Stunning attention to detail puts this system on the shortlist despite the price.
Many PC fans criticise Apple’s proprietary approach, but its hardware is undeniably stylish. The flagship G5 system is based on two 2.5GHz PowerPC G5 processors, and features liquid cooling and specs that put most desktop PCs to shame.
Apart from the dual processors, the review model shipped with 512MB of DDR memory and 160GB Serial ATA hard disk. An 8x SuperDrive is also fitted, so you can read and write DVD-Rs. Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 400 and 800, USB 2.0 and optical digital and analog audio interfaces are provided.
Every application we tested ran effortlessly, including demanding ones like Photoshop. The machine runs on a 1.25GHz frontside bus and boasts a bandwidth limit of 20Gbit/s, making it ideal for multimedia or video editing work.
The ATI Radeon 9600XT video card provides solid performance under all current-generation Mac-compatible games. The G5 is an absolute rocket under benchmarking, with a score of 249.22 in Xbench 1.1.3.
Before OS X was released, cross-platform compatibility was a serious issue if you wanted to drop a Mac into a PC-only network. Now Macs running OS X function well in cross-platform environments, and compatibility issues have been almost eliminated. Software is available to read and write most common document formats, and many platform agnostics consider Office 2004 for the Mac superior to its Windows counterpart.
Anyone who wants to run PC software on an Apple machine can invest in Virtual PC 7 ($499 with Windows 2000/XP, reviewed APC December 2004, page 46). Although you can’t use it to run modern games like Doom 3, it works well for running Windows-only applications such as Microsoft Access on the G5. There’s a performance hit in emulating another OS and application, but the G5 is fast enough to make the lag bearable.
The only downside is the cost. The system retails for $5,299 and the 30in Cinema HD monitor recommended by Apple costs a further $5,999. While comparable PCs can be purchased for around $3,500 they can’t match Apple’s engineering. Everything, from the case and internal layout to the component spec, is first class.

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