Macs run Vista better than PCs
Apple spanks competition in unlike-for-like test
POPULAR MECHANICS has published a shootout between similarly-specced Macs and PCs using popular benchmarking tools and user feedback and has come to a (not very) surprising conclusion.
Glen Derene from PM also used a number of 'real world' tests to find out how the machines. "We tested two all-in-one desktops and two laptops - one Mac and one PC per category - and assembled a panel of testers with a range of experience and preference that ran the gamut from expert users to my wife’s stepfather, who, by his own account, had never actually turned on a computer.
"Our testers were asked to set up the computers right out of the box and explore the machines through everyday tasks such as Web surfing, document creation, uploading photos, downloading Adobe Acrobat files and playing music and movies through Media Center and Front Row."
In all fairness, the test was aimed, not at the likes of our readership (before you start getting your slide rules out and shouting at us about the iniquity of the whole thing) but at the average Joe user with little or no interest in pootling about in the inner workings of his operating system, or over-clocking his toaster.
We'll hand you back over to Glen for his conclusion:
"In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple’s computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn’t come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X.
"In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple’s platform-switching Boot Camp software... and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did.
"Simply put, Vista proved to be a more sluggish operating system than Leopard. Our PCs installed some software faster, but in general they were slower in our time trials. Plus, both PCs showed weaker performance on third-party benchmarks than the Macs. Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac.
"That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway’s, purchase a copy of Vista, and still save $100."
Let's not forget that Popular Mechanics also reckons its readers like to build particle accelerators and spaceships in their garages. µ
L'Inq
Popular
Mechanics
Comments
The least they could do is match the specs!
Right I'm going to compare these two Ferrari's on a race track, The first i'm going to put in a 5.5litre engine and the second I am going to put in a 4 litre engine (but add a nice new car stereo to even out the specs) I wonder which is better!Laptop 2.4Ghz vs 2 Ghz, 3GB Ram vs 2GB Ram
Desktop 2.4Ghz vs 2Ghz, 1GB Ram vs 3GB ram (no surpise that it won on the CS3 test).
Much like the vitamins can kill crap (must have been a slow news day)
And yes Vista is Sh*t but it is not the point (and of course the faster machine can run Vista faster)
And I notice they chose to test IE over firefox, it is about the only way Apple can claim a browser crown with Safari.
Same hardware, different results?
I don't understand how being used almost the same hardware in the tests, these differ so much. It has no sense to me. Which is the actual difference in hardware terms between a PC and a MAC beyond the brand in the case? All CPUs are Core 2 Duo, same RAM, etc...The OS has little impact on performance. Otherwise we should be speaking of a very bad OS that performs bad (IMHO Vista has a bit of that).
Why Apple does not like that other people install their OS on cheaper clones as seen lately with Psystar? Maybe because clones perform exactly as "MAC computers" as far as the hardware is basically the same?
Regards,
Kurt.-
Logic proves this to be false
FIrst of all, The article name "Macs run Vista better than PCs" does not make sense.Logic Point #1
Apple does not manufacture the major hardware. Here is who makes Apple Hardware.
Motherboard = Asus
Processor = Intel
Memory = Samsung
Hard Drives = Seagate
Video Card = Nvidia (or AMD/ATI)
Conclussion: Hardware for Windows and Mac OS X, come from the same place.
Logic Point #2
MAC = a computer that runs a Mac Operating System. Apple no longer makes the main hardware so this is the real definition.
PC = Definition of PC in the mainstream tends to be "A computer intended to be preloaded with a Windows Operating System. Acronym means PERSONAL COMPUTER.
Vista = A windows operating system. I will save the comments to be more professional.
Conclussion: We have defined several mainstream terms to be used in point #3
Logic Point #3
The only way a MAC can run VISTA better (since the hardware comes from the same sources for both platforms) than PC is if you INSTALL Parallel Desktop on a MAC OS X system and then Instal Vista and run it through MAC OS X.
This is a failure for one reason. MAC OS X and Vista both have one thing in common outside of being Operating Systems. Both Operating Systems use your video card to accelerate the desktop to increase performance.
This means if I launch Mac OS X, and consume 256MB of System Memory and then Launch Parallel Desktop to consume around 512MB of System RAM to run all of Vista, I've used 786MB (minimum allocation is 512MB for parallel desktop), but for Video Memory on the video card, both desktops are going to be accelerated. This uses GPU clock cycles between both desktops and logically will affect every program you run.
Vista is an Operating System which means an OS creates its working environment wether it is virtual or non-virtual. However the dependency is that Mac OS X is on top of Vista. This means that your real world performance will logically be lower than simply installing Vista without another operating system and a Parallel Desktop Program. This is because you are running 2 Operating Systems...I know this because I've ran actual tests myself...and have always scored lower.
Real World Data would be drastically lower since you are timesliced between them and both use multicore processing.
Now the second scenario is that Popular Mechanics put PCs and MACs side by side and ran tests against each other....
If that is the case ,then MACS cant run vista better because its two seperate machines and if a SYSTEM does not have a MAC OS on it, its not considered to be a MAC. If you wipe out mac os x and cleaninstall VIsta, then it becomes by its very nature a PC....
So the only way to make the statement that macs run vista better than PCs is to actually run it on a MAC with a parallels desktop and then Vista on it...The result would LOGICALLY be lower performance and more resources consumed as well
Now MAC OS X is programmed to recognize code from hardware that allows the OS to run. This is how APPLE keeps people from installing MAC OS X on non apple certified hardware. They rig the hardware so they monopolize your wallet in hardware and software and you have nowhere to go...
In fact there is another article that speaks of EMULATION software being used by a company selling systems with mac os x installed. If emulation is needed, its to simulate hardware using software....and that is all the proof one needs.
Conclussion: Someone paid off Popular Mechanics because they are not CENTRAL to computer technologies. The result were tests in the favor of the highest bidder.
If I applied the exact same TEST here as I HAVE.....(note as I write this, I have 3 computers with MAC OS X installed, 6 computers with Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003 (32 and 64 bit versions for testing), 3 Boxes, one running Debian Linux, another running solaris and one running Ubuntuu......along with several laptops)
I can tell you from my own personal experience...that Popular Mechanics as much as I love them..are full of it.
I have a Mac...
...and it runs Fedora.I gave MacOS a decent shake, for about three months. Then I gave up in despair.
Every little thing I wanted to do couldn't be done. Some smart bod had worked out how, but they wanted $20 for their efforts. All those $20s add up to real money quickly.
The attraction of Fedora -- and this is true of Ubuntu too -- is that all the utilities to do the little things are free.
Overclockingg!!
S*** who wouldn't want to overclock their toaster ?? :S I know i did mine is running at 333Mhz or is that 333C hmmNonsense comparison
laptop: 2.4G 45nm penryn Vs. 2.2G 65nm Merom and PC still wins 2 of 8 test.They did test a 2.2G Merom MacBook, why didn't they use this one as comparison? Because it loses 4 of 8 what they so called tests?
MACS = SCAM
There is a reason why 98% of all households run windows OS. Mostly all software is made for and optimized for the windows OS and if that changed and companies started producing for linux over windows or MAC/OS then linux would be the forerunner and everyone knows linux runs faster than all of them.for years you had to pay out the wazoo for a mac vs a pc and once apple switched from running RISC processors to intel processors they price dropped because they now could whitebox the MAC/OS. Anyone knows that if you do not match specs your test is invalidated.
If i wanted to do just web surfing and writing a document I could do that with a pda but people by PC's for alot more than that and businesses run on windows for a reason. Not many if any non publishing businesses run on MAC/OS. More non publishing businesses run on linux than MAC/OS and I have a Fedora system sitting at my house and a XP and a Vista machine and I use the XP and my Girlfriend uses Vista and the linux machine is just our server.
re: Logic proves...
@SetsunayakiSpeaking of flawed premises...
"The only way a MAC can run VISTA better (since the hardware comes from the same sources for both platforms) than PC is if you INSTALL Parallel Desktop on a MAC OS X system and then Instal Vista and run it through MAC OS X. "
Wrong, Know-It-All San.
Macs (or MACS as you insist on putting it) are Intel-powered hardware that can run Vista natively (without Parallels), the same as any other Intel machine. It's called Boot Camp, and is an integrated part of Leopard. Boot Camp allows the user to install and boot directly into Vista with no speed hit due to the Parallels overhead.
To paraphrase a noted technology pundit and self-proclaimed PC genius, "as much as I love you...you are full of it."
*
* = This article (from Popular Mechanics) is bought to you by our sponsors, Apple computers.Huh?
Setsunayaki, I tried to read your comment, but it makes no sense.You are aware that you can actually boot a Mac into Vista or XP via Apple's Boot Camp? And that it works really well?
I don't think the article was about emulation at all..
Eric
Avoiding SP1?
All I can think is that ethier SP1 crew is trying to reduce its base or Nobody commerically wrote any Vista Software/product secondary support.Hummmm.Today got email from Microsoft announcing Vista SP1 is finally here. Follow links & well, its really NOT Here at all. Next Month is hope that Microsoft update service will customize SP1 for each computer. That Bad?
Maybe? there are only Vista Ultimate computers on Paper, so doing support work is too much?
There is new Tom(old one isn't getting paid to be dunk) in house & states leopard does about 1/3 more simultaneous operations than Vista, Huummmm.
If Everyone Would Sell Their computers & Buy Sled Dogs, It'd Be ESKIMO World. Therefore, Much Faster, Outdoors, too!
Stewie Drashek
Dual Core Toaster
I have a dual core toaster and it makes toast quite well while managing the thermals very effectively. I am curious as to which would be a better solution for increasing my toast output. Do I (1) over clock my current dual core to get toast as a faster rate or (2) spring for a more expensive and larger quad core toaster that creates more toast at once, but at a slower rate?didn't you know...
hate to get all pedantic (actually thats a lie i love it really) but given your profession i feel it's important to remind you that, err, well... a Mac IS a PC.....Sooo.....
The PCs were lower specced for more money, and the testers preferred the faster, cheaper machines? Where have I heard that before? Oh wait! It usually comes from the Mouths Of Babes; i.e. Mac Haters! Hooray!Logic? What logic?
You people boast about being so knowledgeable about computers but you can't see the trees for the forest when it's right in front of you. You seem to be full of prejudice when thinking about IT matters, all bunkered in your preferences and issues.So the fact that Apple subcontracts (ever heard of that?) ASUS to build its motherboards means that they are equal to ASUS own motherboards?
Yes, it is true that Apple today subcontracts just about everything.
But if you can't grasp the notion that Apple is a information technology design company then you don't know shaista about computers. Go back to your basement, please.
The Mac OS X is built upon a Unix base, it is a Unix operating system (!) with a very nice and user friendly user interface. So you might compare it with Linux which is also a Unix based OS but then where's the integrated user friendly GUI?
The problem about Linux and WinVista when compared to the Mac system is that they are both a mess.
And it is a fact you guys (should I say geeks?) like to mess around with your mess of computers in your basement and being slaves of Microsoft in order to put all that mess to somehow work instead of enjoying life like Mac users do HAVING FUN while they WORK instead of bending over and being slaves on your knees with a screw driver where the sun doesn't shine (your basement).
Come outside to the sunshine, take a deep breath of fresh air, and start enjoying life instead of slavering for your PC.
Yes, Macs are PCs but they're called Mac because they've got an identity, it's all designed and integrated - operating system, hardware, peripherals and some apps - by Apple Inc. On the other hand, PCs don't have a name but are generically called PCs because they are an amalgamation of usually conflicting parts.
While PCs are based on the lowest common multiple - (cheap) price - the Macs are engineered and designed to the highest common denominator - user friendliness and quality.
Apple has an entire team of engineers working with Intel. BTW, as far as I know Intel is the company that produces Apple's motherboards. They are however Apple designed. In that sense, Apple's motherboards, no matter where they are built, can be faster than many others and are optimized for the parts that Apple chose to include in it's machines (graphics cards, etc.).
This design, engineering and integration is what makes Apple products so special and valuable. There's almost no added value in manufacturing, that is why it is subcontracted.
And now I'm going to enjoy life and have some real life fun (like be with my girl!!!)
Yes, that's right, Mac users have girlfriends, geeky windoze slaves have not! Ahahahah
Mac and PC?
Macs ARE PCs, it just the OS thats different now.for the misinformed
First, YES you can install Windows directly on an Intel Mac without any other software.it's Mac not MAC which is Media Access Control
and it's nice to finally see a bunch of bitter Windows engineers respond.
oh and one more thing, although Apple has it's Logic board manufactures by Asus, it's per Apple's specs who by the way they (Apple) write OSX to best suite the specs of hardware it uses and an OS with good optimized codes can make a difference!
That's why Linux is more reliable on a PC than Windows. So either we are dealing with kids in mamas basement here or just slide rule baby boomers living in denial.
Mr Logic seems to have a poor grasp of reality
Logic point #1No one makes a complete computer on their own any more (if they ever did). What distinguishes one from another is the mix of parts used, their quality how well the design hooks everything together.
Logic Point #2
Mac = brand name of computers designed by Apple.
PC = generic name of computers built using intel compatible x86 processors and loaded with a Microsoft operating system.
Logic Point #3
As current generation Mac machines are built about Intel CPUs, but using EFI rather than the older PC BIOS, a simple boot loader allows them to boot Windows and run at full native speed. Apple provide this out of the box with Leopard. What prevents 3rd party machines from booting OS X is the lack of EFI.
Slanted journalism
Ok lots of long posts there to say only one thing:1. MACs *ARE* PCs.
2. What was really tested in the popmech article was OS vs OS with some very poor controls
I could slap a tweaked linux distro into a pretty box full of x86 gear, brand it, sell it and it's just as unique as a mac, but it's still a PC
Re: Logic proves this to be false
Setsunayaki, your points are wrong, sorry to say. 1. you DONT have to boot Vista from Mac OS X, theres a program called Boot Camp with partitions your hard drive allowing you to boot vista natively. Besides that all your other points are based off of that, making them wrong also. maybe you have to use parallels, but you dont have to. Which would allow the Mac to run vista faster than a PC.Re: Logic proves this to be false
Setsunayaki, your points are wrong, sorry to say. 1. you DONT have to boot Vista from Mac OS X, theres a program called Boot Camp with partitions your hard drive allowing you to boot vista natively. Besides that all your other points are based off of that, making them wrong also. maybe you have to use parallels, but you dont have to. Which would allow the Mac to run vista faster than a PC.@ Setsunayaki
So a Mac, is not a personal computer? When does a computer, running Mac OS or Windows not become a "PC" by your logic?The hardware is not the same!
Unfortunately, Setsunayaki, you are only partially right on the hardware or your logical point #1. While you are correct in who ships the hardware, you are incorrect on the hardware being the same. The are made with the same standards such as ide, sata, etc, however their build specifications are different. Apple has more stringent standards on hardware specs and actually spends slightly more on higher end transistors, capacitors, resistors, etc. Also they are very detailed with their requirements from hardware vendors like hard drives. So while you can buy similar hardware that works in a Mac (like an HD from newegg) they are not the same. Take a HD out of a Mac sometime and you will see an Apple logo on it. It isn't there just for looks. It is to mark that it came off of a line meeting all of Apple's specs. Just had to point that out as your statement was only partially correct.Carry on with the Mac bashing jealous people!
(P.S. - Compare the failure rate of Macs versus Windows based PCs sometime and remember the hardware is the same (; p)
PCs run OSX faster than Apple...
For some odd reason, PCs running 'hacked' versions of OSX run noticeably faster than identically configured Mac systems...Hrm.
Wonder why this is?
Duh
A machine with a faster processor and more ram is faster than a similar machine with a slower processor and less ram...I guess that observation might be enlightening to a mac user.
@ Random guy
I think you might have missed the presence of the word "better" in that section you quoted random guy -- he wasn't saying that Mac's can't run Vista natively but rather that if Macs and Windows machines are made of the same hardware by the same manufacturers there is, logically, absolutely no reason one would run the same OS faster or slower than the other since it's all running on the same crap.The only way one would be inherently be better than the other would be if it's defining characterisic(s) did something to boost the performance tested. Correct me if I'm wrong by I believe besides the case/monitor/keyboard styling the only thing unique & proprietary to Macs is the software? So that's where Setsunayaki's point about running Vista parrallel to OS X comes in.
Unless Mac's software is somehow speeding up the process the only reason Vista would run faster on a mac is if the hardware was better in the Mac or there was some other error in the testing method (such as using a clean install on one but not the other) -- both flaws seemed to have played a part in that article.
please, clarify
We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine. - Robert BurnsWhat exactly does this mean?
I see:
We don't have to run around the bush and put the cows on fire.
Is that correct?
not unix
OSX is not based on unix while it was looked into they would have to pay to use it and we couldnt have that.Also they looked at linux but because they would have to release it back to the community for free they could have that either.
So they choose BSD which is in essence Unix but without the royalty cost.... However mac still claims they use unix dispite they also claim they use bsd....
Its not linux...its not unix....its not even bsd any more they took bsd and built the mach core from it and darwin....
so while it has some roots in unix it is a proprietary code called darwin, based on their mach kernel.
Comparison?
You're comparing it to.... a Gateway?Do they still make computers?
can you spell fanboy?
@XamaXsaying that macs are better than PCs is like saying ferraris are better than cars... macs are simply ONE brand of PC... it is valid to say that macs are better than dell, or mac is better than IBM. but lumping ALL non-apple brands into the term PC and labeling them all as crap is stupid...
"Macs are engineered and designed to the highest common denominator."
oh yeah. maybe you can use your mac to figure out this math problem... a common denominator of two fractions is a common multiple of the denominators. so let's say i have 5 and 9... think of their common multiples and then find the highest one....
compare failure rate?
@EFFECTP.S. - Compare the failure rate of Macs versus Windows based PCs sometime and remember the hardware is the same
That would be hard to quantify, first we would have to remove the failures of people against real hardware failures, it hurts my mind to think about it.
Although not concrete evidence, I did a search for (having problem with a mac) and it seems people actually do have failures with a mac, quite a large number in fact.
But like I said it could be just the failure of the people and not the hardware :)
Pay attention people
Man, does anyone here know how to read and comprehend the English language?The person on here who made the most sense is Setsunayaki. Though I can see why everyone seems to misunderstand him.
Quote from article:
"We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple’s platform-switching Boot Camp software... and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did."
This can be interpreted in two ways, running Vista (why Vista is beyond me other than the fact most stock PCs don't come with XP, XP would change the results I bet) on top of OS X or with Boot Camp (a glorified EFI BIOS emulator, since Windows doesnt make EFI calls only BIOS calls, so a simple boot loader wouldn't work).
Quote from Setsunayaki:
"Logic Point #3
The only way a MAC can run VISTA better (since the hardware comes from the same sources for both platforms) than PC is if you INSTALL Parallel Desktop on a MAC OS X system and then Instal Vista and run it through MAC OS X."
Ok so MAC ≠ Mac = Macintosh but his point is well made. Basically he is taking the term Apple Mac as the make and brand as you would Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad/ThinkCentre. Yes you can say your ThinkPad runs Windows or Linux but it is still a PC which is why it can run both are bare metal, and you don't have to have a ThinkPad to do that. So a Mac is basically a PC and it's a true Macintosh in the traditional sense when it runs OS X and it is not a Mac when it runs Windows. If you want a "Mac" to run Windows then you gotta use an emulator such as Parallels or Virtual PC, and yes you would kill performance, unless it supports VT but even then you can lose performance. So maybe he missed the fact that the testing was done with Boot Camp, still The point is that just because Apple has their hardware made for them by 3rd parties that also make PC equivalents and PC can do the exact same, with either modified OS X code to both on a BIOS based motherboard or an mobo with EFI (yes you can find them if you look, the INQ even reviewed one, or was that Fudo on his site? And EFI boards have a BIOS emulator built in), in which case it should boot natively, but then either way you run into issues with drivers because a Macintosh is a closed platform derived from an open platform, Apple at least is kind of enough to provided Windows drivers for it's hardware, but if you run Linux, drivers aren't an issue due to open source community support.
As for user friendlyness? Well thats subjective, I think a CLI is more userfriendly than OSX GUI, but thats me. I will take DOS (the latest versions have networking support and web browsers) over Mac OS anyday, call me crazy if you want. Vista isnt much better than OS X though. And hey security is no advantage on a Mac now based on recent reports, Windows users are aware of needing to protect themselves, Mac users are too naive to believe they need the same protection, plus they can be carriers of Windows bugs just like Linux, and Safari is barely better than OE, Firefox/Gecko is the way to go on any major OS.
Any sure any argument anyone makes one way or the other is gonna be ripped apart by the fan boys, especially the Mac faithful who take "Lord Jobs" word as gospel (NEWS FLASH...GET A LIFE people). And I use XP as my OS of choice, but not one of the apps I use daily at home is from the Vole, not even my MSN client which is aMSN (hey INQsters, can we get a review of aMSN, it may be MSN only, but is head and shoulders above GAIM.. err I mean Pidgin). Sure I plan to move to Xandros (and eventually another Distro after that, and no not Ubuntu thank you, Gnome is too mac like for my tastes) but for now I am quite happy with XP for home and work use, and I have fun at work because XP simply works on a regular basis, so you don't have to use OS X at work to have fun.
So now I am done with my rant, pick apart the holes you think you find in my article, they are there because i have a bias against Apple but everyone on here has a bias.
Why republish crap?
Why are you advertising a technically inept article like this? Any half-wit knows that under the pretty skin an Apple computer is nearly identical to any other PC. Sure there could be maybe a 3% performance difference, but not much more.Besides the obviously pathetic benchmarking, who were these users? Faster program-launch times? You have to be joking! I spend inordinate amounts of time watching Dock icons bounce up and down while programs load. And even more time watching the spinning wheel of death as programs crash. I use Mac and PC laptops daily, along with Mac, Linux, BSD and Solaris servers, and Mac OS X is pathetically slow, for desktop and server tasks.
The Darwin/Mach kernel might be stable, as is the NT kernel, but the applications that run on Mac OS X are far less stable than their Windows counterparts. I blame a lot of this on Apple, and the architecture their OS is based on. I'm so tired of having applications break because of minor OS updates. I've never seen a non-SP update break a Windows application, but with Apple it seems like a monthly occurrence.
Screw the prettiness, I'll take the speed and stability of Windows anyday!