Thirdly, hardcore gamers are not the ones buying Apples, but rather, creative professionals. Secondly, there are fewer games available on this platform than on the x86 PC.

Firstly, you have to pay a big premium to get a fast video card – as a standard, you get the ATI Radeon 9650 - even on the high-end PowerMacs. In this article, you will find a pedal to the metal comparison of the latest Xeon DP 3.6 GHz (Irwindale), Opteron 250, Dual G5 2.5 GHz and Dual G5 2.7 GHz.Īpple’s PowerMac is an alternative to the x86 PC, but we didn’t bother testing it as a gaming machine. If you like a less performance-obsessed article about Apple, OS X and the G5, you should definitely give Anand’s articles in the Mac section on AnandTech a read. But we think that you should have a decent insight to where the G5/Mac OS X combination positions itself when compared to the Intel & AMD world at the end of this article. This article cares about speed, performance, and nothing else! No comments on how well designed the internals are, no elaborate discussions about user friendliness, out-of-the-box experience and other subjective subjects. It is definitely the worst buyer’s guide that you can imagine. So, be warned this is not an all-round review. This article is written solely from the frustration that I could not get a clear picture on what the G5 and Mac OS X are capable of.

Yes, you could find a benchmark here and there, with one benchmark showing that the PowerMac is just a mediocre PC while another shows it off as a supercomputer, the unchallenged king of the personal computer world. You guessed it - I am parroting Apple’s marketing.įor some reason, the performance of Apple’s gorgeous machines has been wrapped in a shroud of mystery. It is about the ultimate user friendliness. It is a professional 64 bit Dream machine with supersonic speed! It is beautiful.

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