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Power Mac G5 2.0 GHz vs. MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.26 GHz

The new one will be many times faster. Even though the clock speed is similar, the CPU does many times more calculations per clock cycle. Clock speed is not a valid measure of CPU speed any more, unless you are comparing 2 CPUs in the same family.

It is probably worth upgrading if anything you do is CPU-intensive, if the new one has more RAM, or if you find something that doesn't run on PPC.
 
One is stationary, one can be mobile.

But according to Geekbench they roughly perform the same.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search?q=power+mac+g5+2.0+ghz&commit=Search
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/search?q=macbook+pro+2.26+ghz&commit=Search

Xbench:
http://db.xbench.com/search.xhtml?text=power+mac+g5+2.0+ghz
http://db.xbench.com/search.xhtml?text=macbook+pro+2.26+ghz


At work we have a G5 Power Mac and sometimes that bucket feels slower as my 2.4GHz MacBook with the same amount of 4GB RAM.

But that may be due to the software (Avid with all its glory and hardware add-ons vs. software only Avid).
 
That's a good question. My dad uses the PowerMac at work, and I have the MacBook Pro. I think for pure efficiency, the MBP reigns. The major advantage the PowerMac has is the number of ports and expansion options. If that isn't on your shopping list, I'd say make the jump to the MBP. Future software will probably take better advantage of the Intel + nVidia chipset than the IBM (not to mention Snow Leopard is Intel only).
 
Maybe I overestimated the advantage the Core 2 Duo had, if the benchmarks are so similar. I don't know if I trust benchmarks across completely different architectures, though.

I guess it depends on what you are doing in that case. Video editing, for example, might take advantage of highly optimized instructions on the Core 2 Duo, and might be significantly faster than on the PPC. If you are just browsing the web, you probably won't notice any difference in speed.

Since you don't seem to need to upgrade now, it might be worth waiting for the next update to the MB/MBPs, which should be a bit faster.

Edit: Adobe CS4 is optimized for the latest Intel CPUs, so if anything does better on the MB, it would probably be CS4. It depends on which CS4 app you are talking about, though. The system requirements for Photoshop are G5 or Intel, but for Premiere Pro it is Intel only.
 
Thanks guys. I think this answers my question.

I guess the only difference would be mobility and advantage of using Snow Leopard with the laptop but performance may be the same. Hmmmm, something to think about.
 
I have been running simulations on a MBP 17" with SSD 2.3 Ghz
from april 2009, a macbook from mid 2008 ( in fact an axiotron), and a G5 with dual processor 2.67Ghz from 2004.

These are identical C++ programs running in the background for days and I time the CPU usage. The MBP is a bit faster than the macbook. Both are at least 3 times faster than the G5.
 
Slight bump in speed. Would be noticeable in a select few apps, but probably wouldn't "feel" that much faster in light tasks.
 
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