August 18: The G5 Ships

Mac users had felt left behind by Intel's offerings. Sure, they would argue that the G4 was as good as the latest Pentium but many felt Apple was losing the performance war.

Apple was aware of the feelings and switched suppliers from Motorola to IBM. IBM's advantage? The G5, the next generation (and last used by Apple) of PowerPC processors. The G5 was a 64-bit chip and promised excellent performance.

The G5's were advertised by Apple as the first 64-bit personal computer, featured a new, all aluminum enclosure and were touted as the fastest PC ever produced. Mac lovers could finally lay their hands on the next generation of the PowerPC on August 18, 2003 in speeds ranging from 1.6 GHz to 2.0 GHz.