Originally posted by crazy_will
the next generation of processor. like, you hads the 601, 603, then the 750, then the 74xx. each one of those was a different generation of processor, each represented a sigfigant change from the last, that it needed to be differentiated from the last. also, think of pentuim - pentium II - Pentium III - pentium IV. each processor has a differnt name because each one is so different from the last, that it is said to be in a newer generation of processor.
Except that the Pentium 3 was something of a marketing scam in that respect, it was a Pentium 2 with SSE tech bolted on, though I guess you could sum up the differences between the G3 and G4 as Altivec, SMP and L3 (only one of which I'd say constitutes a generational difference in the slightest, and that's Altivec)