Dear Wired News/News.com

June 6, 2005

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I would like to read the story about various Mac websites or periodicals dissing the Pentium in the past and then greeting today's announcement with excitement and glee. I don't have the time to look up those old articles myself, but it's a good way to get both the Mac-haters and the Mac-supporters angry at you and reading the piece.

Tell your assignment editor that I'm guaranteeing at least a number 10 spot on Blogdex, and a lengthy long tail shelf life as people continually refer back to the story in future blog posts, either to demonstrate the fickleness of the Mac audience or its open-minded willingness to change and evolve.

3 Comments

Various Mac websites that diss the Pentium like this one? ;-)

I especially like this quote from there:

The PowerPC G5 out-shoots the Pentium 4 in a battery of tests. But it’s in the rough-and-tumble of real-world performance that the G5 really comes into its own — shredding the PC’s reputation in the process.

Jeevan, if you check out the charts you linked to, they point out that the G5 advantage is CPU cycle for CPU cycle. That is to say, the 2Ghz G5 would crush a 2Ghz Pentium 4.

But the move to Intel architecture is based in some part on IBM's inability to push CPU clock speeds as years go around the real-world clock. I think the real point made here is just that Intel (and AMD, I would say) are much more interested in desktop CPUs and making them faster than IBM is.

Years ago, Steve Jobs promised 3 gigahertz, and he hasn't been able to deliver it. He wants to, but IBM won't. So, he "made the switch."

-- Asheesh.

Asheesh--I wasn't linking to those pages to show that the G5 was faster than comparable Intel processors. Linking to Apple-made benches to show the G5 is better than the P4 would be like linking to Microsoft-funded studies that show that Windows is faster/cheaper than Linux solutions.

I was linking them only to show that Apple itself had always been putting down the x86 platform so their switch to x86 is ironic/surprising/humorous.

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