Apple today unveiled the Power Mac G5, the world's first 64-bit personal computer, during Steve Job's WWDC keynote in San Francisco. The announcement came after Apple first accidentally posted the specifications of the Power Mac G5 on the Online Apple Store's G4 page last Wednesday night.

The PowerMac G5 is based on IBM's new 64 bit PowerPC 970 processor, and was touted to be the world's fastest personal computer according to industry-standard benchmarks. The processor currently reaches clock speeds of up to 2GHz, and can address 18 exabytes bytes of memory. According to Apple the PowerPC architecture is based on a completely new execution core that features 'massively parallel computation for an unprecedented 215 in-flight instructions, full symmetric multi-processing, two double precision floating point units and an optimized Velocity Engine'.

"Apple and IBM have been working together for over a decade. With the development of the PowerPC G5 we've entered into a much deeper partnership, and Apple now has access to a vast portfolio of IBM's advanced technologies used in our high-performance servers and supercomputers," said John Kelly, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Technology Group.

IBM builds the PowerPC G5 in its new state-of-the-art, $3 billion 300mm fabrication facility in East Fishkill, N.Y, and is planning to make available a 3GHz version of the G5 with-in the next 12 months.

The Power Mac G5 currently comes in three versions: 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, and Dual 2GHz, each running IBM's new 64 bit PowerPC 970 processor. The 1.6GHz version comes with a 800MHz frontside bus, 512K L2 cache, 256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM (expandable to 4GB), 80GB Serial ATA, a SuperDrive, three PCI Slots, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, 64MB DDR video memory, and a 56K internal modem. The 1.6GHz version will cost $1,999.

The 1.8GHz version comes with a 900MHz frontside bus, 512K L2 cache, 512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM (expandable to 8GB), 160GB Serial ATA, a SuperDrive, three PCI-X Slots, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, 64MB DDR video memory, and a 56K internal modem. The 1.8GHz has a price of $2,399.

The Dual 2GHz version comes with an impressive 1GHz frontside bus, 512K L2 cache/processor, 512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM (expandable to 8BG), 160GB Serial ATA, SuperDrive, three PCI-X Slots, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, 64MB DDR video memory, and of course a 56K internal modem. The cost of the dual 2GHz is $2,999.

All G5's will ship beginning in August and will come with Jaguar installed.

Each Power Mac comes with one FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports, and three USB 2.0 ports. In addition all G5's feature optical and analog audio in and out, and have gigabit Ethernet built-in. The G5's are also Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme ready, but do not ship with an AirPort Extreme card.

The Power Mac G5 design centers around an aluminum alloy enclosure and features four different independently controlled thermal zones that manage airflow while keeping noise to a minimum. According to Apple the G5 will run two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4. One side of the G5 will also feature an easy to open access panel that allows for simple installing of AirPort cads, RAM, hard drives, and optical drives.

According to Apple the Power Mac G5 out performed 3GHz Pentium 4 systems, and Dual 3.06GHz Xeon-based systems in both industry-standard benchmarks, and also in most of the more popular applications for creative individuals, including Photoshop, Logic Audio, and Genentech Blast. In one example Adobe Photoshop ran twice as fast on the G5 than on the 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon, and Blast ran up to five times faster. Industry-standard benchmarks provided a figure of a 20% speed difference between the G5 and the 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, putting the G5 out on top.

"The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again," said Steve Jobs.

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