Apple’s new Power Mac G4 systems offer a number of new features, refinements, and changes:
- the ability to have two internal optical drives via a build-to-order option that adds a second DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive ($250)
- support for four internal hard drives (two ATA/66, two ATA/100)
- support for up to 2GB of DDR RAM with four slots (266MHz in the dual-867MHz, 333MHz in the dual-1GHz and dual-1.25GHz)
- dual-867MHz and dual-1GHz feature 1MB of DDR L3 per processor, dual-1.25GHz features 2MB per processor
- processor heatsink is considerably larger than previous models, but lacks a fan
- the return of an audio-in port
- ATI Radeon 9000 Pro replaces NVIDIA’s GeForce4 MX in the mid-range and high-end models, but a GeForce4 Ti card is still available for an additional $250 (or $350 on the low-end Power Mac G4)
- video cards feature ADC/DVI connectors, with support for two displays; VGA is supported through an included adapter
- dual-1.25GHz system delivers 18.3 gigaflops, versus 15 gigaflops for the previous generation dual-1GHz (20% increase)
Apple has also posted QuickTime VR galleries of the new Power Mac, both inside and out.
