The Taiwanese news source, Taipei Times has taken notice of Apple Computeris recent emphasis on performance. In an article called "Apple confronts its lack of speed," it talks about the recent disputes over Appleis benchmarks as well as the overall leap in in performance. From the article:
Even if critics take issue with the details of the speed tests that Apple has since made available, the message is nevertheless still clear: Appleis work with new system architecture surrounding the PowerPC G5 chip from IBM represents an enormous step forward. The new chips will allow Macs to keep up with high-end PCs running on processors from Intel or AMD.[...]
The speed growth will really come into effect at the end of the year when Apple brings the "Panther" version of its Mac OS X operating system onto the market.
Striking even at first glance is the 600 megahertz (MHz) jump in processing speed from the previous fastest Power Mac with G4 chip to the 2 gigahertz offered by the quickest G5 computers.
The article quotes Needhan & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf saying, "The main argument not to buy a Power Mac was the relatively slow speed ... That reason is now gone." Despite pointing that out, it goes on to claim a disparity in value with PC systems.
This value is still significantly below the 3 gigahertz offered by the quickest Pentium chips from Intel. Yet even in the "Wintel" world, it has become common wisdom that processing speed is not the only factor when it comes to calculating "power."
The rest of the article is filled mainly with information from the Apple press releases on the PowerMac G5.