Excuse me? You may not have noticed, but CPU speeds hit a wall about 5 years ago, and things are not moving quite as fast as you seem to think.
Explain to me how a quad core 2.5Ghz G5 is slow. The new Windows system I just put together last summer was a quad core 2.5Ghz system, and they both(vs Quad G5) do comparable jobs running Handbrake. Only Appletards can call a 64-bit system platform that was top of the line 2.5 years ago "ancient cruft." You do realize that the 32-bit Intel Macs are older than that? In fact, 32-bit Intel architecture is older than PowerPC itself!
I'm plenty aware of both these points. I have 2 degrees in Computer Science, and I've been using Macs for 2 decades or so. Yes, 2005 is about when Moore's Law had a fight with physics and agreed to go multicore instead of faster, so to speak.
What you missed is that I wasn't generalizing
all PowerPC machines as "slow" or "ancient cruft". But what percentage of PowerPC users would you suspect have a quad-core G5? I think you're vastly outnumbered by G4 and G3 users, even by single- and dual-core G5 users. Heck, my parents' "new" computer is a 17" G5 iMac.
The reasons behind the Intel switch are many and varied, and speculation thereon is practically futile. But just as you said, 2005 was when speeds hit the wall.
Most PowerPC Macs sold before 2005 are appreciably slower than today's multicore Intel machines, at least from a performance perspective. The ones that aren't, like the G5, stand to benefit very little from a 64-bit operating system.
In my opinion, it's just time to move on, as painful as that is for some people. Windows tech specs can be similarly unforgiving of older machines, although on that side you have more options for upgrading the motherboard, etc.
This, you are absolutely correct. G5 would see very little benefit from 64-bit.. In fact, it is interesting that Apple is spinning 64-bit as being 'faster,' when in fact it is usually 'slower.' It's only faster on Intel because (as Apple told us for years) Intel x86 ISA sucks that bad. In fact, I guess the 32-bit Intel Mac owners ought to be warned: It won't be that much faster for you!
Well, yes and no. Yes, 64-bit users will likely see a bigger performance leap, but my guess is that a lot of the refinements are more general than just 64-bit optimizations, so 32-bit users should also experience snappier response times, particularly with the new Finder features, etc. In any case, it is an interesting phenomenon that Intel 64-bit happens to be faster than 32-bit, but it's one reason developers would love to have their users on 64-bit. It's always good to be faster with minimal developer effort!
