Mac OS X versus Windows XP--How Fast Is It?

Among our many Macs we have a relatively new Compaq Presario (December 2000) that we use primarily to keep track of the competition. The PC came with a 633 MHz Celeron processor, 64 MB RAM, a 20 GB hard disk and Windows ME. We got it for a mere $399 right as the bottom end of the Compaq Presario line moved insignificantly to 667 MHz. The largely meaningless PC MHz bottom is now in the 700's or 800's. After loading Windows XP we added 64 MB of RAM for a total of 128, using a left over 64 MB PC100 chip from one of our Macs. We also added an ATI Radeon 32 SDR graphics card that we got for $80 after rebates. As PCs go, its a nice little machine that does everything we need to do pretty quickly including running the 3D shooter Unreal Tournament.

Last week Microsoft released Windows XP rc1, the first of two public betas before the planned final release in October. Windows XP will come in home and professional editions and they are based on the industrial strength "professional" Windows NT. The home version has fewer networking/groupworking bells and whistles. Windows XP is like Mac OS X in that it has protected memory, multitasking and supports multiple processors. Unlike Mac OS X, Windows XP is totally proprietary while Mac OS X is based on Free BSD an open source Unix effort.

Mac OS X was released as version 10.0 on March 24th and has since been updated to version 10.0.4. We have been using it as our primary OS since even though several mission critical applications, including Adobe GoLive, still have to run in Mac OS X's Classic (v9.1) mode. It is expected that version 10.1 will be released this week and we will see if Steve Jobs includes this announcement in his keynote address at Macworld tomorrow starting at 9am ET. The biggest complaint about Mac OS X has been its speed. In a series of benchmark tests we have chronicled the speed up of Mac OS X from version 10.0 to 10.0.4 (see sidebar under "How fast Is It?") on a 450 MHz G4 Cube. On the eve of a hoped for mega-leap in performance and features (drivers, software and capability), we decided to run Mac OS X 10.0.4 up against its soon to be main competition from the Dark Side, Windows XP.

Microsoft sure makes it difficult to try out its Windows XP rc1 that costs $10 to download and another $10 to get it on a CD. First we had to download a 500 MB file which took nearly an hour over our cable modem. Then we discovered that the file is a .iso file and we needed to burn it to a CD to install.

Fortunately, our portable USB/FireWire VST CDRW drive came with PC burner software (EZ Creator) as well as Toast for the Mac. We installed EZ Creator, figured out how to use it and burned a Windows XP CD using the much slower USB connection since our Compaq does not have FireWire ports. The whole process took a little over an hour but it worked the first time.

Installing Windows XP took a very long time. We elected to install it as an upgrade over Windows ME as most people are likely to do. During installation we discovered that we had the "Professional" version of XP. We didn't see a choice for the home version when downloading it but we may have missed it in haste. The installation ground on for what seemed like forever, 88 minutes to be exact. By comparison, no one should complain about a Mac OS X installation which takes 20-30 minutes.

Once installed we were ready to give both OS's a try. But first let me dispel some consternation raised when Windows XP was first shown. While this is the first public beta, Windows XP looks nothing like Mac OS X. Windows XP looks exactly like a more colorful Windows 95/98/ME with better-looking but nearly identical icons. Mac OS X clearly wins both the installation and appearance rounds.

We discovered that Windows XP has the same problem with a lack of drivers as Mac OS X. Our Radeon graphics card ceased to work properly and we had to use the Compaq's built-in graphics subsystem.

We timed Mac OS X, not on the entry level computer that Apple supports (a 233 MHz iMac) but on our fast Power Mac G4 533 DP with 512 MB RAM capable of 1.6 gigaflop super computing. Here are the results of timing various operations in Mac OS X and Windows XP:

Time in seconds for	Mac OS X	Windows XP
Startup, power on to login	102	41
Startup, login to desktop	19	6
Startup, login to desktop w/Classic	62	--
Launch Internet Explorer	10	3
Scroll Macs Only!	2	3
Scroll VPC 4 Manual PDF	50	33
Shutdown	36	19

Starting up and shutting down Mac OS X is terribly lengthy as the table shows. The first Windows XP public beta is faster at starting up than even Mac OS 9.1. Mac OS X is particularly slow to start up when also starting up Classic mode, taking almost three minutes. While it takes three mouse clicks to shutdown Windows XP and only a click, drag and release for Mac OS X, this is a minor difference. Windows XP was also much faster at launching Internet Explorer and scrolling the PDF file of the 144p Virtual PC 4.0 Manual loaded with images. Windows XP wins this performance round although there is much more to performance than what we have examined so far.

After using Windows XP for awhile, we think Mac OS X wins the usability round but Windows XP has gained ground over Windows ME. Microsoft has made its Windows interface easier to use, partly by simplification and partly with various types of aids. We like full simplification.

Apple clearly has a way to go to get Mac OS X's speed up to that of the Windows XP first public beta. This is especially true for startup and shutdown but not them alone. Launching and using applications in Mac OS X also take much longer. Fortunately, because of the stability of Mac OS X and the ability to put it into deep sleep, starting up and shutting down should be rare when all applications are native or run under Classic mode. The only thing that requires us to boot into Mac OS 9.1 currently is configuring our AirPort Base Station. But we use our ABS in a lot of different locations all over town and the country, all of which require reconfiguration. Hopefully, Apple will provide an AirPort Administration Utility for Mac OS X very soon, like tomorrow!?

If Apple doesn't quickly bring Mac OS X up to the performance level of Windows XP, there is little chance of Mac OS X winning over many, if any, Windows users.