We're talking gigaflops.
Written on November 7th, 2025 by Tech Ads
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Forget megahertz.
Were talking gigaflops.
Presenting the Power Mac G4. The world’ first desktop supercomputer.
What makes a supercomputer “super” is its ability to execute at least one
bi
of speed known as a‘gigaflop” The new Power
llion floating-point operations per second, It is a staggering measure
Mac’ G4 is the first personal computer in the
world to achieve this level of performance.
Jj
he secret of this stunning speed is the new G4
seh t40 Uy tr Binoine the hes * What makes a supercompuler ‘super"
processor with its Velocity Engine—the heart of Tah bone tcce
ae ' . billion floating-point operations per
a supercomputer miniaturized onto a sliver of second. Like the new Power Mac G4.
silicon. Applications that tap the Velocity Engine'’s
power typically run twice as fast as they do on the
fastest Pentium II]-based PCs’ Common Photoshop
tasks, for example, run twice as fast. And using a set of
aes herve __ lnitel’s own tests, the 450MHz. G4 chip was 2.65 times as
supercomputer miniaturized , .
ri tof fast as the 600MHz Pentium III processor. Chances
are, you've never even heard of a gigaflop before. But very soon you won't
be able to live without at least one on your desk. For more information and
complete specifications, visit us at www.apple.com. @. Think different:
* PU an Pho tests. © 1999 pe Comper, cA rights sere The eae arte racemark al Pacer Mac. Think diferent an Velocity gin are rademar of ple Campterc.
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‘We’re talking gigaflops.’
Launched in the summer 1999, the PowerMac G4 was a range of computers based around the PowerPC G4 line. Subdivided into two lines, the PowerMac G4 was available in a PCI graphics version - which was baed around a refit PowerMac G3 motherboard with a powerPC G4 chip and a PCI graphics card - and a AGP graphics version, based around a newer higher bandwidth G4 targeted motherboard paired with an AGPi graphics card. Initially announced in 400Mhz, 450Mhz, and 500Mhz variants, chip yield issue at 500Mhz saw the PowerMac G4 actually released in 350Mhz, 400Mhz, and 450Mhz variants in 1999, with a 500Mhz variant finally shipping in the spring of 2000. The PowerMac G4 shipped with MacOS 8.6 which could eventually be upgrade to OSX 10.4.
In come configurations the PowerMac G4 was capable of breaching the gigaflop computational barrier which - under certain then US export regulations - made it a ‘supercomputer’ and thus ineligible for export to certain restricted countries such as the Peoples Republic of China and the Russian Federation. This ‘supercomputer’ status formed part of the PowerMac G4’s advertising campaign. Actual CPU performance was boosted by the inclusion of the AltiVec instruction set which was marketed under the name ‘Velocity Engine’.
Taken from: Wired - Volume 7, Issue 12 (December 1999)