I think you misremember. Apple started with the Core Solo and Core Duo chips (Yonah), which were fairly fast but weren't remarkably faster than the PowerPC G5.

I think you misremember. Apple started with the Core Solo and Core Duo chips (Yonah), which were fairly fast but weren't remarkably faster than the PowerPC G5. A single core G5 iMac held up quite well versus the two-core Core Duo and thrashed the Core Solo. Aside from memory reads the G5 did quite well. The strength of the Core Duo and Solo were in performance per watt and that's what Jobs was looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonah_(microprocessor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonah_(microprocessor)