G4 has 4 velocity (FPU)engines in the CPU, but the FSB bandwidth is poor. 733Mhz machine produces barely over 600MB bandwidth on the bus(half that of a AMD and quarter of P4 FSB).
http://www.apple.com/powermac/processor.html
Velocity engine helps with applications like photoshop
OS X is FreeBSD, you can compile most linux apps for it as long as they are not x86 specific.
New G4 will be 1Ghz, w/ SOI. The new mobo will support DDR RAM.
Apple claims SMP is working with OS X in all applications. The OS will thread the app to the processors without the app being a true threaded app. (this is what apple claims)
The current and only model supporting dual processors is the 533Mhz, the problem with reaching higher Mhz is in the BUS noise and stability. (kinda like 760MP problems)
Current 733mhz and OS X (loaded with RAM) cannot multitask worth a [-peep-], so if your downloading a very large file forget about doing anything else (except read web page or email if its already open)
Current G4 and OS X run all classic apps in "classic more" it loads OS9 in the background and can eat all your ram so that your machine runs while swapping to disk if your under 256MB.
Applications do run in classic fine, just very annoying when classic starts up and takes 5 mins to load when you got alot of stuff open w/ 768mb ram (3 slots of 256 because 512MB samsung 3-3-3 shows up as 256MB (bug))
Next macs will have firewire2 and 3 button mice w/ scroll
The biggest OS X improvement is printing, its like windows now. send it and it pops in que and you do not have to wait for progress bar to finish.
Motorola still makes G4 for Apple
Difference in IBM vs Motorola G4 is...
IBM G4 700 is 7x100FSB
Motorola 733 5.5x133FSB
Not sure wh IBM hasnt produced a chip over 700Mhz with 133FSB.
Im laughing at the codenames IBM used on some of the new stuff indevelopment. "hooker"
http://www.chips.ibm.com/micronews/vol7_no1/hooker.html
I believe Hooker is last name of person leading this project. not just some engineers love for $40 entertainment. but I mightbe wrong.
I didn't find a URL for "comfort" relation to SOI yet but I believe its the name of the person who is leading the project. also might be person who applied for patent.