Performance showdown: Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard

[reghakr]

Snow Leopard consistently beats Windows 7 in many general performance areas.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)


As someone who uses both platforms for work and personal entertainment, I've been wanting to do a performance comparison between Windows 7 and Mac OS X since I first got my hands on the Windows 7 RTM (the final build of the OS) more than two months ago, but decided to wait until I could compare the two apples to apples. (No pun intended.)

The right time seems to be now, as Snow Leopard has been out for a while and has even been updated to 10.6.1, and

Windows 7 has been at the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) vendors for almost three months and has also had a few updates. Furthermore, Boot Camp 3.0 seemed to make Windows run better than ever on a Mac.

Just to clarify, Boot Camp is not a virtual environment but simply a bundle of native Windows drivers--software that makes the OS work properly with hardware components. These drivers include chipset, video, networking, and so on. As a matter of fact, you can get most of these drivers from the components' manufacturers (or via Windows update).

However, Boot Camp also contains drivers for Apple's proprietary hardware including the iSight Webcam, keyboard backlight, and multitouch mouse pad, and therefore it's best to get this bundle instead of looking for drivers individually.
For the sake of transparency (I know a lot of you feel passionately about one operating system or the other), I will disclose how I conducted my testing so you can duplicate it if you want. There's no rocket science involved here; all you need is a good stopwatch, a MacBook Pro, and a lot of time.

More.............Performance showdown: Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard | Windows 7 Insider - CNET Reviews

 

[Tepid]

This is not to you Reghakr,, but the story you linked....

NNNNNNNNGGGGRRRRR WRONG Answer... your out of the game.

I do not care how many people tout BootCamp blah blah blah..Bite Me...............

Build a Same spec PC and a same spec Mac (which you can do cause it is all intel, you just need to make a flick to the BIOS to enable EFI ,,,, awe, what? That's illegal to do with OSX? Really? Bummer.), then run your benches against both.

Then come talk to me.

 

[reghakr]

The re are some better option in Windows 7 as for performance:

Cinebench R10 showed that Windows 7 was noticeably better than Snow Leopard in 3D image rendering--with a score of 5,777 vs. 5,437 for the OS X (higher is better). In gaming, Windows 7 also offered higher frame rates. In our Call of Duty 4 test, Windows 7 scored 26.3 frames per second while Snow Leopard got only 21.2fps. Joseph tested the game with a few different maps and we picked one that registered the highest scores for both operating systems to report. Consistently, Snow Leopard was always 5fps to 7fps slower than Windows 7.

No offense, but Why do you think I posted this under the Rumors section

 

[Tepid]

I just had to sound off cause I always have a problem with comparison benches,,, they almost never (rather, never) do them right and then put a blurb in about "It's important, however, to note two things" (or some other wording ) , then continue the article as though it doesn't really make any difference. Or they try to justify it in some way that is really unjustifiable and then ignore it for the rest of the article with some conclusion that doesn't take into account the unjustifiable-ness of the "important to note" aspect of the testing.

Anyway, ..... .....

using Mac hardware, which is naturally optimized for Snow Leopard

I would also like to point out that this is actually false. The OS is optimized for the hardware.
The Mac Pro uses the Intel X58 board and chipset with Xeon Processors.
So, naturally you are paying out the ass for it.
Not to mention you are also paying for DDR3 ECC DIMM and probably Fully Buffered.

If I built a Windows PC like this,, I might pay roughly the same price,, and maybe cheaper by comparison shopping and price matching.

I will get the same performance from the PC that I will from the Mac,, and true benches would prove this out.

Just remember....... Mac Pro's run on pure Intel Hardware, there is no difference, other then they switch the EFI on.
That's it.

I could build the same system and install OS X on it, but that would be completely illegal, even if I aquire the OS legally.

However,, I will add,,,, that Video card does need to be a Mac card (Nvidia or ATI), but the firmware can probably be hacked (tricked, fixed) to run on this clone that can be built from pure intel hardware.

It's the only platform, for now, that can run both Windows and OS X.

This may be true for laptops,,, maybe,, I don't know that much about laptop hardware at the moment,,, but,, I am sure this is possibly changing or it is possible as it is using Intel Hardware and they do have both a BIOS and EFI on most new intel desktop motherboards.

 

[reghakr]

.To tell you the truth, I getting a little upset about you bashing me in my posts.

Why not goto Performance showdown: Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard | Windows 7 Insider - CNET Reviews and.voice your opinions.there.

 

[Tepid]

Seriously? How am I bashing you?
I guess I see myself speaking to anyone reading this and not to you directly.

So,, I appologize if it seems that I am directing this directly at you.

 

[reghakr]

Sorry Tepid,

It just seems when I post an article you tend to rip it to shreds.

I was just posting a article from CNet. There are discrepancies in most articles.

Of, course, not all articles are accurate (This is the Internet)

Most of my articles are from much more reliable cervices, such as Unclassified Government documents. These are much more credible.

No foul on you part, I can understand your views on this article.

I know understand you';were attack ws not direcrted towardsmne personnaly and I apologize.

Let's get back to being a hapyy family (forum)

 

[Tepid]

No harm done.

And I am in no way trying to suggest anyone not post articles, or say that you posted crap and stop doing it. On the contrary.
not everyone can get out to those sites and read all the crap out there, nor do we all want to setup accounts to respond on those sites.

So, we (I) may (will) at times throw our (my) two cents out there, it's not personal I assure you.

 

[reghakr]

Thanks,

I'm clear on it now, but almost all of the posts I put up for security issues, do not require you to setup an acount.

 

[Highwayman]

It's fine that Apple win the benchmarks... but they have to wait an average of 2 years for game ports...lol Also I wonder if the benchmarks take GPU assist into account...since I don't think Apple have such options have they?

 

[stueycaster]

As to which operating system is better the point is moot. Snow Leopard can only be run on Apple's overpriced hardware.

 

[Radenight]

I say this showdown is just a little bit bias.. The results are definitely not plausible.. There's no way Snow Lepoard is THAT much better/faster than Windows 7.. Sorry, it might actually be a little bit faster in some areas but I highly doubt these results are accurate..