Test Shows Snow Leopard is Faster Than Win 7

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Yoder54

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[citation][nom]millerm84[/nom] Now on to the issues at hand, if bootcamp only creates separate partitions on the disk then why can't you do a clean windows install without it? If bootcamp's only function is to partition a hard drive while leaving the original data in tact why go through the messy process of installing two OSs on the same disk? Because you have to use Bootcamp to install windows, why I don't know, but to use MS on Apple you have to use bootcamp. That fact alone suggests that bootcamp does more then partition the hard drive. Secondly using two apple programs when comparing an apple OS to a windows OS invalidates that data. It would be like testing IE (which was ported to apple at one point)on both systems to see which one surfed the web faster or using Office to test productivity. To have a fair testing of the two OSs Tom's needs to purchase a copy of both, buy a Mac and build a PC with the exact same specs. Test Windows in it's native hardware, test Apple in it's native hardware, test Apple on the PC (hackintosh is like bootcamp to me don't care how it's done if it's done), and test Windows on the mac. Use software that is cross platform only, start/shutdown/sleep speeds, power consumption, productivity software (i'm guessing open office here), file conversion, and gaming speed. Compare overall scores.[/citation]

If one goes to the original article...not written by TH's...the author himself states that the experiment is not "rocket science" but an example of how one could easily conduct such tests on their own Mac's or as you suggested others do on a comparable PC. I am not sure that the author here was presenting the article as fact, but was doing it more to stir the pot. Nothing an editor likes more than people arguing over the content of an article.

Boot Camp is the only true dual-boot option that I know of for the Mac. You have to reboot the computer and then select what OS you want to boot into. Boot Camp then emulates the BIOS so that Windows will run. The problem is that MS made the decision that Windows Vista and XP will not support the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) BIOS found on Intel-based Macintoshes. Consequently, the OS's won't be able to boot on those machines. I do not understand why a software house such as MS would make a decision like this.

"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."

Boot Camp provides the drivers for Windows and the author of the actual test stated that he believes Boot Camp drivers were mostly responsible for the Windows 7 battery life, as many PC laptops fared much better than the 77 minutes the Microsoft OS fared.

You make a valid point about a proper test, but this was more of a whim by the original author. But, I think one would be hard pressed to find a freebie as good as iTunes for converting mp3's that would run on Windows. The definite advantage is the iTunes running in 64-bit mode versus the Win version which I believe is still 32-bit.
 

mocoloco

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if you read the article, they used different harddisk for windows and mac. That might have an impact on the write time.
 

bnd1989

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[citation][nom]Yoder54[/nom]The definite advantage is the iTunes running in 64-bit mode versus the Win version which I believe is still 32-bit.[/citation]
Nope... Windows got 64 bit. And right now 128 bit is under development.

Hey, I think what millerm84 post is right.
Can TH do that?
I think that's not very complicated to do that.

I really want to know the result. If Mac better, than I will buy Mac and I will recommend Mac to all people I know. If the PC better, I will do the exact thing.

This Flame war must go to the end. And Tomshardware must take responsibility to end this. It's time to make it clear who is better.

If TH can't do this, I want to know the reason...
 

ousi00

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My question is which software is used to convert songs in Windows? If that's iTune for Windows - that sucks!

My understanding for the battery life is limited support for power management, after all macbook doesn't run ACPI BIOS.

Boot up and shutdown, I do agree with that on both clean install (but hey, boot camp added a bunch of stuff and Win 7 boot up just slightly slower).
 

liquidsnake718

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I say the tester from Cnet should have also tested the OS's on a regular PC with similar specs and not an APPLE or Ibook. Even if results will be the same this is only fair and perhaps we would find some differences where Apple wouldnt have the advantages due to optimized in-house drivers favouring the hardware configurations.
 

ousi00

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Hmmm, forgot to say that I own a previous gen Macbook Pro too.

Nice case, nice touch. It was fast before I install certain softwares. In general, freewares on Mac are mostly of lower quality - runs slower, size is bigger. Finding a good textpad alternative is already challenging (I need the speed, yet with syntax highlighting) which is easy to find in Windows (namely Notepad2). Don't even consider to find a MPC alternative - VLC is still way behind that.

Not to mention that the Wireless doesn't always work - it will connect but keep dropping connections. Aside from that...the backlight of my mbp (which is said to be LED backlight hmmm) is having issues and making stripes. Come on! I paid a premium but what kind of shit quality did I get?

Oh, forgot to say that in Windows (at least in my Win 7 RC with Bootcamp 2.0), my harddrive refuses to run in DMA mode! That makes every IO access very slow.

Anyway, I bought MBP during the days of Vista - which sucks BTW - and am thinking to get a new laptop now for work. With Snow Leopard released (much more like an SP to me), my Apple dream is just gone...is that because Steve was in hospital and Apple guys are just getting lazy?
 

adribhel

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MacOS is superior on Machardware? Who would know? MacOS runs Apple software better? Seriously? ... And as this article states, Apple can make better optimizations to the hardware as they make both, MS must make their OS run on everything! I'm no fanboy, but this test is just plain stupid and misleading. Run Windows 7 on an equalient but Windows 7 certified computer, and use software made from neither MS nor Apple.

If MacOS wins then, I'll bow for Apple superiority.
 

M3d

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Yes! I was right, it is a Yam article. I could care less about the pc vs mac debate. I like to build and customize my own systems. I would like to be able to buy a copy of OSX, but until Apple actually sells them I will be sticking with Windows 7 or whatever flavor is out IF it ever happens. Unless you specifically need Apple software I just can't justify the cost.
 

bad_code

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[citation][nom]godwhomismike[/nom]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[/citation]

Yeah! this is not tomshardware its toms guide. Its just that tomshardware links to toms guide. I miss the hardware stuff. Also once you have an MP3 who cares about converting PC file formats into mac formats on a PC? or for an IPod? Seriously.
 
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The boot time was essentially rigged, or at least conducted by a naive idiot. Windows is insanely fragmented even after a clean install, was Win7 defragmented prior to testing? I bet not.

Aside from that, there's no reason to cut Marcus any slack for this, for that fool saying that "he's assigned to the Apple beat..." and "trying to make an honest buck". No, hell no. How about journalistic integrity? Any person of integrity wouldn't be a presstitute, he's free to say no, and he's free to get another job elsewhere, unfortunately, most journalists are just wh0res to their corporate masters, and will say anything to make a buck, and this applies to nearly all of the Tom's writers.
 

Ransom22

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[citation][nom]kyeana[/nom]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.[/citation]

This is why I love Psystar.

Anyway, it's disappointing that we don't know what software was used for the file conversions, though it's likely they used iTunes. A more accurate test would to use third party software that runs on both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard for all their tests, like they did for the graphics tests. The Apple PC could very well still come out on top, and if so then great, but at least we would have a level playing field going into it.

Regardless, go free market competition.
 

christopherknapp

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I just purchased a Toshiba Satellite S6946 for $515. I swapped the memory for faster and more capacity, as well as the hard drive for a 7200RPM setup. The processor is a C2D T6400. After all was said and done I paid $600 for the laptop that will destroy the Macbook in every fashion possible.

A true test would have been to have a native Apple system and a native Windows system running the same hardware. This test was just plain dumb, and should be considered misinformation.
 

tlmck

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[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]Apparently your degree has nothing to do with how much you know about Mac OS and Boot camp.Your own statement does not make any sense. Except the keyboard and the touchpad there is nothing extraordinary on the macbook that cant be find on any other laptop, thus making it a regular PC.Apparently you are not as familiar with PCs if you are to claim otherwise. There are a large number of people that have never worked with Macs but never the less keep writing their statements as absolute truth.I chuckled at some statements above... I mean the drive works faster for Mac OS X "it's pure physics" lolol Now I'll ask you this: have you ever benchmarked two OS's on the same drive, and installed on different partitions? DO you know how much of a difference will make if the OS is installed on the outer part of the Disk Drive, rather than on the part closer to the center. Also do you know how the HD head reads the data of the drive? Do you know that the same mechanics used for BluRay, DVD and CD players do not apply when data is read/written on HD?Now do some research on Google... and then come back ranting about stuff.The biggest performance hit would be if the data on the 2nd partition is fragmented all over the HD and then it actually takes some extra time to read up the data. When the OS is freshly installed the fragmentation on the disk is minimal to no fragmentation.I know that some of the people here have installed an OS by themselves and they've upgraded a hardware component in their PC, but that is far, far away from making you a PC tech guru.Anyhow, I am done here.Cheers[/citation]

Yes to all of the above. My current laptop, as a matter of fact, dual boots Win 7 RC build 7100 x64 and Free BSD x64(on which OSX is based). In either environment, I also run several "virtual" versions of Linux in a program called Virtual Box. Win 7 RC does run faster on the front of the hard disk. I also recommend that users allow Win 7 to set up the 100 meg partition up front as it also enhances performance. My desktop system can boot any of the 7 installed Linux distros via Grub(not to be confused with Boot Camp).

In fact, if you hand me a pile of parts, I can build you a motherboard, hard disk, power supply, or anything else found in a PC case from scratch. I even have access to the "pick and place" machinery needed for board building. I chose not to specialize in IT as I did not want the pay cut. However, I have "unofficially" assisted the IT department with new machine configuration/install, desktop support, and software beta testing. In a past life, I also programmed in BASIC, and created web sites.

I am indeed aware of the differences between CD/DVD drives and hard disks, and the fact that they are unrelated to this conversation.

None of the above changes the fact that the author made a claim in the title of his article and failed to prove it. As others have stated, this may have been intentional to generate traffic. Or it could be, as I have stated, that the author is an amateur in need of more experience. The prosecution rests.
 
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"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)."

Why would you use a MAC to test an OS designed for a PC? How about running the Leopard OS on a dual boot PC and see how it fairs?

 

quantum mask

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A REAL test that would benefit consumers would be if you took the amount of money spent on the Mac, spend the SAME AMOUNT on building a PC and see which one performs better. I have no doubt that you could get better performing PC with the same amount of money that you would spend on a Mac. After all, these days, it's about making you money stretch farther.
 

TFBundy

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Ppl, Bootcamp is just a freaking bootloader, stop posting crap about windows running "within" bootcamp. The drivers that come with the bootcamp partition on the OSX install disc, are another matter. They are couple of generations behind the PC equivalents and are rarely updated.

Re people bitching about Apple tax, find me one windows laptop (10kg toughbooks excluded) that doesn't have air intake vents at the bottom of the case, Apple got rid of that crap 10 years ago - but good engineering costs, ask any merc owner. But go on, just one windows laptop that won't void it's warranty when parked on your lap...
 

phantomtrooper

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so let me get this straight. in a comparison test between windows and osx we are going to use apple software as the benchmark? yea thats a fair test. how do i know apple didn't specifically design their software to run better on osx. i don't trust boot camp either. ive heard bad things about using windows thru it.
 

bnd1989

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[citation][nom]eyemaster[/nom]I really don't like the results of this testing. However, more testing is needed. Is Tom's planing on testing something on this issue?[/citation]
Yeah... looks like we need that.

come on Tom's, we need that...
 
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