Snow Leopard Leaps Past Win 7 In Time Tests

Leopard “consistently outdid” Microsoft’s soon-to-be released Windows 7 operating system, according to to a head-to-head time test. Apple’s latest OS X operating system outpaced Windows in both boot-up and shutdown, according to a review conducted by CNet.

Leopard needed 36.4 seconds to boot up versus 42.7 seconds for Windows 7. The gap was even more significant in the time needed to shut down the 2008 MacBook Pro. While Snow Leopard required 6.6 seconds to shut down, Windows 7 took 12.6 seconds, the study found.

“If you can get by with just software designed by Apple and if money is not a big issue, you will be happy with a Mac,” concluded the study’s author, Dong Ngo.

One area where Windows 7 came out on top was games. A test of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Windows 7 output 26.3 frames per second while Snow Leopard produced 21.3 frames per second. The key reason may be the graphics processing of Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard. The study found the Microsoft operating system made better use of the Macbook Pro’s Nvidia’s 512MB GeForce 9600M GT graphics card.

Although many versions of Apple applications, such as iTunes and Quicktime, also have Windows-based counterparts, Snow Leopard was faster. Converting a M4 Movie to iPod using Quicktime X took Snow Leopard 444.3 seconds versus 723 seconds for the Windows’ Quicktime 7. In another example, it took 149.9 seconds for Snow Leopard to convert 17 seconds from MP3 to AAC format in iTunes compared to 162 seconds for Windows.

The review seems to counter the opinion of Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg who earlier wrote Windows 7 made the decision between Mac or Microsoft a toss-up.

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[Via CNet and AppleInsider]

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