital audio
Optical digital audio ports support
stereo and 5.1 surround sound
speaker systems, while analog stereo
audio line-level input and output
ports allow you to connect analog
audio decks and devices.
FireWire and USB 2.0 ports
Plug in your choice of peripherals and
devices. Each system has one FireWire
400 port on the front, one FireWire
400 port on the back, a FireWire 800
port on the back, and four USB 2.0
ports—one on the front and three on
the back. There are also two USB 1.1
ports on the keyboard.
Convenient front I/O ports
The front panel of the Power Mac G5
features an integrated speaker, headphone minijack, FireWire port, USB 2.0
port, and power button.
With two independent cores on one
processor, the new PowerPC G5 packs
tremendous processing power on a
single chip.
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Quad-Core Processing
Enter the dual-core PowerPC G5 processor: one silicon chip with two independent
processor cores. Now take two of those dual-core chips and you have the Power Mac
G5 Quad, for groundbreaking quad-core processing.
Quad-core processing means more 64-bit resources: more L2 cache, more Velocity
Engine units, and more double-precision fl oating-point units. Videographers can
edit more footage, fi lmmakers can produce more real-time e∂ ects, designers and
photographers can process more higher-resolution images, and researchers can
crunch through data sets for faster results. Compare a quad-core Power Mac G5 to
the fastest dual-processor G5 ever built, and you’ll experience up to 69 percent faster
performance running popular professional applications.
Two Dual-Core PowerPC G5 Processors
1
6
The new PowerPC G5 combines two processor cores on a single silicon chip, providing
double the computational power in the same space as a single-core processor. What’s
more, each core has its own 1MB of L2 cache memory—double the size of its predecessor—so you’ll have ultrafast access to twice the amount of frequently used data.
With two dual-core PowerPC G5 processors, the Power Mac G5 Quad doubles the ante.
Applications can take advantage of four 64-bit processor cores, including four 1MB L2
caches, four 128-bit Velocity Engine units, and eight double-precision fl oating-point
units, for a radical increase in desktop performance.
Comparison of PowerPC G4, single-core PowerPC G5, and dual-core
PowerPC G5 processors
Single-core Dual-core
PowerPC G4 PowerPC G5 PowerPC G5
Architecture 32-bit 64-bit 64-bit
Addressable memory 4 gigabytes 4 terabytes 4 terabytes
Frontside bus Single Dual Dual
Processor cores One One Two
Velocity Engine units One One Two
Floating-point units One Two Four
Integer units One Two Four
L1 data cache 32K 32K Two sets of 32K
L1 instruction cache 32K 64K Two sets of 64K
L2 cache 256K 512K Two sets of 1MB
In Power Mac G5 Quad systems, each
dual-core PowerPC G5 processor has its
own bidirectional frontside bus.
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Bidirectional Frontside Bus
Leveraging the dual frontside bus architecture pioneered in the original Power Mac
G5, each dual-core processor has an independent data path to the system controller
running at up to 1.25GHz. Unlike conventional processor interfaces, which carry data
in only one direction at a time, this dual-channel frontside bus has two 32-bit pointto-point links (64 bits total): One link travels into the processor and another travels
from the processor, which means no wait time while the processor and the system
controller negotiate which will use the bus or while the bus switches direction. This
enables data to move in opposite directions simultaneously—a dramatic improvement
over previous processor interfaces.
In Power Mac G5 Quad systems, each processor has its own bidirectional interface
to the system controller, unlike traditional dual-processor systems, which constrain
throughput by placing all processor resources on one bus. Each G5 processor has
a dedicated interface to main memory for total bandwidth of up to 10 GBps per
processor, or a total of 20 GBps for a quad system. This high-performance frontside
bus architecture also enables each core to discover and access data in the other cores’
caches—further increasing performance on quad-core systems.
7
64-Bit Processor Architecture
The dual-core PowerPC G5 joins forces with Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger to enable 64-bit
computation, including the ability to address vast amounts of main memory and to
perform double-precision fl oating-point calculations.
Support for massive amounts of memory
The move to 64-bit processors results in a dramatic leap in the amount of memory
supported. In practice, memory addressing is defi ned by the physical address space
of the processor. The PowerPC G5, with 42 bits of physical address space, supports a
colossal 2
feasible to purchase 4TB of RAM, the advanced architecture of this processor allows
for plenty of growth in the future.
More practical and still far more than a typical PC, the Power Mac G5 can be confi gured with 16GB of addressable memory. Such large quantities of memory enable the
system to contain a complex 3D model, massive digital images, a scientifi c simulation,
or a sequence of video entirely in RAM. When data is stored in memory, the processor
can access it 40 times faster than from the hard drive, drastically reducing the time
to manipulate, modify, and render the data and making it feasible to tackle gigantic
projects on a desktop system.
64-bit computation power
The other advantage provided by the 64-bit PowerPC G5 is the ability to perform
multiple simultaneous 64-bit fl oating-point and integer calculations. The PowerPC
G5 features full 64-bit data paths and data registers, allowing it to express the extreme
precision needed for fl oating-point mathematics and to express integers up to 18 billion
billion. By contrast, a 32-bit processor must break these types of computations into
multiple pieces—requiring multiple passes through the processor and slowing down
application performance.
42
bytes, or 4 terabytes (4TB), of system memory. Although it’s not currently
Linpack
A measure of a computer’s fl oating-point
execution performance, the Linpack
benchmark solves a dense system of linear
equations. The Power Mac G5 Quad executed
the double-precision equations 88 percent
faster than the dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5
and an amazing 626 percent faster than the
dual 1.42GHz Power Mac G4.
Power Mac G5
Quad 2.5GHz
Dual 2.7GHz
Power Mac G5
Dual 1.42GHz
Power Mac G4
2.9 gigaflops
21 gigaflops
11.1 gigaflops
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Eight Double-Precision Floating-Point Units
The PowerPC G5 core contains two double-precision fl oating-point units, each capable
of performing a multiply and an add at the same time. This means a Power Mac G5
Quad, with four processor cores and a total of eight fl oating-point units, can complete
up to sixteen 64-bit fl oating-point operations in a single cycle.
Such immense 64-bit computational power accelerates applications in many fi elds,
including audio creation, 3D content creation, and scientifi c visualization and analysis—
resulting in performance levels far beyond those of previous Power Mac generations.
Fused multiply-add example
The fl oating-point units in the PowerPC G5 can complete both a multiply and an add
operation as part of the same machine instruction—accelerating matrix multiplication,
vector dot products, and other scientifi c computations. Referred to as fused multiplyadd, or “fmadd,” this instruction is considered a building block for data-intensive
fl oating-point computation.
The following computation can be completed by a fused multiply-add instruction in
one pass through either of the two fl oating-point units in a PowerPC G5 core:
T = (a * b) + c
8
Gigafl ops
The gigafl ops test indicates a system’s
vector processing capability by measuring
the maximum number of fl oating-point
operations it can perform. With four Velocity
Engine units, the Power Mac G5 Quad
completed the test 85 percent faster than the
dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5 and 260 percent
faster than the dual 1.42GHz Power Mac G4.
Power Mac G5
Quad 2.5GHz
Dual 2.7GHz
Power Mac G5
Dual 1.42GHz
Power Mac G4
21.3 gigaflops
76.6 gigaflops
41.1 gigaflops
On other processors, two instructions are required. The fi rst is a multiply instruction:
U = (a * b)
The product “U” is used by a second instruction, an addition, to complete the
computation:
V = U + c
In processors with comparable clock speeds, the computation of “(a * b) + c” is completed twice as fast using fused multiply-add. It also delivers a more accurate result,
because round-o∂ occurs just once in the computation of “T”—while on other processors, round-o∂ occurs twice: in the computation of “U” and in the computation of “V.”
Four Velocity Engine Units
A dual-pipelined Velocity Engine in each processor core is optimized with two independent queues and dedicated 128-bit registers and data paths for e∑ cient instruction
and data fl ow. This 128-bit vector processing unit accelerates data manipulation by
applying a single instruction to multiple data at the same time, known as SIMD processing. Originally implemented in the PowerPC G4, the Velocity Engine in the PowerPC
G5 uses the same set of 162 instructions, enabling it to accelerate existing Mac OS X
applications that have been optimized for the Velocity Engine.
Vector processing is useful for transforming large sets of data, such as manipulating an
image or rendering a video e∂ ect. For example, when a designer uses a fi lter to apply
a motion blur to an image, each pixel of the image must be changed according to
the same set of instructions—a highly repetitive processing task. Each Velocity Engine
pipeline speeds up this task by processing up to 128 bits of data, in four 32-bit integers,
eight 16-bit integers, sixteen 8-bit integers, or four 32-bit single-precision fl oating-point
values, in a single clock cycle. That works out to 16 simultaneous 32-bit fl oating-point
operations on a Power Mac G5 Quad.
The Power Mac G5 comes with Mac OS X
v10.4 Tiger, Apple’s UNIX-based operating
system, including powerful new features such
as Spotlight, Dashboard, and Automator.
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Multiple Cores and Mac OS X
Mac OS X is ideally suited to leverage the power of quad-core systems, since it was
designed from day one for multiple processors. With symmetric multiprocessing, preemptive multitasking, and multithreading capabilities in Mac OS X, a Power Mac G5
Quad delivers groundbreaking performance.
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) in Mac OS X dynamically manages tasks across
multiple processors—and multiple processor cores—without requiring any special
optimization of the application or any special action on the user’s part. With SMP, you
can run a processor-intensive task in the background while you work with another
application. Mac OS X assigns each of these tasks to a di∂ erent processor or core,
allowing the tasks to execute simultaneously, and automatically balances the load
between processors. Preemptive multitasking further optimizes performance by
allowing Mac OS X to prioritize tasks on each processor or core.
Applications can take even greater advantage of multiple cores when they are written
to generate multiple threads (or self-contained tasks), known as multithreading. Many of
today’s applications are multithreaded, achieving up to 69 percent faster performance
on a Power Mac G5 Quad right out of the box.
As a user, you don’t need to worry about symmetric multiprocessing or application
threading—you’ll just enjoy the enhanced performance.
1
9
Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
PCI Express Architecture
The new Power Mac G5 introduces a modern PCI Express architecture to the Mac platform, opening up a world of high-performance system technologies and peripherals.
PCI Express paves the way for emerging solutions for media and networking, making
it a future-savvy choice for your lab or studio.
Built into the Power Mac G5 architecture is an all-new system controller. This fast
application-specifi c integrated circuit (ASIC) integrates a new lower-latency memory
subsystem with support for ultrafast DDR2 main memory—plus 16-lane PCI Express
graphics and the dual-channel, bidirectional frontside bus that made its debut in the
original Power Mac G5.
10
Dual bidirectional
frontside buses
System
controller
PCI Express
graphics
PCI Express
expansion
SuperDrive with
double-layer support
High-performance I/O
Dual-core PowerPC
G5 processors
533MHz DDR2
memory
Dual Gigabit
Ethernet
Serial ATA
storage
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