Originally posted by Edge100
Of course, the similarly spec'ed PC would blow the doors of the PowerMac, but your point is well taken.
PCs are faster (what that means in the real world depends on the user!!!). But they dont run OS X so they dont get my money.
The ultimate smackdown: Mac versus PC
The ultimate smackdown: Mac versus PC
By Gene Steinberg
The other day someone sent me a message stating that he really liked Macs, but he felt they were too slow. How did he conclude that? Simple. The fastest Mac had a one-gigahertz processor (all right, two of them), and the fastest "Intel Inside" Windows box had already achieved 2.4 GHz.
Doesn't that prove a Windows PC is faster?
That's the impression Apple has struggled to overcome with its "bake-offs," featuring the fastest Mac of the week against a top-of-the-line Pentium 4. The latest comparison I consulted at Apple's Web site claimed the most powerful Power Macintosh G4 was 68% faster than a 2.2-GHz Pentium 4 in a series of test runs with Adobe Photoshop "using nine commonly used actions and filters that stress overall system performance."
Testing the claim
Rather than simply select a PC hotrod for the ultimate smackdown, I looked for a Windows box with a touch of class, since Apple is so heavily involved in style. I came up with a Sony Vaio RX690G Digital Studio, which incorporated the 2.2-GHz processor. Now I should point out that things move awfully fast in the PC universe, and this model has since been replaced with a RX790G, where processor speed is boosted to 2.4 GHz, but I'll await the next Power Macintosh upgrade to do that comparison.
Putting the pedal to the metal
Apple's test protocol suggests the test computers run with as few system encumbrances as possible, and that includes disconnecting network cables. But because graphic artists don't usually work in that fashion, I decided to keep the configurations normal, even if it hobbled potential performance somewhat. The Mac was upgraded to the latest version of Mac OS X, 10.1.5. The Sony had Windows XP. I installed the standard retail versions of Adobe Photoshop 7 on both computers. Apple's original comparison employed an older version of Photoshop, which no doubt accounts for some of the differences between my test results and theirs.
Running the tests proved exceedingly simple because Photoshop displays the actual timing of a rendering process rounded off to tenths of a second. Per Apple's directions, I conducted each test four times to deliver the most accurate results.
Like all Adobe applications, Photoshop is a bit slow to launch. It took 15 seconds on both computers to get ready for the main event.
In the nine test runs, the Mac came out on top five times, besting the Sony by up to 8.1 seconds. Where the PC emerged victorious, the margin was usually less than half a second.
In all, the Mac took a total of 35.5 seconds to complete the nine rendering steps. The PC took 50.1 seconds, making it 41% slower according to my calculator's reckoning.
All right, as that old song says, I'm a believer.
