Mac vs PC: PowerPC G4 & G5 Specs Explained

[mattmns]

Could someone explain how these Mac specs work. For example, what is the equivalent to a G4, G5.

For example a Mac mini: 1.42GHz PowerPC G4

Or an Imac: 2GHz PowerPC G5

What would these be in terms of an intel processor?

Thanks.

 

[dduardo]

It's hard to say. There are too many factors to get any accurate sense. I wouldn't worry too much anyway since macs are going to be running intel soon. Actually, from what I've heard the developer intel macs available are faster than the fastest osx running on powerpc

 

[mattmns]

Soon? How soon is soon?

 

[Pengwuino]

Soon? How soon is soon?

Probably within a year

 

[Zach_C]

All the models are switching over by 2007. Whether this actually happens by then will have to be seen. Middle of 2006 I would start looking at the powermac and powerbooks to switch.

As far as specs go, it is nearly impossible to tell. In gaming ppc chips won't touch i386 chips. However, when I use photoshop (about the only application where I can talk about it on both systems) my dual 1.25 G4 out does the pentium 4 2.8 GHz machines I used it on. And when I first switched, sound editing was a breeze. However the photoshop example is the only experience of mine that could hold weight.

 

[FulhamFan3]

It's odd that you say x86 is better at gaming than ppc considering the Xbox is switching to a POWER based architecture.

Of course this is for consoles but i wonder why console gaming favors RISC based chips where computer games are better with PC instead of MAC.

I think it's less of a hardware issue and more of a software one. I bet it has to do with games being optimized for the PC first and then ported for the MAC.

 

[Grotesque Puppet]

Xbox 360 will have a triple-core PowerPC processor I think ppc is easy to develop for, no? GameCube used PowerPC "gekko" and it was very simple to create games on according to developers.