diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 03dda9ee3e7..597ea7057f9 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -880,12 +880,7 @@ elif _power8 == 'false'
   warning('power8 option "false" deprecated, please use "disabled" instead.')
 endif
 if _power8 != 'disabled'
-  # on old versions of meson the cpu family would return as ppc64le on little
-  # endian power8, this was changed in 0.48 such that the family would always
-  # be ppc64 regardless of endianness, and then the machine.endian() value
-  # should be checked. Since we support versions < 0.48 we need to use
-  # startswith.
-  if host_machine.cpu_family().startswith('ppc64') and host_machine.endian() == 'little'
+  if host_machine.cpu_family() == 'ppc64' and host_machine.endian() == 'little'
     if cc.get_id() == 'gcc' and cc.version().version_compare('< 4.8')
       error('Altivec is not supported with gcc version < 4.8.')
     endif
@@ -1338,7 +1333,7 @@ elif host_machine.cpu_family() == 'sparc64'
     with_asm_arch = 'sparc'
     pre_args += ['-DUSE_SPARC_ASM']
   endif
-elif host_machine.cpu_family().startswith('ppc64') and host_machine.endian() == 'little'
+elif host_machine.cpu_family() == 'ppc64' and host_machine.endian() == 'little'
   if system_has_kms_drm
     with_asm_arch = 'ppc64le'
     pre_args += ['-DUSE_PPC64LE_ASM']