Don't Look Back Now, PowerPC to Seize Megahertz Lead

So IBM couldn't hit 3GHz with the PowerPC G5 CPU and Apple switched to Intel. How about 5GHz? Just after Apple drops IBM's CPU and adopts Intel's, the IBM PowerPC may well surge ahead of Intel in processor clock speed. The next generation IBM Power6 CPU is slated to run at 4-5GHz with those for the performance market exceeding 5GHz. They will consume less than 100 watts which is compatible with the high-end CPUs from Intel and AMD.

And then there is the Cell Broadband Engine processor made by IBM, Sony and Toshiba in collaboration. The CEB is slated to run at 6GHz.

Intel, along with AMD, have taken a different tack into multi-core processors with speeds around 3GHz. However, applications that do not take advantage of multiple processors generally, though not always, run faster on CPUs with higher GHz. Hopefully, more general applications and 3D games will take advantage of multi-core and multiple processors in 2007. More... [Bill Fox]