In my opinion, they are about the same speed depending on the OS. Both on Tiger, the PPC would probably win. Leopard bogs down all the machines I have seen it run on, PPC and Intel, but I think the Intel would just barely outperform the PPC. Of course, Snow Leopard is Intel only. It varies.

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I have no idea where this statement comes from, unless you're talking about, I dunno, the perceived responsiveness the OS/Finder or something while just poking around. Here are some benchmarks comparing an October 2006 MacBook Pro to a Powerbook G4 overclocked to 2.0Ghz with a third-party upgrade. If you're running Universal binaries it's not even close, the Intel is two to four times faster. The only times it's even close is when the systems are running PPC binaries, IE, the MacBook is using emulation, and even then the Intel stays competitive. And again, this comparing to a PowerBook 333mhz faster than any that ever shipped.

(Check out Geekbench/SunSpider/whatever scores if you really want some more synthetic benchmarks to make it clear just how overmatched the G4 was in 2006. It's brutal.)

It gets *slightly* more complicated if we're comparing a PowerBook G4 to a MacBook (no Pro) with Intel 950/3100 graphics; there were a few edge cases, mostly gaming related, where a PowerBook with its Nvidia or ATI graphics might squeak out a framerate win for certain 3D intensive tests, but that's really just about it.