AppleInsider is reporting that Intel powered Macintosh computers, recently deployed to a select few developers, are noticeably faster than the current Motorola/IBM powered variety. The developers received an interesting set of hardware over what one would expect to see in a future Macintel. Kits included a single core Pentium 4 3.6 GHz processor mated to 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a proprietary Intel 900 series graphics chipset.
"It"s fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel"s Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.
Developers have also commented that web page rendering and browser load times are significantly improved. Macintels are expected to hit store shelves sometime around the middle of next year.