With all the hoopla surrounding the recent introduction of two new iPod models and an iMac with an available “watch movies from the sofa” interface, its easy to forget that Apple is still, first and foremost, a computer company. It is, as well, a computer company in the midst of a major transition.

As you’ll remember, in June of this year Apple announced their plan to, over time, power the entire Macintosh computer line with Intel processors. For more background on Macs with “intel inside”, check out my website at macmaineiac.com, for a series of articles from June. Anyway, the transition is scheduled to begin next summer, and be complete sometime in 2007.

In the meantime, of course, Apple is still selling Macs powered by PowerPC processors - desktops with the 64-bit G5 from IBM, and laptops with the aging 32-bit G4 from Freescale (formerly Motorola). And, they’re still selling a lot of them (1.2 million units in the last quarter, 48% growth over same quarter last year), despite analyst predictions that sales would plummet while people delayed purchases while awaiting the new Intel-based systems. In fact, Apple’s market share of computer sales has risen in the months since the announcement. Those wacky analysts…

This week Apple announced what many analysts believe to be the last revisions to the G5-and-G4-based PowerMacs and PowerBooks before “the change”.

Let’s do PowerBooks first. The 12-inch PowerBook remains unchanged (1.5 GHz, $1299). The 15-inch model (at $1999 a great price) retains its 1.67 GHz G4 processor, but gets a higher resolution 1440 x 960 pixel display. The 17-inch model ($2499) also clocks in at 1.67 GHz and gets a screen resolution boost to 1680 x 1050 pixels. In both cases, this means that there are more pixels packed into the same screen space. This provides two advantages: text, video, and images are displayed with greater clarity; and, you get more “screen space” on the display to work in.

Both PowerBooks get a much-needed battery life boost as well. Apple claims up to an hour more battery life than previous models, to around 5.5 hours. The DVD-burning 8X SuperDrive also gains double-layer capability.

Now, the PowerMac G5. Apple has long offered dual-processor models, which rank right up there with the most powerful personal computers money can buy. But in June, concurrent with Apple’s announcement of the move to Intel, IBM announced the development of dual-core processors that contained two G5 processor cores within each processor. The new high-end PowerMac G5 (now dubbed the “Quad”) contains two of these dual-core processors, with each core running at 2.5 GHz. Apple claims that these screaming machines are up to 69% faster (when using popular pro applications) than their dual-single-core predecessors, and are three times faster than the earlier dual-G4 models.

That’s 76.6 gigaflops. Remember that a gigaflop is a billion computational operations every second. The two dual-cores, combined with the four Velocity Engines (for graphics acceleration) and eight math-crunching floating point units, provide a whole bunch of crunching power for manipulating mountains of photos and hours of video.

The new Quads can also access double the RAM of the Duals – up to 16GB, and offer PCI Express expansion slots to add custom video cards, pro audio tools, and other speedy goodies.

So, we’re talking big bucks, right? Not really, considering the “oomph” (a technical term for computing power) involved. The low-end, single dual-2GHz-core PowerMac comes in at $1999. The mid-range, single dual-2.3GHz-core model tips the scales at $2499. The flagship Quad 2.5 GHz sets you back $3299. That’s only $43 per gigaflop – less than a tank of gas these days.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski