See, we always knew that the PowerPC would prevail in the long run. While Intel is still crawling along with its outdated and overtorqued CISC architecture, the PPC is reaping the blistering speed advantages of RISC. Oh, sure, things looked a little bleak for a while, there, what with competing x86 chipsets reaching 1.5 GHz and all... especially with the G4 stalled at a seemingly miserable 500 MHz for over a year now. Apple was forced to ship a dual-G4 Power Mac before it even had a publicly-available multiprocessing operating system, simply to counter the 1 GHz marketing threat. After word of the 1.5 GHz Pentium got out, we kept checking Apple's site for an announcement of a deliciously asymmetric triple-processor Mac, just to keep up with the Wintel-buying Joneses.

But worry no more! Because Motorola has finally broken out of its year-long rut and has announced a new PowerPC chip. Faithful viewer Matt Wolanski breathlessly presented us with Motorola's official press release, in which the company introduces the new MPC7410-- a tweaked G4 "designed for high-performance, high-bandwidth applications." This sucker is the Mac's salvation in the Megahertz Wars, people; it's available in speeds of 400, 450, 500, and industry-flattening 550 MHz. Rejoice, for our platform's fastest clock speed is no longer a mere third of the fastest Intel iron. Now the ratio's a much healthier 36.7%.

Or rather, it will be. Because the 400, 450, and 500 MHz chips are available now, while the mind-numbing new 550 MHz version is "expected to be available soon." Hopefully when Motorola says "soon," the company is using the definition familiar to us English-speaking earthlings, and not the word "sünn," which, in the alien language of Uncle Steve's home planet, translates roughly as "after a delay whose length is calculated to annoy over half of the interested populace to the point of cardiovascular distress." (If you've ever wondered why you can never seem to buy the new stuff that Steve says is "available immediately," it's because "uvAAlebll eemEEdyytlee" in Steve's native tongue actually translates as "order away, you gullible peons-- we love to watch you squirm.")

Anyway, AtAT would like to extend hearty congrats to Motorola for finally breaking through that 500 MHz barrier that the rest of the industry has found so daunting. And for those of you more enlightened folks for whom clock speed isn't everything, it's worth noting that the new 7410 flavor of G4 is targeted at the embedded systems market-- meaning that its killer feature isn't its clock speed (well, duh) but its almost ridiculously low power consumption. Would you want a power-sucking Pentium 4 draining all the wattage in your CyberFridge? Of course not. So the new 550 MHz G4 (when it ships) will pull only six watts, compared to a Pentium's eleventy-kajillion. Okay, so you don't give a flying patoot about smart kitchen appliances... but Motorola's latest advance, while not exactly the toast of the town when it comes to clock speed, removes the biggest roadblock from Apple's plans to introduce a supercomputer-to-go. PowerBook G4, here we come...