[G4] Ancient Tech?

[Eric Smith]

Aaron wrote:

> Aside from having built-in SATA and USB 2.0, are there any advantages to G5's over G4's, other than that they were made in (at least nominally) much faster versions?

Several things made them faster, of course. Higher CPU clock speeds,
faster memory, processors designed for SMP from the ground up,
Hypertransport on the motherboard. In the later versions you can
get dual-core CPUs, meaning you can have 4 cores in the system.
PCI-X slots instead of PCI in the early models, while the later
models go all the way to PCI-Express.

> Also, aside from running Windoze natively, is there any advantage to an Intel Mac over a PowerPC Mac?

Faster, of course; generally much faster. Intel CPUs do better
with heat than PPCs, meaning laptops run cooler (the inability
to produce a Powerbook G5 is rumored to be a main reason for the
switch - although I think there were other more important reasons).
Dual-core CPUs are now standard for Intel Macs.
Leopard is the last OS version that will run on PPC systems.

On the other hand I think the Intel Macs are not as well built as
the PPC systems were, and they are nowhere near as upgradable.
iMacs in particular - the current ones contain almost all laptop parts.
And you lose Classic mode, unless you want to try a hack like
Sheepshaver.

Eric