Apple, Microsoft on Windows on Mac; Benchmarks

[MacsRgr8]

Yeah, I'm interested in Macs. Didn't know that "thickheaded" and "fanboy" were required attributes for have a pleasant stay and get along. God forbid that I like both Macs and PCs!

You wouldn't think that making a statement like "thick-headed Mac-zealots" would provoke some kind of reaction on a Mac-enthusiasts board?

Sure you can like both. Heck, I enjoy gaming on Windows. I like the price / speed ratio of cheap PC's.

But offending fellow Mac-lovers as "thickheaded" and "fanboy" on Macrumors-forums is just going a bit too far IMHO.

 

[Mikael]

You wouldn't think that making a statement like "thick-headed Mac-zealots" would provoke some kind of reaction on a Mac-enthusiasts board?

Sure you can like both. Heck, I enjoy gaming on Windows. I like the price / speed ratio of cheap PC's.

But offending fellow Mac-lovers as "thickheaded" and "fanboy" on Macrumors-forums is just going a bit too far IMHO.

Okay, I might have gone too far in writing that. I just get a little frustrated when people nit-pick to start an argument, even though they know perfectly well what's being said. It seems everything turned out fine in the end anyway.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Okay, I might have gone too far in writing that. I just get a little frustrated when people nit-pick to start an argument, even though they know perfectly well what's being said. It seems everything turned out fine in the end anyway.

I understand your frustrations. Just take a look over at the gaming-forums!

And you're right. Everything turned out fine anyway.

 

[manu chao]

Put 2GB in there like every sane MBP owner would.

My words. I rarely have less than 1.5 GB of RAM in use. 2 GB of RAM is the absolute minimum if you do not like wait for stuff being swapped in again.
I hope, 2 GB laptop RAM chips will become available soon. I have talked to several Apple technicians as to whether MBP can handle 4 GB of RAM, all of them said, they think it should but nobody knew for sure.

 

[Maxx Power]

Windows is indeed a bit more snappy on a fresh install. But once you install all the programs you need, it is on par with OSX. AntiVirus is mandatory on a windows mashine and it eats quite some power and makes I/O way slower if you enable live virus testing.

Where OSX shines is multitasking. Run Photoshop, Word and iTunes on a PC and it is just painful on Windows. On OSX you can run a bunch of applications without noticable slowdowns. It's limited on 512MB RAM but when you upgrade to 1GB or more OSX beats XP to death.

PS: You might want to do these benchmarks again with reasonable RAM. Put 2GB in there like every sane MBP owner would.

If you use default settings in each operating system, maybe, but windows xp is highly adjustable. You can first of all, in performance settings set windows to allocate more processor time and ram to system processes, to keep it more snappy if you multitask. Secondly, you can assign individual processes priorities on the run to make sure if you actually multitask with programs that require constant CPU time, that your program you are in responds well. I'm not aware that you can do any of that in OS X, or it can be done conveniently.

 

[dpaanlka]

We've gotten along for the entire history of Windows without using Windows on our Macs. Why is this now the biggest topic that we can think of? None of you are even talking about Mac OS anymore, its all "Windows! Windows! Windows!"

This is sad.

 

[Demoman]

Sorry. Side effect of being accused of lying. Should have been more careful with the sarcasm.


Again, I don't think I said that using Windows without protection is perfectly safe. I'm not a complete newbie. I was just telling you about what's worked well for me. Having used my computers intensely for a decade without problems, I actually feel quite secure. Sure, one of the scenarios above might get me infected some day, but the past ten years have proven that to be somewhat unlikely. I'm not saying that my computer really IS secure (because it's not) nor am I saying that this is by any stretch an optimal "solution". Now that Windows can be run on the Mac, the optimal solution would probably be to switch completely. Then I could run programs like ModelSim and the occassional game on Windows and use OS X for the rest.


Yeah, I'm interested in Macs. Didn't know that "thickheaded" and "fanboy" were required attributes for have a pleasant stay and get along. God forbid that I like both Macs and PCs!

There are certainly precautions that can be taken to mitigate the chances for a virus attack. Seems like you have done a pretty good job. I am an IT pro and also take similar steps. I have been hit twice, both by mail. The first time was a complete meltdown - lost it all. The second time I quickly recognized it and just yanked the power cord. Very minimal damage. I get spyware from time to time. I run the utilities and remove it. But, there is nothing like using an Apple and not even having to worry about it.

You might want to read this article in EWeek (link below). Also read the linked articles. You will find the Mac looking even better.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945782,00.asp

 

[roach]

I run them, every day. At least 30.
13 professional graphics applications, plus dozens of utilities and productivity applications of all sorts. My PowerMac has 12 GB of RAM, something that Windows can't even cope with.

So, I hope you finally begin to understand that comparing Windows and Mac OS X is same as comparing your car with USS Enterprise E.

Your car may take you to the pizza shop in 5 minutes, but USS Enterprise can take you to the next star system.

At work I have an XP 2.5 1gb ram and I run about 15 programs and utilities at times. I sometimes have 3 Maya (3D) opened along with photoshop.

 

[fatfish]

My view

This discussion seems to have become about much more than the benchmarks which were posted at the beginning, I have a number of thoughts about some of the issues raised, but first the benchmarks.

What a waste of time, first off - what is the point if the configs of the computers aren't the same, RAM makes a lot of difference. The comparisons on the Intel mac for XP and X are also pretty meaningless. Running photoshop through an emulator is ridiculous and even the non emulated comparisons are not much better, I would imagine any app that was built for a PC and ported to a mac will run faster under XP on an Intel just as mac apps ported to the PC will run faster on X (itunes, QT etc.) Such comparisons will never mean anything.

Many have pointed out that XP is old and vista would likely make a better comparison, this is true it is not realistic to compare performance under XP to Tiger with all its bells and whistles.

In comparing the two OS' one has to wonder how the trial has been set up. It is quite possible that the trial has taken place on a mac which has been running in a real environment for some time, with additional apps being added, a build up of caches, extra start up items and so on against a brand new installation of XP.

Even if (and they never will be) the benchmarks are truly relative, they don't have any relevance, anyone wanting real performance on a regular basis from a demanding app are unlikely (in general) to do so on a laptop or a mac mini.

I keep reading about macs being expensive and this isn't really true, I've seen all the arguments and I do believe there is very little difference, infact I'd go so far as to say the cost of comparable set ups is equal, but with the mac you get style for free.

The argument for and against OS' seems to have been won, I don't believe anyone can seriously prefer XP to X. I admit I don't have regular access to XP but when I do I find it confusing. There are some that might say I'm thick and maybe I am, but the point is made in that X is far more user friendly.

I don't understand those that don't see why MS shouldn't be worried by boot-camp. I also don't see this as a big threat to Dell as others do.

Dell is usually associated with cheapo, not a market Apple is in, I see this as more of a threat to the likes of Sony etc.

MS should worry: Those that believe this will lead to mac users being converted to windows are dreaming, there might be a few, but not enough to likely fill a passenger train. Whilst it does open mac users up to purchasing windows I don't see this as producing many sales, I suspect most mac users who use boot-camp will already have a copy of XP, either from their second machine or from using VPC, PC users who buy a mac, will of course in most cases already have a copy of XP. But what I think will happen is that PC users who buy a mac will load their copy of XP and try and like X, when vista does come out they simply won't buy it because they will already be using X more of the time and won't see the purchase they would have made if they still had a PC as not so important anymore.

There seems to be a great debate about stability, and I take the point that there are those that never have any issues with windows. But with a good maintenance crew a company can keep a fleet of Rovers on the road just as well as a fleet of Toyotas (Rover is a demised British car with a tendency to break down a lot) In my experience casual PC users have many many more issues than casual mac users.

There are lots of opinions about why Apple released boot-camp. I feel that Apple had to as much as wanted to. I don't see anything but increased hardware sales from this move, there will be very few who will stop buying mac hardware because of this. But being realistic there are a lot of mac users who have relied on VPC and it looks as though there won't be an Intel version soon, Apple couldn't risk alienating these users.

As for boot vs. emulation, each has it's own merits and I can see some wanting both. I wouldn't want to keep booting to test something on both platforms, but I also wouldn't like to run MS flightsim in emulation mode.

 

[Music_Producer]

God! Stop competing.. these are 2 different systems

I really can't believe how much time people waste out here in comparing program performances on Windows vs Mac OS X.,its rather amusing like,

"Photoshop on windows opens faster than on the mac".. ooooh!

Or "Why do apps bounce 2-3 times before opening? Does a laptop with mac os x behave like that?" Stupid...just plain stupid..

There is a reason why serious professionals prefer the macintosh platform.. and thats stability. In our studios for music production.. we do have PCs, but we rarely use them. (Only for Gigasampler.. which unfortunately runs only on windows) And that is the ONLY reason we have PCs.

Sure, we've tried ProTools, Nuendo, etc, on Windows.. worked great.. but there has to be a damn crash at some point of time,, we do backup all the time but do you know how frustrating it is to format the hard drive? And install everything all over again?

In a time sensitive environment like studios, we can't afford to risk computing failures.. and that is exactly what happens with Windows. No, we don't connect them to the internet, we don't install third party hacks or any jacked up pirated software of any kind. We optimise them, run system management tools.. and the bloody things eventually go down.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a great music project going on.. with session musicians, singers, everything just perfect.. and boom! System freeze.. boot up.. and all your data's messed up or lost. You lose that creative vibe, and instead you have to deal with tech stuff.

With macs and OS x, you don't have to go through all that hell. Our macs are operating 24/7 .. and flawlessly. Ok, so pro tools takes about 5 seconds more to open on OS X than on Windows XP.. but bloody hell, do we care about that?!

I don't know about all of you, but I'd rather have a system that might be a little slower (to launch apps) but is stable.. than have a faster windows system which crashes.

So if you're not a professional who has to work under severe time constraints.. then you wont understand why the mac is so important to us.

You'll still see major studios using old G4s with SCSI drives.. which are almost 4-5 years old.. why? Because they work and get the job done!

 

[Tupring]

And how is it that the Intel Mac was half as fast as the PPC Mac? I don't understand this at all.

Well duh! What the hell do you expect? The new Intel Mac's have Intel processors and are no longer Power PC's and are therefore slow garbage. Macs won't be faster anymore when they have the same processor as the competition. Apple are smoking something there in Cali. Such an ignorant move by them to cader to PeeCee users, completely abandoning their users-of-many-years. Mac OS is going to die, along with Apple. I'm sorry to say it and don't want to beleive it, but I see it coming...

 

[Tupring]

We've gotten along for the entire history of Windows without using Windows on our Macs. Why is this now the biggest topic that we can think of? None of you are even talking about Mac OS anymore, its all "Windows! Windows! Windows!"

This is sad.

Yes, very! The end is near...

 

[roach]

I really can't believe how much time people waste out here in comparing program performances on Windows vs Mac OS X.,its rather amusing like,

"Photoshop on windows opens faster than on the mac".. ooooh!

Or "Why do apps bounce 2-3 times before opening? Does a laptop with mac os x behave like that?" Stupid...just plain stupid..

There is a reason why serious professionals prefer the macintosh platform.. and thats stability. In our studios for music production.. we do have PCs, but we rarely use them. (Only for Gigasampler.. which unfortunately runs only on windows) And that is the ONLY reason we have PCs.

Sure, we've tried ProTools, Nuendo, etc, on Windows.. worked great.. but there has to be a damn crash at some point of time,, we do backup all the time but do you know how frustrating it is to format the hard drive? And install everything all over again?

In a time sensitive environment like studios, we can't afford to risk computing failures.. and that is exactly what happens with Windows. No, we don't connect them to the internet, we don't install third party hacks or any jacked up pirated software of any kind. We optimise them, run system management tools.. and the bloody things eventually go down.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a great music project going on.. with session musicians, singers, everything just perfect.. and boom! System freeze.. boot up.. and all your data's messed up or lost. You lose that creative vibe, and instead you have to deal with tech stuff.

With macs and OS x, you don't have to go through all that hell. Our macs are operating 24/7 .. and flawlessly. Ok, so pro tools takes about 5 seconds more to open on OS X than on Windows XP.. but bloody hell, do we care about that?!

I don't know about all of you, but I'd rather have a system that might be a little slower (to launch apps) but is stable.. than have a faster windows system which crashes.

So if you're not a professional who has to work under severe time constraints.. then you wont understand why the mac is so important to us.

You'll still see major studios using old G4s with SCSI drives.. which are almost 4-5 years old.. why? Because they work and get the job done!

Damn…you’re in your own world there. It’s well know that Apple is used professionally, but to think PC aren’t used professionally shows you’re in your little cocoon. Most of the banks, hospitals and other profession that requires stable system are run on PC. I work for a company with 1000 employees, working on intense 3D oriented games using nothing put PC and we sure don’t get hampered by computer failure the way your company seems to be affected. Maybe you should fire your tech guy. It’s funny, but most bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers or unstable programs are always blamed on Window OS. My system’s processor is about 3 years old and it’s still going strong. In about a year, the tech guys will put a new motherboard and processor and it should be good for another 3 years…very scaleable!

 

[roxnadz]

You see that number people? That's 820. 820 MB. And this is Vista idling. I know OS X is a RAM hog too, but it manages pretty well with the meager 512 that I have on my old iMac G4 (and Im talking about when it's not idling).

Er...please look up the meaning of Commit charge before posting something like this.

While it's certainly not optimal, 820MB of commit charge on a machine that has a gig of memory is not completely out of line with what you'll see when you first boot a machine. The commit charge is the amount of virtual address space being used by the system at the time, not the amount of physical memory the system is using...you can see that in the Physical Memory section on the same page. Of the gig that's installed, some 640MB is free and clear for programs. Windows blows, but that's really not too bad a usage.

What concerns me is that there are 47 processes on what's described as a just-booted machine. I'd like to see this guy's system tray, I suspect it's jammed full of stuff.

 

[Demoman]

Damn…you’re in your own world there. It’s well know that Apple is used professionally, but to think PC aren’t used professionally shows you’re in your little cocoon. Most of the banks, hospitals and other profession that requires stable system are run on PC. I work for a company with 1000 employees, working on intense 3D oriented games using nothing put PC and we sure don’t get hampered by computer failure the way your company seems to be affected. Maybe you should fire your tech guy. It’s funny, but most bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers or unstable programs are always blamed on Window OS. My system’s processor is about 3 years old and it’s still going strong. In about a year, the tech guys will put a new motherboard and processor and it should be good for another 3 years…very scaleable!

Roach - go tell Bill you earned this week's salary. I am sure you convinced at least 1 person that Windows is a professionally stable system.

 

[AidenShaw]

Roach - go tell Bill you earned this week's salary. I am sure you convinced at least 1 person that Windows is a professionally stable system.

There are lots of people here familiar with Windows who know that all the blue-screen/virus-infested/sky-is-falling stories about Windows are due to either ignorance (such as assuming that Windows XP and Windows 3.1 are the same) or spite.

Blue-screens are very rare - unless you have a driver or hardware problem. I'll show you an Apple that kernel panics at least once a week - and you'll show me that when I replace the bad DIMM it runs fine. Windows == OSX.

Are you on the Sammamish side of Issaquah?

 

[roach]

Roach - go tell Bill you earned this week's salary. I am sure you convinced at least 1 person that Windows is a professionally stable system.

You know if I squint really hard at my PC beige box, I can make it look like I'm using an Apple at work. You happy?

I don't need to convince anybody. People can believe what they want...whether its the truth or not or base on their OS religion or not. Oh...Did Steve tell you that owning an PowerPC Apple gives you crazy advantage over that Intel crap the PC world is using.

 

[Music_Producer]

Damn…you’re in your own world there. It’s well know that Apple is used professionally, but to think PC aren’t used professionally shows you’re in your little cocoon. Most of the banks, hospitals and other profession that requires stable system are run on PC. I work for a company with 1000 employees, working on intense 3D oriented games using nothing put PC and we sure don’t get hampered by computer failure the way your company seems to be affected. Maybe you should fire your tech guy. It’s funny, but most bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers or unstable programs are always blamed on Window OS. My system’s processor is about 3 years old and it’s still going strong. In about a year, the tech guys will put a new motherboard and processor and it should be good for another 3 years…very scaleable!

Um, what did you miss? I did mention that we do use PCs.. but we prefer macs anyday. And, you say that you work on 3D oriented games.. the mac platform isn't exactly known for games! So you don't really have a choice, but to work with pcs.

About banks, hospitals, etc using PCs.. duh, they're cheap to use. There's something called a 'budget' and I don't think huge organisations like banks, or hospitals want to spend extra money on macs (although they do land up spending more money on tech guys anyway)

My 'little cocoon' consists of probably hundreds of studios - audio and film, all in 'Bollywood' across India, .. so while your firm may have a 1000 employees working on 3d oriented games.. uh.. we're looking at hundreds of thousands of professionals working on film and audio..24 hours a day, 365 days a week. And we don't need 'tech guys' because we don't deal with Windows.. so there's a lot of money saved right there. (Besides, all the tech guys in India work for Dell )

Yes, kernel panics do occur on the mac.. but the system can reboot and everything's fine.

All my fellow musicians and film engineers/producers use a mac for work, communications,etc. and a pc for playing solitaire.

 

[roach]

~

 

[roach]

Um, what did you miss? I did mention that we do use PCs.. but we prefer macs anyday. And, you say that you work on 3D oriented games.. the mac platform isn't exactly known for games! So you don't really have a choice, but to work with pcs.

About banks, hospitals, etc using PCs.. duh, they're cheap to use. There's something called a 'budget' and I don't think huge organisations like banks, or hospitals want to spend extra money on macs (although they do land up spending more money on tech guys anyway)

My 'little cocoon' consists of probably hundreds of studios - audio and film, all in 'Bollywood' across India, .. so while your firm may have a 1000 employees working on 3d oriented games.. uh.. we're looking at hundreds of thousands of professionals working on film and audio..24 hours a day, 365 days a week. And we don't need 'tech guys' because we don't deal with Windows.. so there's a lot of money saved right there. (Besides, all the tech guys in India work for Dell )

Yes, kernel panics do occur on the mac.. but the system can reboot and everything's fine.

All my fellow musicians and film engineers/producers use a mac for work, communications,etc. and a pc for playing solitaire.

Already forgot what you wrote earlier eh(below)...you're probably too dizzy from the fast phase bollywood movies pump out their movies. What it is...4 movies per week?

You also contradicted yourself as wanting an Apple because you require it operating 24/7, 365 days a year, but then you said “Yes, kernel panics do occur on the mac…but the system can reboot and everything's fine.” That what’s called a CRASH!

Oh yes, cheaply made PC...um...you mean the same PC hardware, Apple began using in their machine? And you can now add Intel proc. to that list.

Wow...100,000 thousand people using Mac...er…ok, maybe just fellow musicians and film engineer/producers. When I mentioned 1000 people, I also can prove they all use 1000 PC "professionally" for their work in one building. Before I moved to gaming, I also did FX for film/TV using just PC. I did remember working for one company that had a couple 3D Apple station, but nobody wanted to use it because it was too slow.

When I said cocoon, I did not meant your business, I meant your mind...as being narrow minded. As not knowing what’s going on outside your cocoon. I’m not questioning Apple as being used professionally, but they aren’t the only one in the game…just recognize that.

There is a reason why serious professionals prefer the macintosh platform.. and thats stability. In our studios for music production.. we do have PCs, but we rarely use them. (Only for Gigasampler.. which unfortunately runs only on windows) And that is the ONLY reason we have PCs.

Sure, we've tried ProTools, Nuendo, etc, on Windows.. worked great.. but there has to be a damn crash at some point of time,, we do backup all the time but do you know how frustrating it is to format the hard drive? And install everything all over again?

In a time sensitive environment like studios, we can't afford to risk computing failures.. and that is exactly what happens with Windows. No, we don't connect them to the internet, we don't install third party hacks or any jacked up pirated software of any kind. We optimise them, run system management tools.. and the bloody things eventually go down.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a great music project going on.. with session musicians, singers, everything just perfect.. and boom! System freeze.. boot up.. and all your data's messed up or lost. You lose that creative vibe, and instead you have to deal with tech stuff.

With macs and OS x, you don't have to go through all that hell. Our macs are operating 24/7 .. and flawlessly. Ok, so pro tools takes about 5 seconds more to open on OS X than on Windows XP.. but bloody hell, do we care about that?!

I don't know about all of you, but I'd rather have a system that might be a little slower (to launch apps) but is stable.. than have a faster windows system which crashes.

So if you're not a professional who has to work under severe time constraints.. then you wont understand why the mac is so important to us.

 

[pizzach]

We've gotten along for the entire history of Windows without using Windows on our Macs. Why is this now the biggest topic that we can think of? None of you are even talking about Mac OS anymore, its all "Windows! Windows! Windows!"

This is sad.

And just to think, a few days ago it was "iPods iPods iPods!"

 

[Whistleway]

My 'little cocoon' consists of probably hundreds of studios - audio and film, all in 'Bollywood' across India, ..

Just wanted to say to a fellow indian, namaste !!

 

[Maxx Power]

There are lots of people here familiar with Windows who know that all the blue-screen/virus-infested/sky-is-falling stories about Windows are due to either ignorance (such as assuming that Windows XP and Windows 3.1 are the same) or spite.

Blue-screens are very rare - unless you have a driver or hardware problem. I'll show you an Apple that kernel panics at least once a week - and you'll show me that when I replace the bad DIMM it runs fine. Windows == OSX.

Are you on the Sammamish side of Issaquah?

Bingo, exactly. Ask anyone with enough experience on a PC with X86 and Windows XP, they'll tell you the same thing.

Most people seems to be on the Christian side of a witch hunt, don't know enough to say otherwise, just going with the flow.

If you put your windows behind a firewall capable router, and use firefox, like me, you don't need anti-this or that. Unless you absolutely desire to visit pr0n sites in Russia every hour and open up every e-mail attachment from the latest pictures of "insert famous star here" series.

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

Apparently this statement was simply designed to skew public perception.

It's NY Times. What else would you expect?

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

Not only for the missing app.

(Sorry if this was mentioned... I made it about halfway through this thread but I just have to jump in)

A lot of people are talking about being able to run the one or two apps that are not available on the Mac and never will be. Others talk about being able to condense two machines (generally laptops) into one. These are both valid and strong points.

But there's another thing that I haven't seen mentioned about people switching. A lot of people have A LOT of money tied up in their current Windows versions of power apps. Even the ones that have a Mac version. Take Adobe CS2, for instance. If someone wants to get a Mac right now, they still have tons of money tied up in the software. Adobe isn't going to exchange the PC version for the Mac version. Not straight up, anyway. So, they can run the software they purchased a while ago on the new Mac hardware without having to go out and purchase the whole thing all over again. This is not limited to Adobe's stuff, but it's probably the most relevent (Photoshop, anyway).

Now, when it's time for CS3 to come out, I would hope that the upgrade path would be the same for upgrading Win CS2 to Mac CS3 as it is for the upgrade on the same platform. I don't see why not. But, in the mean time (outside of purchasing XP if they do/need to), they won't have to dump a ton of money on a new Mac version to run their current software native (granted Mac CS2 isn't Intel native, but it runs better on a Mac than Win CS2 does before Boot Camp).

There's several titles that can be thrown in there. Macromedia suite (back to Adobe now). MS Office... Etc...

So, yeah, the excitement isn't the fact that we can run XP now. If we wanted to do that we wouldn't have a Mac to begin with... It's that (along with the missing app on OS X) a switcher can run the software that was purchased for XP on Apple's hardware now. At least until the next upgrade.

And outside of the apps that really need full run of the hardware (video card), I think you'll find more people doing virtualization.