“The speed of the [new Intel-based Macs] begs the question as to the apparent BS that the Mac community was fed for years regarding the natural superiority of the PowerPC chip. As far as I’m concerned Apple’s credibility is now suspect on all levels. More interesting were the rather insulting ads Apple showed regarding these chips indicating that any use before Apple was essentially a crummy loser. This, of course referred to Windows I guess. Apparently Apple is unaware of the fact that Linux runs at blazing speed on these chips too,” John Dvorak writes for PC Magazine.
Full article along with photo essay of Macworld Expo 2006 here.
MacDailyNews Take: While we agree wholeheartedly with Dvorak’s characterization of Apple’s Intel ad (insulting the very customers that you’re trying to get to switch to your product is a typical Apple advertising/marketing misadventure), he couldn’t be more wrong about PowerPC chips. The Intel-based iMac is faster than the PowerPC-based iMac G5 because the chip is dual core vs. single core. Same goes for MacBook Pro vs. PowerBook G4. Of course, Intel-based Macs are faster, they have twice the processors inside. The world’s fastest Mac is PowerPC-based: Apple’s Power Mac G5 Quad with, you guessed it, four processors.
The Intel Core Duo processors that Apple is using are new. They simply weren’t available when Apple claimed the PowerPC was a faster chip, so there is no way you can call BS on Apple if you want people to take you seriously.
Of note, too, are that the new Intel Core Duo processors are also fabbed at 65nm vs. the Power PC G5’s 90nm process. Apple’s inexcusable inability to sell the vastly superior Mac (compared to Microsoft Windows, in particular) in greater numbers didn’t exactly encourage IBM to spend the money in PowerPC development that they would have if Apple made it worth their while. The PowerPC is, in many ways, an excellent architecture that could’ve been and could still be much more than it is today. In addition, there are many other factors to consider: RAM speed, caching, system bus, and more that contribute to speed differences. PowerPC was the best option and faster at some tasks than anything from Intel back when Apple was selling PowerPC. “Selling” being the operative word. Apple was doing its job, not lying, not BS’ing; they were selling the real benefits of PowerPC over Intel processors at the time and not highlighting deficiencies. Now Apple will sell Intel’s benefits and attributes as they phase out PowerPC. And, if Intel can’t keep up, Apple could always sell AMD or PowerPC. Such is the beauty of the new Universal Binary paradigm, right? Think about it: Apple now has the ability — if they wish to exercise it — to pick the best processors for any particular Mac from among Intel, IBM, Freescale, and AMD. Windows box assemblers like Dell simply cannot match Apple Macs in the area of processor choice or anything else, for that matter.
Again, times change, you can’t accuse Apple of BS’ing back when they were comparing G4s to Pentiums on the basis that they’ve now chosen to use a brand new Intel chip that didn’t even exist a month ago.
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