June 23, 2003: Apple launches its beautiful Energy Mac G5, a powerhouse desktop laptop with a perforated aluminum chassis that earns it the affectionate nickname “the cheese grater.”

Beginning at an inexpensive $1,999 (greater than $3,400 in as we speak’s cash, adjusted for inflation), the Energy Mac G5 is the world’s first 64-bit private laptop. It’s additionally Apple’s quickest machine but.

Energy Mac G5 launch

Inside its distinctive, anodized aluminum case, the Energy Mac G5 boasted IBM’s PowerPC G5 CPU structure. This supplied an enormous step up from the getting older Energy Mac G4, which had been Apple’s high-end Mac from 1999 till 2002.

Apple launched three completely different Energy Mac G5 fashions operating at 1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz and a pair of GHz. All used the identical 64-bit PowerPC 970 (G5) processor, which provided increased clock speeds. It additionally introduced vastly improved (and massively parallel) computing capabilities.

In commercials, Apple touted the brand new laptop’s pace when in comparison with PCs. The headline on one referred to as the Energy Mac G5 “the world’s fasted laptop.”

“In side-by-side exams utilizing industry-standard benchmarks, the [top end] twin 2.0-gigahertz Energy Mac G5 is as much as 41% sooner than each the quickest Pentium 4 and dual-processor Xeon workstation,” Apple mentioned. “And the outcomes get even higher when utilizing real-world purposes: the brand new Energy Mac G5 runs Photoshop greater than twice as quick because the quickest PCs.”

Excessive-performance {hardware}

Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised {that a} 3 GHz mannequin could be out there “inside 12 months,” however it by no means occurred. In actual fact, a Mac with a processor able to operating at that pace didn’t arrive till three years later in 2006. That’s when Apple launched the similar-looking Intel Xeon-based Mac Professional.

By way of different {hardware} options, the Energy Mac G5 packed an AGP 8X video card, FireWire 800, gigabit Ethernet, as much as half a terabyte of inner Serial ATA storage and a SuperDrive for authoring DVDs. So far as professional-level computer systems went, only a few might beat the Energy Mac G5 in 2003. For trivia buffs, this was additionally Apple’s first laptop to incorporate USB 2.0 ports.

Energy Mac G5: A surprising piece of Apple design

The commercial-inspired design of the Energy Mac G5 made it distinctive in its day. In actual fact, it nonetheless seems beautiful almost 20 years later. (There’s a superb purpose why the “cheese grater” design returned with the 2019 Mac Professional.) The G5’s beautiful design wasn’t restricted to the pc’s distinctive case, both. The Energy Mac G5 was the primary Apple laptop to have its inside — which most customers would by no means even see — designed by Jony Ive and his staff to be aesthetically pleasing.

The pc offered some issues, nonetheless. Some fashions suffered from noise and heating points, though a subsequent liquid-cooled model tried to right these shortcomings.

Among the best Macs ever?

Nonetheless, the Energy Mac G5 stays one in all my favourite Macs of all time. It underlined the truth that Apple was doing way more than constructing trendy mass-market gadgets just like the iPod and consumer-friendly computer systems such because the colourful iMac G3 and iBook, fashions the corporate was most related to on the time.

If you wish to monitor down a Energy Mac G5 now, it is going to probably set you again round $100 on eBay. Do you will have fond recollections of this machine? Go away your feedback under.