Two of the three things you mentioned have nothing to do with the Core Duo processor:
The inability for Mountain Lion to run on a Core Duo has nothing to do with the processor itself but rather Apple's decision not to support Mountain Lion on it. Apple could have made a 32-bit version of Mountain Lion if they wanted to. This is reinforced by the fact Apple does not support Mountain Lion on some Core 2 Duo equipped MacBooks. The fact you can do it doesn't change this fact.
Can you expand upon this? Core based systems were quite fast and easily bested comparably configured G5 systems. However comparing a 3.0GHz eight core system against a 1.83GHz dual core system is being a little disingenuous. Especially if the application is highly threaded.
I'm not really sure what your point is. You're comparing a top of the line system to lower end models. What does this have to do with Core Duo versus Core 2 Duo and the former not being significantly better than the PPC G5? In addition are you aware the processors used in the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 are based on the Core architecture? That is they are Core based processors.Well, with a 1,1 or a 2,1 you can still use it as a day-to-day Mac while enjoying quite a bit of processing power (not to mention the expanded upgradeability such as newer graphics cards and up to 32GB ram including the option to create a Fusion drive with a SSD and a normal hard drive). Take any Mac from 2006 outside of the 1,1 and let me know if/how well it runs El Capitan. Well the Xserve can too but not many people intend to use those as main Macs.
Core 2 Duos are great don't get me wrong, but if you want the oldest possible machine that can still run the latest stuff, the Mac Pro is the way to go. C2D was a huge upgrade for the laptops and desktops that added a phenomenal amount of performance at the time. I would still be rocking my 2,1 if I didn't have to sell it to put some money towards my truck, but it's okay I have an i7 build that runs El Capitan great
That's my expansion
It was the true G5 killer in that it was the final product line (i.e. professional) to switch to Intel. Other than that I still don't see your point.
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This much further down the line, I still agree with the notion of Macs being not quite as special as they were with PowerPC chips. Not that the Intel processors are bad, just that Macs have never really felt the same since.
I completely agree. Seeing all the "don't buy" signs in the Buyer's Guide is just depressing, especially when they continue to sell products like the 2011 Thunderbolt display (the $999 price should be a sin!).
The Core Duo based iMac was a substantial performance improvement over the G5 iMac. The fact the Mac Pro may have raised the bar even higher does not negate this.
How? Aside from twice the L2 cache and 64-bit instruction set they're the same. The extra L2 cache gives a negligible performance increase to the Core 2 Duo but nothing close to "head over heals" better. If I'm in error please feel free to show why.
Nothing was preventing Apple from releasing later versions of OS X which ran on Core Duo system. The only reason they don't is because Apple decided not to support them (along with other Core 2 Duo based systems) for whatever reasons. I suspect I could take the 32-bit version of Windows 10 and run it just fine on a Core Duo based Mac (if I cannot it wouldn't be because of the processor).
This comparison is between integrated graphics (i.e. the GMA 950) and discrete graphics used in the Power Mac. It is not a comparison of the PPC G5 versus the Core Duo versus the Core 2 Duo.
Your user experience is irrelevant to a discussion as to whether the Core Duo / Core 2 Duo was a faster processor than the PPC G5 processor. If the discussion were about Intel based systems versus PPC G5 based systems then your user experience would be relevant.
There is such a discussion and I had assumed your statement was in response to that discussion. Going back and re-reading your post I see that was an incorrect assumption. You have my apologies.
