Apple "Power Mac" to Finally Hit 3GHz but with Intel CPU?

Intel announced that its high-end Core 2 Duo CPU is now shipping and at speeds up to 3GHz. Formerly code-named "Woodcrest," the new CPU released specifically for high-end servers and called the Intel Xeon 5100 is the top end of its second generation Core 2 Duo series. Other members of the Core 2 Duo series are code named "Conroe" for desktops and "Merom" for notebooks. This new CPU is billed by Intel as increasing performance by up to 135 percent and using up to 40 percent less power than the CPU it replaces.

The question is, will Apple adopt this new Core 2 Duo CPU in its Intel-based replacement of the Power Mac G5 expected to be forthcoming before the end of 2006. If so, Apple will finally be able to deliver on Steve Jobs projection of a Mac running at 3GHz, a projection he made when introducing the IBM-based Power Mac G5 several years ago but IBM failed to deliver. The Core 2 Duo "Woodcrest" CPU has a dual processor core with 64-bit architecture like the current IBM Power PC G5 but it runs up to 3 GHz with a 1.33GHz frontside system bus and 4MB of shared L2 cache.

While "Woodcrest" would fittingly improve the performance of Apple's pro desktop computer (and Xserve!) while bringing it into the Intel-based world with the rest of Apple's computer line, an even better performing Intel quad core CPU code-named "Clovertown" is due out on the heals of "Woodcrest", i.e. in another 6 months or so. This timeframe is similar to Adobe's planned release of its pro software for the Mac updated with Intel-native code and Apple's release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard so it would seem tempting for Apple to wait 6 months more to update the Power Mac G5, skipping the "Woodcrest" CPU. We don't know if Apple will do that but either way a 3GHz "Mac Pro" is in the near future. [Bill Fox]