June 23, 2003: Apple launches its beautiful Energy Mac G5, a powerhouse desktop laptop with a perforated aluminum chassis that earns it the affectionate nickname “the cheese grater.”
Beginning at an inexpensive $1,999 (almost $3,500 in at the moment’s cash, adjusted for inflation), the Energy Mac G5 is the world’s first 64-bit private laptop. It’s additionally Apple’s quickest machine but.
Energy Mac G5 launch
Powered by a PowerPC 970 chip, the distinctive-looking laptop delivered a seismic leap over its predecessors. It additionally outpaced competing Pentium 4 and Xeon machines in benchmarks in addition to real-world functions.
Nonetheless, it was about extra than simply pace. Its beautiful aluminum chassis and modular internals laid the stylistic groundwork for the next Mac Professional towers that may comply with.
Specs of ‘the world’s quickest private laptop’
Contained in the Energy Mac G5’s anodized aluminum case, IBM’s PowerPC G5 CPU structure offered a large step up from the growing old Energy Mac G4, which had been Apple’s high-end Mac from 1999 till 2002.
Apple launched three totally different Energy Mac G5 fashions working at 1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz and a pair of GHz. All used the identical 64-bit PowerPC 970 (G5) processor, which supplied increased clock speeds. It additionally introduced vastly improved (and massively parallel) computing capabilities.
In ads, Apple touted the brand new laptop’s pace when in comparison with PCs. The headline on one known as it “the world’s quickest private laptop.”
“In side-by-side exams utilizing industry-standard benchmarks, the [top end] twin 2.0-gigahertz Energy Mac G5 is as much as 41% quicker than each the quickest Pentium 4 and dual-processor Xeon workstation,” Apple stated. “And the outcomes get even higher when utilizing real-world functions: the brand new Energy Mac G5 runs Photoshop greater than twice as quick because the quickest PCs.”
Excessive-performance {hardware}
Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised {that a} 3 GHz mannequin can be accessible “inside 12 months,” however that by no means occurred. In reality, a Mac with a processor able to working at that pace didn’t arrive till three years later in 2006. That’s when Apple launched the similar-looking Intel Xeon-based Mac Professional.
When it comes to {hardware}, the Energy Mac G5 packed an AGP 8X video card, FireWire 800, gigabit Ethernet, as much as half a terabyte of inside Serial ATA storage and a SuperDrive for authoring DVDs. So far as professional-level computer systems went, only a few may beat this beast of a machine in 2003. For trivia buffs, this was additionally Apple’s first laptop to incorporate USB 2.0 ports.
Energy Mac G5: A shocking piece of Apple design
Photograph: Bernie Kohl/Wikipedia CC
The commercial-inspired design of the Energy Mac G5 made it distinctive in its day. In reality, it nonetheless seems beautiful greater than 20 years later. (There’s a very good cause why the “cheese grater” design returned with the 2019 Mac Professional.)
The G5’s beautiful design wasn’t restricted to the pc’s distinctive case, both. It was additionally the primary Apple laptop to have its inside — which most customers would by no means even see — designed by Jony Ive and his crew to be aesthetically pleasing.
The pc introduced some issues, nevertheless. Some fashions suffered from noise and heating points, though a subsequent liquid-cooled model tried to appropriate these shortcomings.
Top-of-the-line Macs ever?
Nonetheless, the Energy Mac G5 stays considered one of my favourite Macs of all time. It underlined the truth that Apple was doing far more than constructing trendy mass-market gadgets just like the iPod and consumer-friendly computer systems such because the colourful iMac G3 and iBook, fashions the corporate was most related to on the time.
If you wish to observe down a Energy Mac G5 now, it would probably set you again round $100 on eBay. Do you may have fond recollections of this machine? Depart your feedback under.
