G5 EMULATOR FOR INTEL MAC MAC OS X
G5 EMULATOR FOR INTEL MAC CODE

The only thing they wonвЂ™t run is AppleвЂ™s Classic environment, and we may have to wait for the PearPC project or a third-party вЂњclassic emulatorвЂќ before weвЂ™ll have a way to run classic apps on Macintel hardware.

G5 EMULATOR FOR INTEL MAC MAC OS X

It is obvious that the old iMacs are worth less than the new ones, yet as I examine one dealer website after another вЂ“ including AppleвЂ™s вЂ“ I have yet to see anyone reducing prices on the G5 models.Д«ecause of the Rosetta emulator, the Intel iMacs should run practically every existing Mac OS X application.

That doesnвЂ™t mean that the old iMacs are only worth half as much, however, since there are other factors involved вЂ“ the display, iSight webcam, hard drive, and so forth have value, not just the CPU. No matter how you look at it, the new iMac has at least twice the processing power of the G5 iMacs. In my talks with developers, I heard again and again how fast AppleвЂ™s Pentium-based developer systems were, and with a new generation of CPUs architecture and dual cores, these iMacs are absolutely going to rock.

In fact, Apple could very specifically optimize OSВ X and itsВ other apps for the latest Intel architecture because there is no need for the Mac OS to support legacy Intel CPUs. Parts of OSВ X that were optimized for the PowerPC G4 or G5 have probably been closely examined and carefully ported to IntelвЂ™sВ new CPU family. The other side is that Apple and Intel have been working hand-in-hand for the better part of a year to make this work.

G5 EMULATOR FOR INTEL MAC CODE

Thus a fair bit of OSВ X code is hacked to work on PowerPC or emulates features of the x86 to reduce the need for recoding and just get things done. On the one side, OSВ X is descended from NeXTвЂ™s OS work, which was primarily done on Intel x86 processors. On top of that, Mac OS X 10.4.4 is probably better optimized for the Intel Core architecture than it ever was for PowerPC, making the OS more efficient than itвЂ™s ever been before. For tasks like ripping music to iTunes, manipulating photos in iPhoto, and working with video in iMovie, processing time could well be cut in half. Raw computing power isnвЂ™t the only thing that defines system performance, but itвЂ™s the only significant difference between the G5 and Intel Core Duo models.

ThatвЂ™s the least youвЂ™d expect with IntelвЂ™s new CPU architecture and dual cores. Until then, letвЂ™s assume the worst вЂ“ that the iMac 2006 (for lack of a better name вЂ“ вЂњiMacintelвЂќ just doesnвЂ™t roll off the tongue) has a dual-core CPU twice as powerful as the single-core CPU in the G5 iMacs. ItвЂ™s probably going to be a few weeks before we get meaningful benchmarks, because theyвЂ™ll have to be compiled to run on both PowerPC and Intel hardware. Like I said, the switch to Intel changes the entire landscape for desktop Macs. 40 GB in the entry-level mini), and a built-in iSight webcam. For about 50% more money, you get 4x the processing power, a 1440 x 900 widescreen display, a 160 GB hard drive (vs.

Once you add a 1280 x 1024 flat panel display (since widescreen LCDs are rare below the 20вЂі mark) and a mouse and keyboard, youвЂ™re looking at roughly US$900 for the Mac mini system. If a 1.83 GHz Core Duo is 2-3x faster than a 1.9 GHz G5 and that G5 is 40-60% more powerful than the 1.25 or 1.33 GHz G4 in the Mini, the 2006 iMac should trounce that by a factor of 3-5x. If thatвЂ™s not enough to convince you of the value change, consider that the Intel Core Duo running at 2.0 GHz in the iMac should match and very probably exceed performance of the 2.0 GHz dual-core G5 in the low-end Power Mac G5 Dual.ДЇinally, consider how vastly underpowered the US$499 Mac mini is with its pedestrian G4 CPU in comparison to the US$1,299 1.83 GHz Core Duo iMac. The Intel Core Duo iMacs benchmark at 2-3x the level of G5 CPUs at the same clock speed, yet the new models cost no more than the previousВ ones. The first Intel-based iMac changes the value equation for the entire realm of desktop Macs.

G5 emulator for intel mac