Apple Computer Inc. announced its new Xserve G5 in January at Macworld Expo San Francisco -- but the original ship date has been delayed, Apple has confirmed to Macworld. The upgraded server product is the first Apple product to exploit IBM Corp.'s award-winning PowerPC 970FX processor. The latter chip offers the best performance yet of a G5, operating at higher clock speeds at a lower temperature.
Despite the technological advances implemented in the new processor, Apple did have to sacrifice one of the four hot-pluggable drive bays in order to build-in a cooling system to ensure its product doesn't overheat. Xserve G5s exploit a copper-heatsink design and eight fans that provide airflow for cooling the system. "The fans are individually managed and monitored by a dedicated fan control processor; if a single fan fails the others speed up to compensate," Apple said.
News source: InfoWorld
