The Power Mac G5 now supports PCI Express. Each processor core has direct access to the front-side bus controller, and the new architecture supports 16, 250Mbits per/sec lanes for a total throughput of 4Gbits per/sec -- almost twice as fast as a 133MHz PCI-X slot. There is 150 watts of power in the bus, enabling current and future high-end display cards to operate at peak performance. In addition to the 16-lane graphics slot, the Power Mac G5 features three PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot. You can install a PCI-Express graphics card in any PCI Express slot, allowing a single Power Mac G5 to support four, six or even eight displays.

There are PCI Express cards available for video from Blackmagic Design Pty. Ltd. and Aja Video. National Instruments Corp. has cards for specialized scientific applications, and Digidesign Inc. announced that cards for its pro-tools systems are imminent.

On the graphics display, the Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 is amazingly fast, sporting 512MB of Synchronous Dynamic RAM just for the card, along with the requisite heat sinks and fan. And the piping gives it a look reminiscent of a Harley. The stereoscopic viewing option for the card enables scientists to experience molecules and other complex objects in true 3-D. The 3-D system is also Maya-certified, and great for IMAX production work.

Other architecture improvements

Two independently configurable 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet interfaces deliver tremendous networking bandwidth with no congestion between your network traffic and other I/O. Each Gigabit Ethernet controller in the new Power Mac G5 supports jumbo frames. This also eliminates the need for Xsan users to give up a Peripheral Component Interconnect slot for a second Ethernet port.