Apple Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) - Manual (Page 17)

17 Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
• All Power Mac G5 cards support two displays: one 20- or 23-inch Apple Cinema Display
and one 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. If you want to connect your Power Mac
G5 to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays—or use stereo 3D goggles—choose the
workstation-class NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500.
• If you plan to install as many as three PCI Express cards in your Power Mac G5, you’ll
want to consider cards that occupy a single slot.
Graphics performance
Each of the graphics card options available for the new Power Mac G5 provides
excellent support for 2D and 3D operations in applications such as Motion and in
games such as Halo.
Motion graphics. Motion, Apple’s motion graphics design application, leverages
the graphics processor to animate e∂ ects onscreen in real time. The test protocol
measured the uncached playback, cached playback, and export to QuickTime of
three projects: a fi lter test, an HDV green screen matte, and a particle e∂ ects test.
Motion 2 results
Visual e∂ects rendering
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600
256MB of GDDR SDRAM
Baseline
68% faster
74% faster
Percent faster than the previous model
The Power Mac G5 Quad confi gured with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 was 74 percent faster
than the same system confi gured with the NVIDIA GeForce 6600.*
3D gaming. 3D gaming involves realistic visualizations and rapid movements that
require maximum processor performance and top-of-the-line graphics capabilities—
all with more complexity and better texturing than ever before. Frame rates were
measured using the game Halo, one of the most popular gaming titles on the market,
which leverages the programmability features of the graphics card.
Halo results
1024-by-768 resolution, 32-bit color
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600
256MB of GDDR SDRAM
Baseline
84% faster
90% faster
Percent faster than the previous model
The Power Mac G5 Quad confi gured with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 was 90 percent faster
than the same system confi gured with the NVIDIA GeForce 6600.*
* Testing conducted by Apple in September 2005 using preproduction 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 Quad units. Motion tests included a
mix of particle e∂ ects, green screen compositing, and fi lter e∂ ects. Halo 1.5.2 was tested using the Time Demo benchmark with
advanced pixel shaders.
Core Image in Mac OS X
Built into Mac OS X, Core Image is an
advanced image-processing technology
that leverages the graphics processor for
blistering-fast rendering performance.
E∂ ects and transitions can be expressed
with a few lines of code. Core Image handles
the rest, optimizing the path to the graphics
processor. The result is real-time response
as you select and apply fi lters.