Test Shows Snow Leopard is Faster Than Win 7
Can Windows' underpinnings beat out OS X's BSD heritage?
By this time next week, both the PC and Mac camps will have new operating systems set for the foreseeable future. Apple's Snow Leopard has been here since late August, but it won't really meet its match until October 22 when Windows 7 releases.
While most users won't be confused as to which operating system he or she wishes to run on a Mac or PC, it's interesting to see how each operating system performs on identical hardware.
CNet's Dong Ngo took a late-2008 model 15-inch MacBook Pro and used it to compare Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and Windows 7 64-bit RTM (with native drivers from Boot Camp 3.0). The machine was equipped with a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and a 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT video card – things that you could also find in a PC notebook.
Ngo found that Snow Leopard outperformed Windows 7 in nearly all areas except for graphics (likely due to better drivers from Nvidia). Some results are:
- Snow Leopard booted and shut down around six seconds faster than Windows 7.
- Snow Leopard took 149.9 seconds to convert 17 songs from the MP3 format to the AAC format. Windows needed 12 seconds more for the same job.
- Snow Leopard took 444.3 seconds vs. Windows 7's 723 seconds to convert a movie file from the MP4 format into the iPod format while having iTunes converting songs in the background the job (versions of QuickTime were different, however).
- In a battery test, Windows 7 lasted 78 minutes, while Snow Leopard managed to stay on for 111 minutes.
- Windows 7's Cinebench R10 score was 5,777 vs. 5,437 for the OS X.
- Windows 7 in Call of Duty 4 scored 26.3 frames per second while Snow Leopard got only 21.2 fps.
Although this may be as fair a test we have yet with identical hardware, drivers clearly play a noticeable role here. Snow Leopard also has to contend with fewer system configurations than Windows 7 does, so Apple has the advantage in optimizations. Apple is also behind the Boot Camp 3.0 drivers, which can also be a source for conspiracy theories.
In the end, most MacBook Pro owners will have bought their machines to run OS X, not Windows 7, but it's still an interesting test nonetheless. Now if only Apple would allow official installs of OS X to PCs – then we'd be able to test from the other side.
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Let the flame wars begin.
yea... but i could spend an extra 100$ for a better processor with Windows 7, outperform Snow Leopard, and still save tons on money!
If this ever happened (which we all know it wont) i would gladly give OSX a shot. The only reason that i will never buy or use a Mac is because you are paying hundreds more for the exact same hardware. It's the Apple tax hard at work.
10.6 is still practically the same OS X , Windows 7 was an upgrade. =p so people cant handle the few extra seconds? Buy fucking SSD.
So iTunes, which is written by Apple, runs faster on a Mac? Who would've guessed that? /sarcasm
oh come on, its obvious that boot camp drivers will slow down windows, this is a ridiculous comparison
There's GOT to be a way to Filter out Mac stuff on this sight.
MacOS won't play mah games. MacOS won't let me run my own Motherboard and equipment. Screw MacOS already. Jeeebus.
Can it play Crysis...or about 10,000 other games / software w/o having some slowed down windows emulator.
Look, Macs or ok if you are in the Printing / Music / Graphics industry or didn't know any better because Apple donated Thousands of computers to schools to brainwash kids into wanting them... but dumbfounded when the kids played PC's at home and chose PC's overall.
But.. isn't this only benchmarking the conversion programs within each OS? This really has nothing to do with the speed of the OS, just the media programs used on them. Bootup and Shutdown time are the only things you might want to look at here.
The title of this should read Apple iMovie is faster than Windows Movie Maker or whatever the apps are they used. Not the OS.
Just give me Win7 already. I could care less about Snow Leopard...
I would love to see Toms do a similar test, though after Win 7 has been out for a bit, giving drivers time to catch up.
10.6 is still practically the same OS X , Windows 7 was an upgrade. =p so people cant handle the few extra seconds? Buy fucking SSD.
I agree, for less than the price difference of going to a mac you could buy a SSD, better processor, and more ram. Then it would perform BETTER than a mac, be CHEAPER than a mac, be more COMPATIBLE than a mac...etc etc etc
That's funny I actually own a late 2008 model Macbook Pro and the Windows Vista drivers, which is what is on boot camp 3.0, completely suck A-S-S. This isn't a fair comparison, at all.
Here, how about this. Compare a final release of Windows 7 after a couple of updates with a hackintosh dual booting on the same machine? I wonder how different the numbers will look.
Dear Tom's Hardware,
Please start writing more computer hardware articles, which are not related to or contain a speculative Apple spin. How about some articles on Windows 7, Core i7 Mobile CPU comparison (720QM vs 820QM), or Office 2010.
Your readers are growing tired of this site turning into an Apple rumor site. We want news and articles written about hardware/software technology NEWS, and not about some nonsense rumors about Apple vaporware.
Sincerely,
Tom's Hardware Readers
i can wait 10 more seconds and keep an extra battery.
I agree, for less than the price difference of going to a mac you could buy a SSD, better processor, and more ram. Then it would perform BETTER than a mac, be CHEAPER than a mac, be more COMPATIBLE than a mac...etc etc etc
Only if you were talking about a desktop and seeing as about 93% of the market so far this year has been notebooks and netbooks desktops are really irrelevant. The price difference when you compare notebooks is not anywhere near as large as it's made out to be whereas in the desktop area it is laughable.
And, to the point of Windows being more compatible... which can run more software? A Macbook Pro or a T61 from Lenovo? Only one of those machines can run every piece of software currently on the market.
test seems legit. now lets see the price of those same components in a mac and in a random brand PC.
Yeah, Windows 7 on Apple's Bootcamp benchmarks is a good indicator of how it will run on other PCs. My Zotac ION nettop with Windows 7 takes 12 seconds to start up while the Apple Minis take 26. Yeah, which one is a more fair comparison?
whoohoo a mac a couple of % faster in a few benches than win 7.
but what if 5% more performance doesn't cut it for me and i need 50% more performance? oh too bad that apple doesn't sell quad-cores in its consumer lines. so what am i supposed then? buy a mac pro? yo, it comes with fast nehalems. only then, the problem is that snow leopard doesn't support NUMA...
But.. isn't this only benchmarking the conversion programs within each OS? This really has nothing to do with the speed of the OS, just the media programs used on them. Bootup and Shutdown time are the only things you might want to look at here. The title of this should read Apple iMovie is faster than Windows Movie Maker or whatever the apps are they used. Not the OS.
How about Handbrake? That's written by a 3rd party group for both platforms.
And how long would it take the average lifetime PC user to find said program and run them? There is always a learning curve that isn't always worth scaling. A few seconds isn't worth it when you have to go and learn an entirely different OS to use the computer.
If it were just that easy, everyone would use Linux because it's free.
Only if you were talking about a desktop and seeing as about 93% of the market so far this year has been notebooks and netbooks desktops are really irrelevant. The price difference when you compare notebooks is not anywhere near as large as it's made out to be whereas in the desktop area it is laughable. And, to the point of Windows being more compatible... which can run more software? A Macbook Pro or a T61 from Lenovo? Only one of those machines can run every piece of software currently on the market.
Are you saying that a mac can run every piece of software currently on the market????
LOL kthanksbye
Only if you were talking about a desktop and seeing as about 93% of the market so far this year has been notebooks and netbooks desktops are really irrelevant. The price difference when you compare notebooks is not anywhere near as large as it's made out to be whereas in the desktop area it is laughable. And, to the point of Windows being more compatible... which can run more software? A Macbook Pro or a T61 from Lenovo? Only one of those machines can run every piece of software currently on the market.
I have an Asus G51 that performs very well, it has a quad core, 4GB Ram, two hard drives in RAID, Blueray drive, list goes on and on. If you're going to compare computers, at least compare it to something that is actually good.
It should be faster then that on the same hardware what is surprising to me is the difference is so small... I mean its BSD based is it not? Or something about a mach kernel keeps pinging in my head. At any rate considering all the hoops Windows has to jump through to run on all the hardware it does this seems amazing to me. I would like to see OS X sold like Windows is... but alas Apple fears loss of control, the ironic part of it that when you share control with your customers you find that your customers have more interest in your product...
The price difference when you compare notebooks is not anywhere near as large as it's made out to be whereas in the desktop area it is laughable.
And my laptop cost almost a thousand dollars less than a mac equivalent. So yes, for that price difference I could put in a solid state drive or two.
it would be interesting to try benchmarking one of those Pystar Apple clones--and see if it clocks better on snow leopard or win 7.
p.s. The vigor of some of these responses makes me feel like some of you have an inferiority complex...
ive used both systems my entire life, and they are both good for different kinds of users. I have a PC so that I can customize/gaming, but I encourage many without those needs to stick with a more stable mac system... so that I dont have to help them as often.
WAIT A SECOND!!!!!! Who the hell converts MP3s into the AAC format? Wouldn't it be the other way around?
Toms seems to love macs.
lol why bother comparing identical hardware, when the Apple system will have the infamous apple tax for running OSX Leopard. Compare an Apple System to a Windows on dollar for dollar, and the Windows will stomp all over it. And really, an iTunes benchmark? Am I supposed to be impressed that it ran better on it's native operating system?
I'm not clear on what machine was actually used for this nonsense "benchmark"? If you're testing pure OS muscle, then why use laptops? Better yet, why 4GB of RAM, when clearly a 64-bit OS shouldn't be used with anything less than 8GB. When I went from 4GB to 8GB on my W7 x64 build, I noticed a performance increase, and that increase may be a very important factor in how the 2 operating systems scale - and sorry to say buy that's a matter not to be ignored. Pft....4GB!
Maybe Im missing something in the article, but are they booting into Windows 7 directly or are they booting into OSX and running Windows 7 through boot camp?
tests show nobody cares. still a jitterbug laptop! red button, green button......