BTW, I am asking that we take a look at how the hardware operates under a particular software environment. We know that drivers can make all the difference for video cards, if not, why do we update drivers for them so often? Software at this point can aid in making all the difference for hardware, as we all know. Hardware is working together so quickly and efficiently that there is not much more you can do except raise clock speeds of RAM, CPU, GPU and HDD.
Isn't entirely possible even plausible that things may work better under another operating system? I believe so. I have seen some testing side by side of the systems running OSX and XP, but they are being run by fan-boy sites, both being either OSX fans of XP fans. Since Tom's is a HARDWARE site, I am sure that they would like to see hardware performance being either helped or hindered under particular platforms. This would be the case with most people. (Except fanboys of course.) Tom's seems to be as impartial as they come.
I wouldn't call this site impartial: Tom's caters most to xp users, with the occasional thing about Linux. Considering that hardware options for those platforms is far greater then that for macs, it is very understandable for a hardware site.
Toms also caters to gamers above other uses. This is due to the fact that game are one of the few things that truly benefit from a more powerful computer.
Up until Macs went to intel, it was a boring platform.
You keep trying to say how easy it is to try and compare the two OS, but you seem to lack a lot of computer knowledge. On graphics: win uses DX over openGL, macs use only openGL. So now game performance won't be a good measure. For most hardware you won't be able to find drivers for on macs or they will be poorly supported. Other programs can run into the similar problems. A program originally written for one os will likely differ in code to better take advantage of the original os and hardware.
For the most part you end up giving the advantage to macs. A game like quake might run will on both but better openGL support on macs might give it the edge. Games based on DX can't be used because the mac ports suck. With other soft ware you might find itunes runs better on a mac but divX encoding runs better on win. So who wins?
A good example is that sight that someone posted comparing the osx to xp. If you read some of the things on how they compared the two os, most are superficial/pointless (ie they take off points for windows because the menu bar is attached to the window it applies to) and the site makers knowledge of window is lacking. Even so, in then end they only rate osx slightly better then xp.
In a specific application you might find differences. But, when it comes down to it the overall differences on both hardware and software performance for macs and pcs is insignificant and won't be noticed by the average user. The differences people will notice are the general look and feel of the two os and that pcs have a cheaper and wider range of soft/hardware.