iMac 1.6GHz PowerPC G5 17-inch (G5)

Table 1: iMac 1.6GHz PowerPC G5 17-inch (M9248LL-A) 256MB
Quick Facts	17-inch iMac G5
Introduced	August 31, 2004
Discontinued	May 3, 2005
Part Number	M9248LL/A
Processor	1.6GHz PowerPC G5
L2 Cache	512 KB
Frontside Bus	533 MHz
Memory	256MB 400MHz DDR
Hard drive	80GB Serial ATA, 7200 rpm
Optical drive	24x Combo Drive
Original Price	$1,299 USD

View other iMacs in this series or return to The history of the iMac

Revision A | G5 1.6GHz | 17-inch

Nine months had passed since the introduction of the gargantuan 20-inch Flat Panel iMac. It turns out that the 20-incher was both a beginning and an end. It was the first 20-inch iMac ever and the last model of the sunflower design.

The beautiful “floating” display design had ruled the iMac world for two years, seven months and 24 days. It was time for a change and the Apple design team outdid itself once again with the introduction of another stunning concept — the iMac G5.

At first glance, the entire computer might be mistaken for a stand-alone LCD display. At only 2-inches thick and encapsulated in clear crystal, the entire computer was flattened and tucked away behind the display in a gorgeously-compact design.

This svelte beauty was suspended on a brushed aluminum stand that was hinged to allow for tilt adjustment. It was also VESA-compliant and could be mounted on a wall.

While not the first all-in-one design of this type, the iMac G5 certainly stands head-and-shoulders above competing designs and is a paragon of simplicity in comparison.

A new design naturally deserves a new processor. This model was powered by the 1.6GHz PowerPC G5 processor with “Velocity Engine.” It had a 512K on-chip L2 cache running at full processor speed, a 533MHz frontside bus and an 80GB Serial ATA hard drive.

This model, as the low-end, had a slot loading Combo drive. It was located near the top of the right side and loaded vertically. This series included two other models, the 17-inch 1.8GHz G5 iMac and 20-inch 1.8GHz G5 iMac, which were outfitted with SuperDrives.

Apple was skimpy with the memory again. This model had 256MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM but was rated 400MHz, and for the first time, expandable to 2GB.

All three models in this series had the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor with AGP 8X support, including 64MB of dedicated DDR video memory.

The entire lineup had two FireWire 400 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, (two more USB 1.1 ports on the keyboard), VGA output port, S-video and composite video output, headphone output, audio line in, and built-in modem and Ethernet.

It came AirPort Extreme ready with a build-to-order option for an internal Bluetooth module. Matching white Apple keyboard and mouse were standard or customers could opt for wireless versions for an added price. The speakers were now built-in.

All this and only 18.5 pounds (8.4 kg).