[OS X TeX] 64-bit binaries in TeXLive 2010

[Rob Rye]

My two cents on this topic:

I strongly disagree with the notion that it is time to abandon PowerPC support. According to MacWorld's Speedmark 5 test the top-of-the-line "old" PowerMac G5 machine gets a score of 226 versus 260 for the latest MacBook Pros (Speedmark 5 score of 260 for Mid-2009 MBP 15" 2.8 GHz). In other words, the PowerPC has aged well and would be considered worthy of continued use by many on limited budgets.

Of course, the Nehalem 8-core Intel-based machine got a score of 343 on the Speedmark 5. One might argue that a 50% increase in performance is worth it (and the latest iMacs slightly outperform this tower). But, much of the difference in performance is in rendering huge graphics and videos, which is frankly unimportant to many scientific users. 

Rob