Why Not?

Since the G4, and now the G5, are so much architecturally superior than the P4, why doesn't Mac make them at higher mHz speeds? I know that mHz is not everything, but why NOT go faster? What would it hurt? In other words, everything else considered, why is Mac so slow, compared to Intel, to bump up processor speeds? Just curious thanks.

mimmyhonker said:

Since the G4, and now the G5, are so much architecturally superior than the P4, why doesn't Mac make them at higher mHz speeds? I know that mHz is not everything, but why NOT go faster? What would it hurt? In other words, everything else considered, why is Mac so slow, compared to Intel, to bump up processor speeds? Just curious thanks.

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first, you hit it on the head, mhz isnt everything... Why waste tons of money in making the fastest chip ever when you can make a more efficient lower clock processor. The G4 uses more of the clock cycles for useful tasks, where the p4 doesnt. Intel wastes money trying to make the fastest processor out there without optimizing the processor to be more efficient when doing work. It costs money to research and redesign an architecture to handle higher speeds. The G5 is supposed to be scaled to 3Ghz by June of next year, but we shall see on that one. The way the two chips work is another reason, the pipelines into a p4 are much smaller than those into the g4 and g5s. The g5 sports a 1Ghz front side bus, which means the processors are spending less time idling and more time processing. The p4 is only up to 400mhz (it is not 800 mhz like they advertise), so the 3.2 Ghz chip sits there wasting cycles as it waits for information to be passed through the bus to it for processing. Apple does not need to increase the speeds of their chips in order to get a better result, because the rest of their architecture is tuned to match with the processors so well, the g4 and g5 do very little waiting if any during any processor work, unlike the p4 which spends a lot of time waiting for stuff to be brought in through the fsb.

Yes, Higher mhz also takes more power (aka electricity).
Little anyone can say more than one hokiethang just said..
But, If they bumped up the Mhz, they would not only be compromising integrity, but also $. No offense to people who think apple is out to make people happy, they have one goal, and that is to make money. They just have to make the best computer and OS in the world to make money. If they pushed it up to that speed now, that would be less money in the long run. They will always ease into the higher tech specs. Right Now, would be the perfect time to buy a G5, because its the highest away from the compeditors now than it ever will be.