Page "Power Macintosh" Paragraph 35

All Power Macs prior to 1997 used PowerPC 60x-series processors, and 4-digit model numbers ( e. g. Power Mac 8600 ).

In 1997 the first third-generation (" G3 ") Power Macintosh was introduced, using the PowerPC 750 processor.

From this model onward, Apple no longer used a numbering scheme to identify their Power Mac models, but instead referred to them by their PowerPC processor generation number ( i. e. G3, G4, and G5 ).

Later models based on the same generation of PowerPC processor relied on descriptive characteristics to differentiate them, e. g. the color scheme (" Power Macintosh G3 – Blue and White ") or a technical feature of a particular model (" Power Mac G4 – Gigabit Ethernet ").

This same identification scheme was used in the iMac, PowerBook, and iBook lines of Macintosh computers.