04-02-2010, 09:44 AM

Just bought a mac on eBay a week ago - 1.0 Ghz dual 2002 quicksilver for under $100 shipped. I haven't used a mac in about 10 years so I wanted to buy something cheap before buying a newer mac - to see how I like them.

I know this computer is a PPC but I'm eventually looking to buy a mac with an Intel processor.

I have had the dual core and quad core Intels on a PC and wasn't that happy with them. Is the dual core on a Mac completely different?

I think the problem was more the OS Vista than the processor itself.

Thanks for any input.

04-02-2010, 09:58 AM

You've answered your own question. The Core 2 Duo processors found on most Macs are the exact same ones used in PCs. The newest iMacs actually have Core i5 and i7 processors which are even faster.

The problem with your PC wasn't the processor. It was the OS.

Obviously, that won't be the problem on the Mac.

04-02-2010, 10:02 AM

The chips are identical.

The difference is the look and feel of the OS, and if you were using 32 bit windows, the Mac handles memory better, even the 32 bit version of OSX can address more than 4 gig of RAM, and that G4 has a 32 bit chip.

That 2002 quicksliver will struggle a bit with video (depending as well on its video card) but is still a great and cheap OSX test machine, and may even surprise you for an 8 year old bit of hardware.

04-02-2010, 01:05 PM

The big difference is not the cpu as stated very well above. Identical in both Mac and PC. The issue is the OS. OS X utalises the power of the cpu much more efficiently then Vista does. And that's where a lot of the issue is. Vista just leaves a lot of the cpu power doing nothing. W7 I believe on the other hand fixes a lot of this issue. Though it's not perfect, W7 does utalise the cpu a lot more then Vista ever did.