Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9555LL/A Single 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5

by Apple

Product Details

Product Manual [9.21mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 58 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002OG6IO
• Item model number: M9555LL/A
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,707 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 19, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The creative class needs superior tools to produce designs, music, high-definition video or the next scientific breakthrough. The new Power Mac G5 line extends as far as you require. Up to two 64-bit G5 processors reaching top speeds of 2.5 GHz, room for up to 8 GB of main memory, pro performance graphics cards and ultrahigh-bandwidth system architecture will give you more results than systems costing twice as much.

Supersonic Speed
Mac OS X really shines at top speeds, and the Power Mac G5 offers whiplash-fast models, from a single processor 1.8 GHz configuration to the dual processor power of 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz and 2.5 GHz models with a substantial speed boost at the top of the line. The dual 2.5 GHz model packs so much power into tight quarters that Apple designed a liquid cooling system for it, resulting in a cool tower that runs Photoshop nearly two times faster than a Pentium 4-based system. In fact, for most creative endeavors, the Power Mac G5 simply has no competition in its class.

Does It Faster
The PowerPC G5 processor dramatically accelerates performance in real world applications. When compared head-to-head against PCs in a large series of Photoshop tests, the dual 2.5GHz, dual 2GHz, dual 1.8 GHz and single 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 systems ran the 45 filters 98%, 82%, 66% and 20% faster, respectively, than the 3.4 GHz Pentium 4-based system and 75%, 63%, 48% and 11% faster than the dual 3.2 GHz Xeon-based system. *

Exquisitely Advanced Technology
With 64-bit power and high-bandwidth architecture, this groundbreaking system alleviates the limitations and bottlenecks of the traditional PC -- opening up a wealth of possibilities for 2-D and 3-D designers, video and audio producers, scientists, researchers and game developers and players. The industry’s fastest frontside bus, an advanced system controller and high-speed, high-capacity memory combine to make the Power Mac G5 one of the fastest PCs ever built.

Bandwidth to Burn
The ultrahigh-bandwidth system architecture of the Power Mac G5 features up to a 1.25 GHz frontside bus -- one on each processor -- for maximum throughput from the system to the G5 processor. And a point-to-point system controller lets data move directly between subsystems, without affecting processor function.

Plugged In
It’s easy to plug printers, scanners and other devices into the Power Mac G5. In addition to sporting a full complement of ports on the back, the front panel of the Power Mac G5 offers FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 ports, as well as a headphone jack. Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB 2.0 and optical digital and analog audio are integrated through an 800 MHz bi-directional HyperTransport bus.

High-speed AGP 8X Pro Graphics Bus
The Power Mac G5 comes with the ATI Radeon 9600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics card installed in an AGP 8X Pro slot for a maximum bandwidth of 2.1 GB per second. And that’s a good thing, because the Power Mac G5 uses graphics cards not only to accelerate the latest video games, but the entire system as well. AGP 8X Pro gives Quartz Extreme the fullest power to display Mac OS X features as quickly as possible. Your graphics card does some heavy lifting so the G5 processor can do more number crunching at the same time.

PCI-X Expansion
The dual 2.0 GHz and dual 2.5 GHZ Power Mac G5 models come with three PCI-X slots, giving you the benefit of the advances in PCI technology. The PCI-X protocol supports high-performance PCI devices, increasing speeds from 33 MHz to 133 MHz and throughput from 266 Mbps to 2 GBps. So you can customize your Power Mac G5 to your creative use, with video capture cards, pro audio tools, fibre channel networking and high-speed disk drives.

Four on the Floor
The Power Mac G5 product line comes in four muscular configurations -- single 1.8 GHz, dual 1.8 GHz, dual 2.0 GHz and dual 2.5 GHz -- to support your creative endeavors. They all feature the legendary SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) as standard equipment across the line at 8X speed. And of course they come with one FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports, three PCI-X or PCI expansion slots, DVI connector, ADC connector, two USB 2.0 ports, analog audio in, analog audio out, optical S/PDIF in, optical S/PDIF out, front headphone and speaker jack and built-in Gigabit Ethernet -- all as standard equipment. All models are AirPort Extreme-ready and feature an optional internal Bluetooth module.

* Testing conducted by Apple in May 2004 using preproduction dual 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz and 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 units and in August 2004 using preproduction single 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 units; all other systems were shipping units. File size = 600 MB.

Product Description

With its powerful 64-bit G5 processor, advanced graphics options, and robust expansion, the Power Mac G5 gives you the performance and flexibility you need. Manipulate audio, video, and images with lightning speed. Take full advantage of professional software tools. Play your favorite games with stunning realism. You can customize your 1.8GHz processor Power Mac G5 with up to 4GB of 400MHz DDR memory, one of five high-end graphics cards including the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL and GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL card; and an additional hard drive for up to 500GB of internal storage. The 1.8GHz model is also fitted with three open full-length 64-bit PCI slots for installing specialized cards to expand system capabilities and increase performance. You have a choice of external displays—and can drive two displays at once. Add one of Apple’s new Cinema Displays for the ultimate professional system. Own a Power Mac for just $1499. Or take advantage of dual processor power starting at just $1999.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mid-Low end PowerMac with crippling, April 1, 2005

By 

K. Keefer "Who?" (Portland Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9555LL/A Single 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 (Personal Computers)

Let me say first that I love Macintosh. I do not always appreciate the antics of the marketing department at Apple Computer.

As a content creator, I frequently need PCI slots for the specialized cards that allow high quality audio and video i/o, so I am looking only at Power Macintosh computers (not iBook, Powerbook, iMac, eMac, etc.).

I find myself greedy for speed and lacking in cash. So, there must be a compromise between cost and speed, not just ordering up the latest and fastest CPU with all of the options. The most important speed in a media computer is disk i/o. Without the ability to read and write fast, video (HD) and audio (DAW) will glitch. The CPU has only a small effect on disk i/o. The controler and bus have a HUGE effect on disk i/o speed. With a dedicated disk controller card in a PCI-X slot, SATA or Ultra-SCSI (SCSI320) RAID arrays perform very well. They are not as fast in a PCI slot.

In the 2003 version of the Power Macintosh G5 1.8GHz single CPU tower, the motherboard has EIGHT RAM SLOTS and PCI-X slots. The 2004 version of this tower has FOUR RAM SLOTS and PCI (not PCI-X). To get the extra RAM slots and PCI-X, a buyer must upgrade to the 2.0 GHz DUAL CPU model, at considerable extra expense.

Users keep their minitowers longer than any other kind of Macintosh, because of the larger RAM capacity and upgrade sockets, so wouldn't you want to get the most future-proof versions of those sockets, that being PCI-X? I do.

I give this tower 3 stars of 5, because it's basically a good machine, that is intentionally crippled. It will run OSX just fine, and will do things that a G5 iMac will also do, at a considerable price premium. Nice aluminum tower!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best computer hands down!, February 27, 2005

By 

Raymond - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9555LL/A Single 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 (Personal Computers)

Even though its the "baseline" G5 system, featuring only one of Apples powerPC G5 chips, it flies! Compared to my previous Athlon XP 3200+ machine, I am computing at least twice as fast, OS X is amazing, so easy to use with photoshop and after effects! I love my new PowerMac G5 single 1.8GHz