If your going to go x86/x64 and really want the best then you think different and go with AMD. They make the best processors in their class fullstop, The Intel offerings run hotter then the latest G5's are supposed to do. The only reason as others have stated for going Intel is if they will be making custom chips for Apple, their large market share and vast resources would probably make them the most competitive cost wise in such a scenario.
What most people see to have missed though is any migration to a differnet platform would either require emulation of exisiting software or new software altogether. This may be exceptable for individual users but for businesses and scientific institiutions this costs seriously big bucks or has performance penalties. Scientific institutions didn't buy the G5 for OS X they bought it for it's cost/performance. For all those who knock the G5, up until the release of dual core CPU's it's RISC architecture was the one to have for certain professions, it is a fast chip. OS X is good but Windows isn't as bad as everyone makes out, not for workstations anyway. The old fall back is that you will get viruses and spyware most businesses run behind hardware firewalls and sensitive machines aren't even connected to the internet. The incentive to stick with apple if they go x86 if you are a business user is a lot less, why not by a Dell or better yet build one yourself and run linux.
Even a customised x86 job which would allow apple to control the use of OS X would mean that apple would try to keep their higher price points and for what; an identical machine to ones you could by from a PC maker except this one runs OS X. I honestly feel that moving chip makers is fine but only if you make the same kind of chips, people talk about porting the OS but that is only a small part of it. You then have to migrate your entire user base and all the software that goes with it. PPC/RISC is a great architecture, clock for clock it is superior to x86 with the right code we've seen that.
Maybe apple needs to start thinking differently, give there customers more for their money and perhaps actually talk to them and get some feedback. People who game or use a mac for office may rejoice at this news business needs reassurance. There are technologies out there (don't argue with the next bit it is just an example not me saying they can use this or that) that are faster if they choose to use them, we have the much fabled Cell, IBM's own POWER 5 design or maybe pay Cray a call that would be interesting
I could understand apple jumping ship during the days of the G4 Powermac but the G5 has real promise. I could only see apple jumping ship either as a way to make IBM do something or because IBM can't do anything about the situation. Although the chips in the latest consoles are not G5's they do show that IBM can make such chips so aren't behind technologically. The POWER 5 has used multiple cores for a long time, IBM can and in many ways for high end CPU design still are leaders. I think this is more likely a threat on apple's part or just general rumour mill stirrings based on a promise made stupidly a few years back.
