August 13, 2002: Apple unveils the final face-lift for its Power Mac G4, the Mirrored Drive Doors model.
The distinctive-looking computer borrows visually from the previous QuickSilver G4, released a year earlier. However, it adds a different front panel, with a mirrorlike finish for the media drive doors. And the new computer’s powerful processors force an unfortunate compromise.
Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors: Faster, better, louder
This impressive computer looked like a futuristic workstation, packing dual processors with enough muscle to make professional apps fly. And it arrived as Apple was cementing Mac OS X as the future of the platform. But all that power and flash came with a major downside: extremely loud fans, which earned the powerful machine the nickname “Wind Tunnel.”
Apple’s sleek design turned into a reminder that computing performance always comes with trade-offs.
The Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac G4 boasted much faster components than previous G4 computers. Unlike the QuickSilver models, all Mirrored Drive Doors machines came with dual processors, regardless of the price point. They also came with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar preinstalled.
“You can now get a dual-processor G4 system with Xserve architecture and DDR memory, pre-loaded with ‘Jaguar’ for just $1,699,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a press release announcing the new computers. “These are the fastest Macs ever, and ‘Jaguar’ really makes the dual processors sing.”
Powerful specs require variable-speed fans for cooling
Photo: Apple
At the entry level of the Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors lineup, Apple released a dual 867 MHz machine, followed by dual 1 GHz and dual 1.25 GHz models.
The new Macs also offered support for up to 2GB of double data rate RAM at 333 MHz, an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, and storage of up to nearly half a terabyte. The computers shipped with Mac OS X 10.2, although they also could run OS 9. According to Apple’s press release, the Mirrored Drive Models could run “professional applications like Adobe Photoshop up to 90 percent faster than a 2.53GHz Pentium 4-based PC.”
Bruce Chizen, president and CEO of Adobe, called the new Power Macs “faster than any PC we’ve seen” at running Photoshop.
These impressive specs came at a cost, though. Macs previously earned a reputation for running incredibly quietly. Not so with the Power Mac G4 with Mirrored Drive Doors. The variable-speed fans that kept it cool generated so much noise that the “Wind Tunnel” nickname caught on with power users.
After several months of noise complaints, Apple introduced a firmware update in November 2002 that improved the behavior of the computer’s fans. The update also reduced high-speed fan cycling when users ran Mac OS 9.
The end of the line for the Power Mac G4
The Mirrored Drive Doors model was the last visual redesign of Apple’s Power Mac G4. Apple upgraded the line one final time in 2003, but those machines retained the same design.
Cupertino ultimately replaced the Power Mac G4 with the Power Mac G5 in June 2003.
Were you a proud owner of the Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac G4? Let us know in the comments below.
