Apple Power Mac G5
This dual G5-powered machine proved that it had what it took to mix it with the bigger (read more expensive) multiprocessor systems in this review. Apple installed the system supplied to us with its new server operating system--Mac OS X Panther. It seems to us that Apple has struck a real winner here with a well-designed unit that does not sacrifice performance for sexiness.
Some of the more impressive attributes are the four -climate" zones incorporated into the chassis. When the chassis side panel is removed, the engineer is faced with a large removable clear perspex panel which covers two of the zones: the CPU zone and the card expansion zone, then above this is the drive zone for the optical and hard disk drives while below the clear panel is the power supply zone. Each zone has its own fan(s) that are electronically controlled depending on the temperature generated in their particular zone. All this makes for a very quiet system. In fact, during our testing the two large CPU zone fans were barely ticking over.
The CPUs, as already mentioned, are G5s manufactured by IBM. The operating system is the latest server OS from Apple named Panther. We found the navigation
One change that's worth mentioning here is the graphical user interface (GUI) for the built in Apache Web server. Instead of being relegated to the usual command line interface (CLI) editing of the Apache configuration file for adding or removing some of the more popular modules, Apple now allows you to select which Apache modules you want to activate or deactivate and then restart the services all from the GUI. For those techno purists out there, another one bites the dust, but for those of you who just want to get things done simply and easily with the minimum of fuss (which at the end of the day is the majority of users), then this is the icing on the cake.
There is also another interesting development in the US called the Terascale Cluster where engineers at Virginia Tech clustered 1100 of these G5 systems together to form a supercomputer. As you can see from the images on the site, they managed to install nine servers in each rack, which is effectively 18 CPUs per rack.
The Apple G5 in this incarnation is not technically a server at the moment, lacking rack mount capabilities, redundant power, RAID arrays etc. But it certainly shows that the G5s will certainly mix up the field when they are incorporated into a server.
| Product | Apple Power Mac G5 |
| Price | From $3599-$5599; as tested $5599 |
| Vendor | Apple |
| Phone | 133 622 |
| Web | www.apple.com.au |
| Interoperability |  |
| As with all Apple computers, this unit is still very Mac-centric, but it is getting better. | |
| Futureproofing |  ½ |
| Performance is good, especially considering this is designed as a desktop PC. There is some room for upgrades, but no redundancy. | |
| ROI |  ½ |
| Excellent price considering performance and features. | |
| Service |  |
| Standard 90-day warranty is poor. Would expect at least 12 months at this price. | |
| Rating |  |
I saw a better Quad Opteron server platform from a manufacturer in Taiwan, looks like a great server, you can visit http://www.genesysrack.com.tw for a look, I hope somebody can supply this chaassis in Sydney.