Apple M9020LL/A Technology Overview - Page 6

Technology Overview 6 Power Mac G5 Quad-Core Processing With two independent cores on one processor, the new PowerPC G5 packs tremendous processing power on a single chip. Enter the dual-core PowerPC G5 processor: one silicon chip with two independent processor cores. Now take two of those dual-core chips and you have the Power Mac G5 Quad, for groundbreaking quad-core processing. Quad-core processing means more 64-bit resources: more L2 cache, more Velocity Engine units, and more double-precision floating-point units. Videographers can edit more footage, filmmakers can produce more real-time e∂ects, designers and photographers can process more higher-resolution images, and researchers can crunch through data sets for faster results. Compare a quad-core Power Mac G5 to the fastest dual-processor G5 ever built, and you'll experience up to 69 percent faster performance running popular professional applications.1 Two Dual-Core PowerPC G5 Processors The new PowerPC G5 combines two processor cores on a single silicon chip, providing double the computational power in the same space as a single-core processor. What's more, each core has its own 1MB of L2 cache memory-double the size of its predecessor-so you'll have ultrafast access to twice the amount of frequently used data. With two dual-core PowerPC G5 processors, the Power Mac G5 Quad doubles the ante. Applications can take advantage of four 64-bit processor cores, including four 1MB L2 caches, four 128-bit Velocity Engine units, and eight double-precision floating-point units, for a radical increase in desktop performance. Comparison of PowerPC G4, single-core PowerPC G5, and dual-core PowerPC G5 processors Architecture Addressable memory Frontside bus Processor cores Velocity Engine units Floating-point units Integer units L1 data cache L1 instruction cache L2 cache PowerPC G4 32-bit 4 gigabytes Single One One One One 32K 32K 256K Single-core PowerPC G5 64-bit 4 terabytes Dual One One Two Two 32K 64K 512K Dual-core PowerPC G5 64-bit 4 terabytes Dual Two Two Four Four Two sets of 32K Two sets of 64K Two sets of 1MB