*Much faster is both more than 2 seconds and more than 10 percent than 10.2.8 values. **First number is after upgrade an

In comparison with the last Jaguar version on our stock G4 Cube, Panther is much faster in 2D graphics and in finder operations This continues in 10.3.3. Startup in our G4 was also much faster with Panther 10.3 than with Jaguar 10.2.8. But the 10.3.3 update like 10.3.2 slows down the startup time significantly from 10.3. At least SpeedStart 0.1 is no longer needed. Disk performance also seems to be slightly poorer with the 10.3.3 update than even 10.3.2--this may reflect aging in the original drive. There is a continued but slight improvement in 3D graphics, i.e. 34 fps vs 33 previously in Quake III Arena.

The dual 2-GHz Power Mac G5 tests in 10.3.3 also reconfirm the significant speed up in finder operations running Panther over its special version of Jaguar--10.2.8(G5). There is also a strange anomally with the Let1kWindowsBloom test and the G5 running Panther (10.3), 10.3.2 or 10.3.3 that we can not explain--we ran it several times under a variety of circumstances and got the same results. Again, startup time in 10.3.3 like 10.3.2 even after applying the SpeedStart patch was slower than in 10.3 or 10.2.8. The major improvement in 10.3.3 is again in 3D graphics, the Quake III Arena performance fps increased again to a high of 364. Xbench's OpenGL Graphics test is also faster in 10.3.3 than in any previous version.

In summary, the Mac OS X 10.3.3 update is a little faster than 10.3.2 in 3D graphics, most likely due to the new graphics drivers. 10.3.3 is slower at startup by our measurements than 10.3 but it does not need the SpeedStart patch like 10.3.2. The rest is about the same. People have posted to the web that 10.3.3 seems a lot faster than 10.3.2 but it is likely that they are either commenting on startup relative to 10.3.2 without SpeedStart or are just noticing the benefits of a fresh install and reboot. 10.3.3 is slightly faster on a fast machine but only in 3D graphics. We would also add that Mail subjectively seems faster to us with the 10.3.3 update to v1.3.4.