Power Macintosh

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Power Macintosh" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006.

Described by Macworld as "the most important technical evolution of the Macintosh since the Mac II debuted in 1987",^[1] it is the first computer with the PowerPC CPU architecture, the flagship product of the AIM alliance. Existing software for the Motorola 68k processors of previous Macintoshes do not run on it natively, so a Mac 68k emulator is in System 7.1.2. It provides good compatibility, at about two-thirds of the speed of contemporary Macintosh Quadra machines.^[1]

The Power Macintosh replaced the Quadra and was initially sold in the same enclosures.^[2] Over the next twelve years, it evolved through a succession of enclosure designs, a rename to "Power Mac", five major generations of PowerPC chips, and a great deal of press coverage, design accolades, and controversy about performance claims. It was discontinued as part of the Mac transition to Intel processors announced in 2005, making way for its replacement, the Mac Pro.