There once was a time when Apple could poke fun at Intel and put a Pentium II on the back of a snail. But for the last couple of years, Cupertino has spent more time on the defensive by trying to dispel what it calls the Megahertz Myth. As I’ve detailed in this column before, Intel’s chips have reached upwards of 3 Gigahertz, while the mightiest G4 reaches a mere 1.42 Gigahertz.

Of course, a chip’s clock speed is not everything. But sometimes that brand-new PC your friend has — while inelegant — sometimes seems a bit zippier than that G4 you’ve got running OS X. And as I’ve detailed before, Adobe went so far as to reproduce a test done by Digital Producer Magazine showing Dell boxes with 3 Gigahertz Pentiums outperforming 1.25 Gigahertz dual-processor Power Macs on Photoshop tests. More on that Adobe test in a minute.

But there could be salvation on the way — even though the folks at Apple have kept their lips characteristically sealed about the possibility. There are reports of the IBM 970 64-bit PowerPC chip all over the Net, a chip that Ars Technica’s Jon "Hannibal" Stokes has said "was made with Apple in mind as the primary customer."

According to Stokes: "I believe that Apple is poised for a huge overhaul of its hardware line based on this processor and a renewed relationship with IBM. I’m finally convinced that Apple’s days of wandering in the wilderness with Motorola are over, and that personal computer users will be able to see the Mac as a real option again in terms of desktop, and not just portable, performance."

Alex Salkever of BusinessWeek Online also has said that "for Apple, [the IBM 970] means a quick injection of speed and power." In the article, Salkever unfortunately said that IBM would not confirm that the chip was being built specifically for Apple, but said the chips would work on the Mac platform.

After so long trailing behind the x86 world, Apple needs the shot in the arm. It’s hard to believe that with all of the strides the company has made in the last several years, and the surprises it has revealed, that Stevie J. & Co. don’t realize the need for Apple to become more competitive with the processors it offers in its machines. Especially since Apple has chosen to position itself as a leader in what it has coined the "digital hub" market. Working with video uses a lot of computing power. Faster processors would put Apple in an even better position.

Whether it’s this summer or next year, Apple will announce the change. I don’t have a special source to confirm to you that the IBM 970 will be our saviour. But the 970 or something like it will have to come or Apple will finally start to whither as the critics have always predicted.

Now, back to that Adobe test comparing the G4 to the Intel chip. It seems that the link has been removed and now shuttles you to Adobe’s digital video products page instead of the test that made Apple look so bad.

Either Stevie J. got to Adobe’s executives, or maybe Adobe knows something about the future of Apple that we don’t yet?