Comments on: Performance Test – Windows 7 vs Snow Leopard – And The Winner Is?

By: bob jones

bob jones — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:20:32 +0000

Get Windows 7 its awesome.
No problems.
Quick boot up time.
No beachball bull-shit

By: Ron Schenone

Ron Schenone — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:34:20 +0000

Hello Mr. Hybrid,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
It is appreciated.
Regards, Ron

By: Mr Hybrid

Mr Hybrid — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:02:44 +0000

Actually, I’ve just installed Mac OS X 10.6.3 on PC hardware, without any special mods (a practically vanilla install).

I also have Windows 7 on my machine, so I can easily benchmark the actual OS speed on the same hardware, not apple-optimized hardware.

Geekbench scores are close, with windows performing better than OS X. OSX 10.6.3 = 9731, and Windows 7 = 10,073.

Graphics isn’t much different, I’m using a card that’s got good drivers for both OS makes, and in Cinebench, there’s nothing really in it. Windows is marginally better than Snow, but not much.

In actual use, Windows 7 is also snappier than Snow Leopard. I do a lot of audio work, and those programs and related plugins perform better in Windows 7. This, I believe, is to do with the difference in memory management. I have 12gb RAM, and in OS X, it all ends up either ‘free’ or ‘inactive’, which does you no favours if you are using RAM intensive apps. I can run a project that uses 82% CPU in Windows, which will max out at 95% on Snow Leopard… so quite a bit different.

So there you go, bottom line: Windows squeezes more out of the same hardware than OS X.

That being said, I much prefer the user interface of OS X.

Good hunting!
D

By: glasseffects

glasseffects — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:00:03 +0000

Vista is over (in fact it was when it rolled out). Why? I don’t understand someone would go as far a wasting precious moments of life with Vista.

Windows 7 which some may regard as an upgrade to Vista (like Snow to Leopard), it simply is a matter of ease and how a user is accustomed to a system. System speed is not the only benchmark (and please.. multimedia/games. This is not what we call benchmark. What about some serious benchmark software?) is not the deciding factor. A mac would not support the code written for Tiger, but windows 7 still has support for 16 bit dos applications. No I’m not hailing a Mac-Win war, but such crude benchmarking standards simply do not yield anything substantial. Why at all Cnet allowed that article to be published on their site, since it sounds more of a preference game by the author than a ‘benchmark’ if that’s what you wish to call it.

By: Ron Schenone

Ron Schenone — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:56:05 +0000

Thanks GP for sharing your experience with us. It is appreciated.
Regards, Ron

By: GoingPostal

GoingPostal — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:51:02 +0000

I have snow leopard and just installed windows 7. So far, both perform about the same. Snow Leopard started up much faster. I’m sure once service pack 1 comes out for windows 7 it’s performance will suffer. I didn’t install virus software on my PC so it think the test was fair. Most people will have virus software and that may hog up system resources. I still love the user experience with my mac. I don’t notice much change in user experience between vista and windows 7.

By: Justin G.

Justin G. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:59:17 +0000

Most users will know about increased performance in a few general areas. The lack of a driver/registry boot method already makes a considerable difference here and most power users accept this with a grain of salt because the differences would be marginal and easily overshadowed by the basic capabilities of the platform. For me the freedom of improvement is more than enough because a PC user can always compensate performance with better custom parts that will in most cases work splendidly.

In short, why be grounded. If I can build or buy the equivalent system with Windows and save a few hundred dollars in the process, whats to stop me from buying upgraded hardware with the money saved, completely overshadowing the equivalent Mac at the same price to the point that Windows’ slightly less officiant API’s no longer exist as an issue.

By: Patrick OConnell

Patrick OConnell — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:51:46 +0000

A serious bug is keeping many Mac people from changing from Leopard to Snow Leopard, including my wife.

I’m a Vista person, but probably won’t change to Windows 7 until people have worked with it for awhile to fix the worst of the bugs (which always appear in new versions).

Speed isn’t near as important as software correctness. We’ll wait.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:38:15 +0000

I think you should conduct some speed tests without Apple programs. It’s easy to say it doesn’t make a difference but why would you design a test that leaves it open for interpretation? Try the same tests with some Adobe products and perhaps something involving Windows 7 not run on a Macbook but with similar specs.

By: Levi

Levi — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:22:38 +0000

Yeah while this is all true it’s also somewhat misleading. “Beat” sounds like it did it better. But most of the tests demonstrated that there was only a few seconds difference in most areas. And considering that both systems have different concerns and ways of addressing the systems it’s not an accurate test of anything.

At most this test showed that Mac SL and Windows 7 were pretty on par as far as necessary speed and requirements.