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What Transition? Moving From PowerPC Mac To Intel Core 2 Duo Mac

by Ash White
05/22/2007

In September of 2005, I made a very stupid decision: I bought a Mac. My disclaimer, before you get all up in arms, is that this is not yet another Mac vs. PC debate. On the quest for a new computer, I priced both Windows and Apple laptops alike. In the end, I went with a 12" PowerBook on a complete whim. Not only had I never owned a Mac, I had never even touched or used one; I simply wanted to experience something new.

So, weeks of research and pricing were all thrown out the window (along with Windows) in favor of the (in)famous "I'll buy a Mac because everyone I know who has one seems to like theirs" argument, despite the extra cash it required that I fork out. I immediately fell in love with the machine. It was fast, portable, and I was more or less spellbound by OS X. But Apple had other plans.

It wasn't until about four months later that I realized I had made quite a silly purchase. In early 2006, Apple released the iMac Core Duo, the first of their new line of Intel-based computers. Over the course of the following months, I watched as the entire G4 and G5 lines were wiped out. In other words, Apple left the IBM PowerPC in the dust in favor of the new dual core Intel chips, which claimed not only to be approximately 1.2 zillion times faster but also able to run Windows, OS X, or both. It wasn't just the processors that got left in the dust: I felt as if I had been abandoned by Apple in favor of the latest and greatest simply because I had made a badly timed purchase.

I kept my PowerBook for almost two years, though, and have only recently upgraded to a 15" MacBook Pro. I don't even know where to start explaining the splendiferous improvements Apple has made to the line in the time between my purchases. The most noticeable aspect is certainly the speed: the MBP puts the PowerBook to shame in terms of performance. The brute force of the CPU speed (2.33 GHz vs. 1.5 GHz) is partially responsible, but the dual core processor (which has become the de-facto standard for most new computers) has also greatly enhanced multitasking potential. Admittedly, the move from the PowerPC line was long overdue. Let's face it: those things had been stagnating for quite a while.

Even older programs that have not yet been recompiled for the Intel architecture run faster than they did on the PowerBook. This is possible thanks to Rosetta, the software that enables applications compiled for PowerPC to run on the new processors. This translation happens completely behind the scenes, transparent to and requiring no work from the user. Again, this is most likely due to the sheer speed of the new Intel CPU. Even the hungriest of applications (we're talking Photoshop, Maya, and other comparable resource hogs) that haven't yet been recompiled for the Intel architecture outperform the native PowerPC versions.

Installing Windows on a secondary partition was also far less painful than I expected. The Boot Camp software, which Apple is generous enough to provide for free, was straightforward and effortless; it even repartitioned the hard drive on the fly while booted in OS X! What more could you ask for? The Windows-on-a-Mac experience is equally amazing (or perhaps I should say it's far less painful than on most PCs). On first boot I immediately jumped into the only real reason I put Windows on the machine in the first place: Half-Life 2. After devoting a decent amount of time to killing crab heads left and right (at very respectable frame rates, mind you), I came to the conclusion that killing crab heads left and right is fun (at very respectable frame rates, mind you).

As always, it's the little things Apple thinks of that make their machines so enjoyable and easy to use. The built-in iSight camera, which was introduced along with the Intel processors, makes video chatting a breeze and now comes standard in all Macs (except the Mac Mini). The backlit keyboard and the motion sensor protecting the contents of my precious hard drive certainly don't hurt either. I swore long ago that I would never go back to a PC and I look forward to future Apple machines. Even though it looks like the Apple-Intel partnership is here to stay for a while, here's to hoping my timing is a little better the next time around.

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