OSX VS Windows

[Daniel123dk]

So my dad and i had a discussion this afternoon. He stated that the Mac Pro, just due to its OSX operating system and underpowered cpu (i think it was underpowered) would perform better than a equivalent pc, built of off the budget.

 

I stated that the windows pc (custom pc) would perform way better than the Mac Pro due to better thermal solutions out there and the fact that certain newer hardware is boosting by its own.

He got into stuff called MIPS and CISC, and i dont know what that is (feel free to teach me about it).

 

He also stated that in OSX, the operating system was designed that way, that a (example): a underclocked i7 would perform better on OSX than a baseclocked i7 would on windows.

 

 

Let me get your word into this discussion, this could be fun to learn about those operating systems, if they're accually doing anything different in terms of loading paces of the cpu and memory and such..

 

 

Thank you!

[EvilWiffles]

HFS+ is better then NTFS, at least from technical side.

Probably only helps for hard drives at least, as OSX doesn't get as slow vs Windows (from what I've heard).

[DXMember]

listen to your parents and stay in school

[Godlygamer23]

It depends on the software being used. If the OS is bloated, but the programs are equivalent between the two, the bloated OS might cause the system to perform lesser compared to the other OS. I'm not stating that Windows is bloated, nor that OS X is somehow leaner, but it's also no secret that Apple put a lot of optimization into Final Cut Pro for example.

 

Moved to OSes and Software.

[Curufinwe_wins]

OS X is a power users nightmare.

 

If you have a specific task in mind for which OS X has a superior workflow, fine (UNIX programming is a big one), but in general NOTHING about OS X is made for power user efficiency.

[Daniel123dk]

It depends on the software being used. If the OS is bloated, but the programs are equivalent between the two, the bloated OS might cause the system to perform lesser compared to the other OS. I'm not stating that Windows is bloated, nor that OS X is somehow leaner, but it's also no secret that Apple put a lot of optimization into Final Cut Pro for example.

Moved to OSes and Software.

So theoretically my dad could be right at some point?

 

OS X is a power users nightmare.

If you have a specific task in mind for which OS X has a superior workflow, fine (UNIX programming is a big one), but in general NOTHING about OS X is made for power user efficiency.

Yeah, my dad stated that the OSX would rock UNIX far more than the windows one

[DXMember]

mac vs pc is as discussion about micro-optimised operating system vs multiplatform bloatware

you can't put hardware as an argument because super high end hardware you can put into pc has more power undoubtly it's about how you use the hardware you have

[Curufinwe_wins]

Yeah, my dad stated that the OSX would rock UNIX far more than the windows one

Well defacto, because Windows can't run UNIX at all, and OS X is  BY DEFINITION a UNIX OS.

[vanished]

HFS+ is better then NTFS, at least from technical side.

Probably only helps for hard drives at least, as OSX doesn't get as slow vs Windows (from what I've heard).

True, HFS+ is a far more resilient file system, like pretty much every other filesystem out there, but the reason OSX and Linux don't slow down over time like Windows is just due to their design, not the filesystem

 

 

He also stated that in OSX, the operating system was designed that way, that a (example): a underclocked i7 would perform better on OSX than a baseclocked i7 would on windows.

Well that's just ridiculous.  There's something to be said for the efficiency of programs but you can't avoid basic physics - a better CPU will be more powerful, just, no matter what.

[Daniel123dk]

Well defacto, because Windows can't run UNIX at all, and OS X is BY DEFINITION a UNIX OS.

Ow okay, im not into this so yeah, well from what i told in this topic at first, who is then the guy with the right word?

 

True, HFS+ is a far more resilient file system, like pretty much every other filesystem out there, but the reason OSX and Linux don't slow down over time like Windows is just due to their design, not the filesystem


Well that's just ridiculous. There's something to be said for the efficiency of programs but you can't avoid basic physics - a better CPU will be more powerful, just, no matter what.

I told him too, but he told that the OSX would allow lower clocked cpu's to perform better than the higher clocked ones, at some point.

[Dredgy]

There are lots of technical benefits to iOS and it is indeed much better optimised for the specific hardware in Apple computers than Windows could ever hope to be, though the performance difference won't be that drastic.

Apple utilises a few little things though that won't see performance degrade too much over time - better file system mainly, but also applications are all contained in one "file" and deleting that file will do a clean uninstall of the program - no spare files or registry entries (no registry) that can bog down a Windows PC over time. All these little things add up.

OSX also offers better handling of its own ProRes video formats which is becoming very common in professional packaging (ultra-high bit rate ProRes XQ won't run on Windows at all, because Apple won't implement it) and a lot of video editing tasks are snappier because of it.

While your dads argument has merit, he's exaggerating a fair bit as to how great the benefit is.

[Daniel123dk]

There are lots of technical benefits to iOS and it is indeed much better optimised for the specific hardware in Apple computers than Windows could ever hope to be, though the performance difference won't be that drastic.

Apple utilises a few little things though that won't see performance degrade too much over time - better file system mainly, but also applications are all contained in one "file" and deleting that file will do a clean uninstall of the program - no spare files or registry entries (no registry) that can bog down a Windows PC over time. All these little things add up.

OSX also offers better handling of its own ProRes video formats which is becoming very common in professional packaging (ultra-high bit rate ProRes XQ won't run on Windows at all, because Apple won't implement it) and a lot of video editing tasks are snappier because of it.

While your dads argument has merit, he's exaggerating a fair bit as to how great the benefit is.

Right, okay, but he wont understand it, this discussion went 3 long hours, and i just couldnt get him to understand

[vanished]

Apple utilises a few little things though that won't see performance degrade too much over time - better file system mainly, but also applications are all contained in one "file" and deleting that file will do a clean uninstall of the program - no spare files or registry entries (no registry) that can bog down a Windows PC over time. All these little things add up.

It's not one file - they make it look like that for simplicity but as far as I know behind the scenes it is just a folder like any OS.  But you're right they pack everything about that program into it and that is really nice

[Dredgy]

It's not one file - they make it look like that for simplicity but as far as I know behind the scenes it is just a folder like any OS.  But you're right they pack everything about that program into it and that is really nice

Hence why I had the word file in quotation marks

[Senzelian]

For 4500€ you can choose between...

Option A - (Windows/Linux)

• 2x Titan X
• 8-core i7-5960X (3.0Ghz)
• 64GB ECC RAM

Option B - (Apple)

• 2x AMD Tahiti based D500
• 6-core Xeon E5 (3.6Ghz)
• 16GB ECC RAM

 

I don't know if the software makes actually enough of a difference to make up for that bad hardware, but I know that it needs to be damn good to do that.

[Omon_Ra]

I told him too, but he told that the OSX would allow lower clocked cpu's to perform better than the higher clocked ones, at some point.

 

Depending on the task, probably, yes. Because Apple has pretty tight integration between hardware/software, certain OS-related tasks could run faster versus the same task on a Windows PC. However, video encoding or something like that, obviously the higher clocked CPU will out perform the lower clocked.

 

There are lots of technical benefits to iOS and it is indeed much better optimised for the specific hardware in Apple computers than Windows could ever hope to be, though the performance difference won't be that drastic.

OSX also offers better handling of its own ProRes video formats which is becoming very common in professional packaging (ultra-high bit rate ProRes XQ won't run on Windows at all, because Apple won't implement it) and a lot of video editing tasks are snappier because of it.

While your dads argument has merit, he's exaggerating a fair bit as to how great the benefit is.

 

Naturally ProRes will work better with Apple, but there is DNxHD and other formats that Windows users can utilize. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've heard Premier and the other Adobe products run better with Windows now, though I haven't used similar Adobe lines on Windows and Mac at the same time since CS5; and at that point Apple still had the edge on Windows.

 

I do a lot of video production and people ask me all the time why I built a PC instead of buying a Mac. It simply comes down to price and preference. OSX is not terrible, I'm just MUCH more familiar with Windows and how to get it to do what I want. And then the price: my X99 build last year ended up being around $2700, that would have gotten me a decent MacBook Pro or a mediocre Mac Pro; no where NEAR the performance of what my PC can do. That's the biggest selling point for me.

[vanished]

I do a lot of video production and people ask me all the time why I built a PC instead of buying a Mac. It simply comes down to price and preference. OSX is not terrible, I'm just MUCH more familiar with Windows and how to get it to do what I want. And then the price: my X99 build last year ended up being around $2700, that would have gotten me a decent MacBook Pro or a mediocre Mac Pro; no where NEAR the performance of what my PC can do. That's the biggest selling point for me.

Yeah when I got my laptop in 2011, similar but slightly lesser hardware in a macbook pro would have cost literally twice what I paid, and the machine still runs great!

[Master Disaster]

MIPS = Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages

Basically its an instruction set used by RISC CPUs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_instruction_set

RISC = Reduced instruction set computing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_instruction_set_computing

CISC = Complex instruction set computing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_instruction_set_computing

Now the thing to remember is the Core I series of CPUs are CISC and not RISC so OS X is built to operate using X86-64 and not MIPS. I don't see how MIPS comes into the discussion at all?

There's a reason why Apple hardware can seemingly run quicker on OS X than the equivalent would run on Windows. It comes down to Apples complete control over their equipment, by this I mean Apple build their own hardware and their own OS and software, this means they can hyper optimise everything to run as efficiently as possible as they know the hardware will always be the same. Microsoft on the other hand have to make sure Windows will run on as many systems as possible and have no control over what hardware their OS is installed onto.

Take it from someone who currently has Windows 10, Ubuntu & El Capitan installed on my PC in a triple boot, OS X is no quicker than Windows when it comes to many tasks. Final Cut Pro is quicker than just about anything when it comes to video editing however when you run synthetic benchmarks on OS X it gets beaten by the same benchmarks running on Windows. Gaming in particular is much better on Windows due to the much better driver support on Windows, running Heaven in OpenGL on Windows vs OS X is a walkover, Windows literally spanks OS X. Cinebench yields similar results on the CPU test too, Windows beats OS X though not by a huge amount.

At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference, personally I love OS X and use it quite a lot, much more than I ever use Ubuntu but at this point Windows has such a huge lead in gaming performance that I don't see anything ever topping it on install numbers and user base.

[Daniel123dk]

MIPS = Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages

Basically its an instruction set used by RISC CPUs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_instruction_set

RISC = Reduced instruction set computing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_instruction_set_computing

CISC = Complex instruction set computing

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_instruction_set_computing

Now the thing to remember is the Core I series of CPUs are CISC and not RISC so OS X is built to operate using X86-64 and not MIPS. I don't see how MIPS comes into the discussion at all?

There's a reason why Apple hardware can seemingly run quicker on OS X than the equivalent would run on Windows. It comes down to Apples complete control over their equipment, by this I mean Apple build their own hardware and their own OS and software, this means they can hyper optimise everything to run as efficiently as possible as they know the hardware will always be the same. Microsoft on the other hand have to make sure Windows will run on as many systems as possible and have no control over what hardware their OS is installed onto.

Take it from someone who currently has Windows 10, Ubuntu & El Capitan installed on my PC in a triple boot, OS X is no quicker than Windows when it comes to many tasks. Final Cut Pro is quicker than just about anything when it comes to video editing however when you run synthetic benchmarks on OS X it gets beaten by the same benchmarks running on Windows. Gaming in particular is much better on Windows due to the much better driver support on Windows, running Heaven in OpenGL on Windows vs OS X is a walkover, Windows literally spanks OS X. Cinebench yields similar results on the CPU test too, Windows beats OS X though not by a huge amount.

At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference, personally I love OS X and use it quite a lot, much more than I ever use Ubuntu but at this point Windows has such a huge lead in gaming performance that I don't see anything ever topping it on install numbers and user base.

Alot of what you are stating there, was what my dad told me, and i told him that in most applications, the Windows pc would perform better

[vanished]

This topic can branch out into so may different areas and some things it is hard to really know with certainty one way or the other no matter what we do.  There's the idea of which OS is just plain superior, in terms of efficiency, but then that opens into the question of is that because of the higher or lower amount of hardware that needs to be supported or not.  Then there is the question of hardware, the performance thereof, and the price you pay for it.  Then there's the question of drivers and apps - are they developed with the same quality and efficiency on both platforms?  Take Flash for example - it runs terribly on Mac OS and Linux, but that's because Adobe never bothered to make a proper unix flash player; it's not too far off from just running the windows player in WINE if you've ever tried.  Then there's that video a while back Linus did about editing 4K footage on a ultrabook, and the video response someone did showing how it works way better even on an underpowered macbook.  There's a lot to be said for what software efficiency can do, but it's important to remove that as a factor when you are trying to look at an OS.

 

One thing I will say is that Apple better walk the line when it comes to taking credit for anything that is good about OS X; they totally took the UNIX core from the public domain, and that was a fantastic starting point for them.  If anyone remembers the original Mac OS (pre X) it was as slow and unstable/unreliable as Windows 98.

[KWelz]

For 4500€ you can choose between...

Option A - (Windows/Linux)

• 2x Titan X
• 8-core i7-5960X (3.0Ghz)
• 64GB ECC RAM

Option B - (Apple)

• 2x AMD Tahiti based D500
• 6-core Xeon E5 (3.6Ghz)
• 16GB ECC RAM

 

I don't know if the software makes actually enough of a difference to make up for that bad hardware, but I know that it needs to be damn good to do that.

 

 

What bad hardware?  This isn't a workstation.  It is a machine for a very particular purpose.  And for that purpose it is priced well.  

[Guest]

You know what would perform the best?

 

A Linux Computer.

[GoodBytes]

So my dad and i had a discussion this afternoon. He stated that the Mac Pro, just due to its OSX operating system and underpowered cpu (i think it was underpowered) would perform better than a equivalent pc, built of off the budget.

The OS

A lighter weight OS will give better performance than a heavy bloated OS.

But, you exchange security and feature.

For example: DOS vs Windows 10.

Many things will run lighting fast under DOS, but you have no multi-tasking, no GUI, no nothing compared to Windows 10.

That said, I don't believe that if we compare modern OS, including Linux based OS, that there is truly a big difference beside a few points here and there between benchmarks scores. Gaming performance is tricky, heck even benchmark score is tricky, because it comes down to drivers. Apple tend to make its own drivers for most of its hardware. While under Windows it is the manufacture. Now you would THINK that it would be better on Windows, but not necessarily. If we look at the lovely Intel integrated graphics for example, the drivers are a huge buggy mess that crashes a lot, especially for its mobile series. Yet, solid under MacOS. The problem in this case, is that Intel, treats its graphics solution as a "free solution" (despite paying more for the CPU, and not have no choice), so they don't apply the resources or hire the expertise needed to make a good job. Apple does, as it matters for them that its users have the best experience. It is part of the contractual agreement Apple has with the manufacture. In addition, Apple pays less for the hardware as it doesn't have driver support.

Linux based OSs are sadly affected with SOME hardware, like graphics cards, because the lack of marketshare.

The only way to know which is the best, is to have the same quality drivers for all OSs and then compare. BUT, how do you do this? If for example you are AMD, and you seriously decide to make some really good, just as good if not better Linux drivers as Windows. Then you end up with still, for argument's sake, slower performance. Is it because the drivers are still not up to par due to lack of expertise? Or is really because of the OS? So, it is very difficult to know.

Where the PC vs Apple performance started?

It start with Apple massive marketing power pushing that its IBM PowerPC CPU was faster than Intel.

And, well, it was and wasn't at the same time. It depended on what you are doing, and if its a video (something that Apple loved to show), which codec used. So, with many older people, this stick in their head. And it also reinforced by the fact, that they are comparing a nice Apple system that cost 2000$ with now a fast SSD, and high specs, to, say a computer you get at best buy in the <1000$ range, with a 5400RPM HDD, poor cooling solution which makes the CPU get hot fast, and bloated crap. (not to mention display, Apple used color calibrated IPS panel, while most manufacture, although this is getting less true as time goes on, loves to use shitty TN panels). This is also why Microsoft had enougth, and started to make its own system. The Surface line product. Considering hat the market was racing to the bottom in price, quality, and features before the Surface Pro line, I strongly believe that the reason why at this CES you have OLED laptops, beautiful 2-in-1s, and real nice laptops, a push for better trackpad, and higher resolution than Windows 8/10 minimum screen resolution, it is because of the Surface Pro line. But feel free to disagree with me. That is JUST a PERSONAL observation on my part, I have 0 data to support it. To me, I don't care, Al I know is that 2016, and 2017 we should get some really nice options in the PC market. Especially that I think I am seeing at some manufacture focus on the high end system, as the profit margins are larger. For example, Dell really pushed its XPS series, and now from CES I can see they are reviving the Latitude series (it used to be a high-end business class system, but then Dell treated it like it's low end). Inspiron system is kinda in this split world of low end and med range, but I think Dell won't have low range anymore, and just have med range. Maybe 1-2 models just to not completely leave that space.

Boot Speed

A fully UEFI compatible computer, with a fast SSD, should boot, from shutdown state, Windows 8/10, in 6sec to the desktop fully loaded, from the "click" of the power button being pressed (assuming it clicks when you press it).

For many many many years, Apple computer booted faster than PCs, ESPECIALLY custom build ones. Why?

-> Apple started to use EFI early. While the standard they used wasn't up to what UEFI is now, it did have some neat things that help boost booting speeds.

-> OEM and Apple only have a specific set of hardware to care about. So the BIOS, at the time, was only designed for that specific set of hardware. That is why you can't just pop-in a faster CPU in that OEM computer and expect to work, despite the right socket and other specifications. Your custom build computer, the BIOS needs to encounter for everything, and it needs to scan stuff you might not even use, like extra SATA controllers, firewire, COM port, and so on.

So, that is why you father believes that Apple computer are faster... as, well, they were in some ways.

 

---------------------

I stated that the windows pc (custom pc) would perform way better than the Mac Pro due to better thermal solutions out there and the fact that certain newer hardware is boosting by its own.

Thermal solutions are excellent on both. That is not the reason. (on most systems).

 

He got into stuff called MIPS and CISC, and i dont know what that is (feel free to teach me about it).

MIPS? That is what ARM processor uses.. Apple uses Intel CPUs. The instruction set (that is what it is) is identical on both. That is the x86 architecture.

As for CISC.. did he means RISC vs CISC? If that is the case, yes, in cases RISC (which is what the PowerPC used) is better, than CISC (what Intel uses):

http://techterms.com/definition/cisc

Why I am not getting more into this topic? Because, it is long, and useless, as BOTH Apple and PCs uses the same Intel CPU. So, BOTH are CISC, like it or not.

[Godlygamer23]

BOTH Apple and PCs uses the same Intel CPU.

Macs are PCs too.

[GoodBytes]

Macs are PCs too.

That was the point of my post. Yes.

But I wanted to raise the bar, and provide a more complete answer in explaining why his father said what he said.