Apple Computer released Power Mac G5 Quad, which uses a pair of dual-core 2.5GHz G5 processors with dual Altivec Velocity Engines in each. The company added dual-core processors across the line-up, with the single-processor 2.0GHz and 2.3GHz models simply known as Power Mac G5 Dual.

Apple also increased the new Power Macs' L2 cache to 1MB and noted that they support up to 16GB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM and up to 1TB of storage. In addition, the company added PCI Express to the new machines and included a second Gigabit Ethernet port, which it said is aimed at users working in an Xsan environment, for example. Each computer includes three open PCI Express slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot.

Four NVIDIA video cards also debuted with the new Power Mac G5s:
GeForce 6600 LE, with 128MB Video RAM;
GeForce 6600, with 256MB RAM;
GeForce 7800 GT, with 256MB RAM;
Quadra FX 4500, with 512MB RAM and a stereo 3D port for connecting goggles for stereo-in-a-window applications.

Apple noted that any of the new Power Macs can accomodate two of those video cards, which means users can now run four displays from their machines.

Power Mac Quad will be available in early November; the other models (Power Mac Duals) are available now.

Power Mac G5 (official website)

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The major difference in this update beside changing from single-core to dual-core CPU,

four Velocity Engine Units
A dual-pipelined Velocity Engine in each processor core is optimised with two independent queues and dedicated 128-bit registers and data paths for efficient instruction and data flow.

comparison:
Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5GHz: 76.6 gigaflops
Dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5: 41.1 gigaflops
Dual 1.42GHz Power Mac G4: 21.3 gigaflops

533MHz DDR2 Main Memory
The new 128-bit memory controller in the Power Mac G5 supports DDR2 main memory running a speeds up to 533MH. The Power Mac G5 can address more memory than any previous Macintosh and many desktop PCs. All Power Mac G5 system can hold up to eight 2GB DIMMs for up to 16GB of memory.

comparison:
128-bit DDR2 at 533MHz: 8.5 GBps
128-bit DDR at 400MHz: 6.4 GBps
64-bit DDR at 333MHz: 2.7 GBps

PCI Express Graphics
With the introduction of PCI Express architecture comes a new 16-lane PCI Express graphics interface that supports the latest graphics controllers and delivers up to 4 GBps of data throughput.

comparison:
16-lane PCI express: 4 GBps
AGP 8X: 2.1 GBps
64-bit DDR at 333MHz: 2.7 GBps

and PCI Express Expansion

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