Apple Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) - Manual (Page 9)

9 Technology Overview
Power Mac G5
Multiple Cores and Mac OS X
Mac OS X is ideally suited to leverage the power of quad-core systems, since it was
designed from day one for multiple processors. With symmetric multiprocessing, pre-
emptive multitasking, and multithreading capabilities in Mac OS X, a Power Mac G5
Quad delivers groundbreaking performance.
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) in Mac OS X dynamically manages tasks across
multiple processors—and multiple processor cores—without requiring any special
optimization of the application or any special action on the user’s part. With SMP, you
can run a processor-intensive task in the background while you work with another
application. Mac OS X assigns each of these tasks to a di∂ erent processor or core,
allowing the tasks to execute simultaneously, and automatically balances the load
between processors. Preemptive multitasking further optimizes performance by
allowing Mac OS X to prioritize tasks on each processor or core.
Applications can take even greater advantage of multiple cores when they are written
to generate multiple threads (or self-contained tasks), known as multithreading. Many of
today’s applications are multithreaded, achieving up to 69 percent faster performance
on a Power Mac G5 Quad right out of the box.
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As a user, you don’t need to worry about symmetric multiprocessing or application
threading—you’ll just enjoy the enhanced performance.
The Power Mac G5 comes with Mac OS X
v10.4 Tiger, Apple’s UNIX-based operating
system, including powerful new features such
as Spotlight, Dashboard, and Automator.