Thinking of buying the latest version of Apple's Mac OS X? Have a Power PC over four years old? Well, according to media reports you might as well go out and buy a new Mac, as an 800MHz machine won't cut the mustard with the latest whizz-bang OS!

Reports from AppleInsider tell of the minimum hardware spec of the new Leopard 10.5 OS being "an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4, 867 MHz or faster, or G5 processor" - so get ready to ditch your 800MHz PowerBook G4, Titanium, 800MHz PowerMac G4, 800MHz iMac G4, 800MHz iBook G4, and 800MHz eMac.

The publication said that a Leopard install on a 800MHz PowerPC G4 systems ran "too slow" and so any attempt to install comes up with a message "cannot be installed" on the machine. Other requirements for the OS include a DVD drive, built-in FireWire, at least 512MB of RAM and at least 9GB of hard disk space. Other rumours have version 10.6 (no word on the codename - we'd like it to be called Ocelot!) of the OS ditching PowerPC entirely leaving only Intel-based Macs capable of upgrading.

We'll have to see how things pan out, rumours like these have a habit of coming true! More here!

As it is, Apple released three updates of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system just a few hours apart on Friday, this could mean that development could be drawing to a close and the code is ready for prime-time.