Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Rosetta apps were not faster in emulation. This gets repeated a lot and while the Intel Macs were clearly faster at native apps, Power Macs were still faster clock for clock at their own PPC code. Barefeats did some head to heads; at least one benchmark has a Quad G5 beating a Mac Pro 3.0GHz on PPC software, then Apple's top of the line, and the 2.66GHz was clearly slower.

https://barefeats.com/quad06.html

Yes, the Mac Pro was way faster on its own turf, but Rosetta's overhead wasn't overcome by that. Not until the wide availability of Universal apps was the speed advantage apparent.



Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: