Apple bumps Power Mac line, cuts LCD prices

Computerworld - Apple Computer Inc. today refreshed its line of desktop computers, offering a new top-end Power Mac that sports dual 2.7-GHz G5 processors, a new graphics card from ATI and a new 16x SuperDrive that can burn data to double-layer DVDs. Apple also unveiled a new dual 2.3-GHz G5 model as its midrange dual-processor desktop computer and continues to sell two models it had offered before: a single 1.8-GHz G5 Power Mac for $1,499, and the dual 2-GHz G5 model, which now sells for $1,999 -- a $500 price reduction for that version.
The new dual 2.3-GHz G5 model is priced at $2,499, and the top-end version sells for $2,999. That's the same price the now-discontinued dual 2.5-GHz G5 models sold for.
Like the just-discontinued dual 2.5-GHz G5 models, the new king-of-the-hill Power Mac is liquid-cooled. The other models are air-cooled.
Apple also announced price cuts on two of its LCDs. The entry-level 20-in. widescreen display drops in price from $999 to $799, and the 23-in. display drops from $1,799 to $1,499. The price of the 30-in. display remains $2,999, but buyers of the new top-end Power Mac no longer need to shell out extra money for a video card to drive that display.
The built-in ATI Technologies Inc. Radeon video card in the dual 2.7-GHz G5 model will run the behemoth 30-in. Apple Cinema Display out of the box.
"We have been hard at work on virtually every part of stack, from the hardware and the displays through Tiger and the the enabling technologies [in it]," said David Moody, vice president, worldwide, for Mac product marketing. "We've been busy."
The new Power Macs, which had been widely expected, are available immediately and will come with Apple's about-to-be-released Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system installed. Tiger officially will be released on Friday, although some buyers have reported that their copies of the new operating system have already shipped.
Although Apple announced the hardware upgrades only this morning, Amazon.com jumped the gun, offering the dual 2.7-Ghz G5 model for preorder on its Web site yesterday -- prompting speculation in the Mac community that new desktop machines were imminent.
Although the dual 2.7-GHz model is the fastest yet offered by Apple, it still falls short of the 3-GHz processors Apple CEO Steve Jobs had predicted would be released last year. Jobs backed off on that forecast last year after it became clear that IBM was having problems pushing its processors to faster speeds.

Nonetheless, Apple officials touted the new models as representing