Why yes, I did need a liquid cooled computer.

[deadsierra]

2.5Ghz x 2, liquid cooling, 8X Superdrive. Not quite 3Ghz, but its not quite WWDC yet.

On the DVD side of things, this is all I could gather from Apples site:

Optical drive bay with SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) installed; writes DVD-R discs at up to 8x speed, reads DVDs at up to 10x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 10x speed, reads CDs at up to 32x speed

Nothing about the brand, but I expect its Pioneer.

[galactica]

You all seen this one?
Water Cooled G4 MDD

I wonder if the g5 glows a nice color because of its cooling system?!?

still......... one fine looking machine

[thoughton]

Unfortunately Apple have also admitted that they will be breaking their promise of "3GHz in one year" at last year's WDC.

The new G5s look nice though. I still had a good time pricing up a not-quite-dream-computer-but-still-more-than-i-can-afford dual 2.5 system last night (until the total came out to $8000 ... )

[GregN]

How did you ever get to $8000?!! Or were you embellishing for effect?

Adding as much to the top-of-the-line model that I could, I only got to about $6000.

[thoughton]

It wasn't even ridiculously loaded with ram, but I wanted two 17" screens so that added an extra 800 bucks. 2x250gig HD, the cheaper of the two 4gig ram options, bluetooth kb, modem, superdrive, 5.1 speakers, 256meg graphics card, iSight, .Mac, airport base+card, applecare - that came to a little under 8 grand.

One can always dream! (Although if I was doing that I'd go for those mindbogglingly expensive 1gig dimms! And some 23" action while I was at it...)

[Lobe]

still dissapointing... not much new.
my main wants:
2- optical drive bays (like the mirrored macs)
4- internal hard drives, at todays prices for hdd's it would be nice
4- PCI slots.

ok, those are my complaints, for a computer that top of the line, I don't think that's asking for much. they are so damn big anyway!

[deadsierra]

How did you ever get to $8000?!! Or were you embellishing for effect?

Adding as much to the top-of-the-line model that I could, I only got to about $6000.

Subtotal $16,275.90

You didn't try hard enough.

[GregN]

How did you ever get to $8000?!! Or were you embellishing for effect?

Adding as much to the top-of-the-line model that I could, I only got to about $6000.

Subtotal $16,275.90

You didn't try hard enough.

unless there is some sort of sexual gratification component involved, I say you tried too hard.. err, much!

[thoughton]

still dissapointing... not much new.
my main wants:
2- optical drive bays (like the mirrored macs)
4- internal hard drives, at todays prices for hdd's it would be nice
4- PCI slots.

ok, those are my complaints, for a computer that top of the line, I don't think that's asking for much. they are so damn big anyway!

I think part of the problem at least is the gigantic g5 units. The two of them sitting there take up quite a lot of space (I've read somewhere that the two _CPUs alone_ are the size of _everything_ inside an iMac). There's probably heat and circulation issues as well I'd imagine.