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Power Macintosh G5 Q&A - Revised December 12, 2006
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Is the Power Mac G5 really the first 64-bit personal computer?
Pretty much. Although there were numerous 64-bit "workstation" computers released years before the Power Macintosh G5 was introduced, these were generally used in government, education, and scientific research and not by the general "personal computer" population. It might be preferable to say that the Power Macintosh G5 was the first "mainstream" 64-bit desktop system ever released. Regardless, the Power Macintosh G5 placed an enormous amount of computing power into the hands of average users.
What is the "Velocity Engine"? What makes Velocity Engine faster?
Originally introduced with the PowerPC 7400 (G4) processor, and improved with the PowerPC 970, 970fx, and 970MP (G5) processor, the Velocity Engine is a 128-bit vector processing unit.
Previously associated with expensive supercomputers, Apple explains that the Velocity Engine has:
162 new dedicated instructions integrated into silicon can be used to greatly accelerate intensive multimedia and math calculations. [The Velocity Engine] does this by working on a whole set of data simultaneously, rather than one data point at a time. The Velocity Engine also operates completely independent of both the integer unit and the floating-point unit, enabling all three units to process data at the same time.
Apple further explains that the PowerPC G5 processor:
With two double-precision floating-point units [per core for the 970MP], advanced branch prediction logic and support for symmetric multiprocessing. . . builds on previous PowerPC designs, combining an optimized Velocity Engine with a superscalar, super-pipelined execution core that can execute more than 200 simultaneous in-flight instructions. This high-bandwidth core has over 12 discrete functional units that process massive amounts of instructions in parallel.
What does "Dual Core" mean? What does "Quad Core" mean?
In the Technical Brief (p. 6) for the Power Macintosh G5 Dual Core (2.0) and Power Macintosh G5 Dual Core (2.3) systems, Apple explains that "dual core" means that these system have "one silicon [processor] chip with two independent processor cores". Apple continues that this "means more 64-bit resources: more L2 cache [1 MB on each core], more Velocity Engine units [one per core], and more double-precision floating-point units [two per core]."
Apple uses the term "Quad Core" to describe the Power Macintosh G5 "Quad Core" (2.5), which has two processors each of which are "dual core".
Is the "Quad Core" Power Mac G5 the first Mac with four processors?
The Power Macintosh G5 "Quad Core" (2.5) has two "dual core" processors, rather than four processors. Although a "dual core" system is far more advanced, it is worth noting that Daystar Digital introduced the Daystar Genesis MP 528, which featured four then blazing 132 MHz PowerPC 604 processors on October 30, 1995, nearly a decade earlier.
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