Apple’s latest dual-processor G5 had no problem besting the dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5 in Macworld Lab’s benchmark testing of the newly released top-of-the-line Power Mac. But in a surprise result, the new mid-level 2.3GHz model edged out the older 2.5GHz system in our overall Speedmark suite.The strong results for the dual-2.7GHz Power Mac G5 shouldn’t come as a surprise—it does feature the fastest processor ever to ship with a Mac.

Radeon 9500 was one of the shortest-lived product of ATI, later replaced by the Radeon 9600 series. The logo and box package of the 9500 was resurrected in 2004 to market the unrelated and slower Radeon 9550 (which is a derivative of the 9600).

It turned in the best performance in all but one of our tests.More surprising was the dual-2.3GHz system’s performance. Not only did it approach the older dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5’s times, the slower processors in the new desktop didn’t stop it from barely beating the previous champ in our overall Speedmark suite. The dual-2.3GHz Power Mac’s speedier 250GB hard drive.The one test result that puzzles us is the top-of-the-line dual-2.7GHz model’s Unreal Tournament 2004 score. With 256MB of video memory, we expect the ATI Radeon 9650 to beat the older 128MB Radeon 9600 XT found in the dual-2.5GHz system. But even after removing the 9600XT from the dual 2.5GHz Power Mac and installing it in the new system, the older card still bested the new one, even at higher resolutions.

Power Mac G5 Benchmarks SpeedMark 4Cinema4D 9.1iMovie HD RenderiTunes 4.7 MP3 EncodePhotoshop CS2 SuiteUnreal Tournament 2004Compressor MPEG2 EncodePower Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz2501:020:250:520:53493:52Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHz2261:130:350:580:59404:24Power Mac G5 Dual 2.0GHz2051:240:291:081:06384:46Power MacG5 Dual 2.5GHz2251:080:360:540:56524:19Power MacG5 Dual 2.0GHz (old)1961:250:381:071:23394:59Power MacG5 1.8GHz1603:060:401:491:332710:04betterbetter.