I have some predictions, based on my sense of where things are moving and how fast. These calls are speculative. They are not based on any secret or insider information. I also have some holiday gift ideas and news items at the end of my column. I think by the time MacWorld San Francisco rolls around they will have 650 MHz chips shipping, and in decent quantity.
Intel chips are quite a bit slower than people realize.
The fact that PC video cards have tended to be six months to a year ahead of those for the Mac has tended to make the deficiencies of Intel CPUs far less obvious than they would otherwise be. Jobs will declare that OS X is shipping, but almost nobody will be able to get hold of it until about a month later, due to inevitable production delays. You see so many people grousing about Aqua that one might expect OS X to be a flop. I doubt that it will be. The rest of us will come along for the ride.