Bad news for Microsoft, good news for Apple and Intel

The May issue of Popular Mechanics includes a comparative review, with extensive benchmarks, of Macs and PCs.

The verdict turned out to be somewhat in line with Apple's exaggerated commercials--the PC is slower (running Vista, compared to Apple's Leopard operating system) and less easy to use, and it doesn't have a clear cost advantage. Both are running Intel, so that's always good news for the chipmaker.

(Credit: Apple)

Following is the Popular Mechanics verdict:

Mac: 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.

PC: 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 that 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 to boot--and still save $100.

[gsmiller88]

Yeah I'm not really surprised.

[beerman55448]

This test was so flawed...Next time try matching specs evenly to see which wins.Whoever wrote this article set it up so Mac would win and then proceeded to say "Mac good - Windows bad" all the way through.Just another biased Mac fanboy who got to write an article to show his prejudices.

[jhance11]

Why is it in politics sports and looks like tech as well the loser of A contest will always try to kill the messenger. I suppose because thats the only thing they have left. Truth time. Yes the gateway has A dualcore 2.0 CPU and the apple had A 2.4 but the gateway had 3times more memory and A bigger hardrive. If any one here thinks that 400htz of cpu speed with less memory would make up that big of differance if time they need to go back to school. Face it guys the apple is better. Get Microsoft to improve it's produce instead of whinning when it losses.

[Ron Geiken]

This has got to be the most WORTHLESS story that I have read in a long time. Must have been written by a democrat, since it has opinions but no facts!!! I have Vista on a custom built computer with a quad 6600 processor and 4 gig of ram, and it is the fastest computer that I have ever owned. Programs launch in just a couple of seconds, and all of them run fine with no hang ups in operation. My Firefox browser launches in about 4 to 6 seconds, Thunderbird in about 2 to 3 seconds, Word and Excel about 2 seconds each. It still doesn't have SP1 installed, but have a laptop that does, and it hasn't seemed to slow that one down at all.<br /><br />Why in the world would any opinion on computers from Popular Mechanics carry any weight in the Technical community. CNET and P.C. World would be a better source for this kind of information.

[The_Decider]

Speaking of worthless...<br /><br />Put XP on that machine of yours and you will see it runs considerably faster. <br /><br />All you have is a narrow minded empirical observation, not facts.<br /><br />What does democrats have to do with this? <br /><br />Idiot

[Spartan_458]

They just arbitrarily chose two PCs that happened to be in the same price range. For the most part, Apples are very overpriced for what you're getting.

[Penguinisto]

You must be joking - if Vista runs like crap on the pricey stuff, just imagine how dog-slow it runs on the cheaper gear.<br /><br />FWIW, Apples are certainly not "overpriced" for what you're getting - unless you scour Pricewatch and build the box yourself, you'll be hard-pressed to find an OEM that can match a Mac spec-for-spec.<br /><br />/P

[delf76]

Yes, because I often read "popular Mechanics" for my computer reviews.... And I'm sure a lot of you do too *insert sarcasm*<br /><br />*Yawn*

[jhance11]

Popular Mechanic's has been around i'm sure since before you were born. they were doing tech tests before there was ever such A thing. they have A proven history of professionals who I'm sure have forgetten more about all things tech then you are ever likely to learn. Stop whinning guys it's unbecoming of you

[aldolinares]

I have reding or using CNET for a very very long time, and i remember when they erased on downloads.com the link to apple software and the just focused on PC but now they are like bashing Microsoft all the time, i know they are on San Francisco and yes there is more Mac's There but i am IT and we use a lot and work a lot on PC/Windows Enviroment but CNET is like being unfair bashing Windows and saying Mac all good. <br /><br />To bad :( and the comparison is just plain stupid and CNET know it.

[skotmiller]

What's the matter? Truth hurts. Afraid the Mac is going to take over and you will be without your IT job.

[jhance11]

Lord the whinnning and the whinning as I have said guys get Microsoft to improve it's product and you won't have so much to whine about. When you think about it's perfect Karm. Bill Gates stole most of his ideas from apple when he was supposedly employed there. It's only fitting that his produced be showen to be inferior. Math does'nt lie boys

[dlowe402]

OMG! So ur the reason Microsoft sucks sooooooo bad! With grammar like that, how could you expect anything you touch to work right? I wouldn't admit to being in IT. You might get fired for sounding so retarded. You are all worse than any Apple Fanboy I have come across. Someone says something negative about MS and you're all over BG's member. "WHAA, they didn't use comparable machines." They did, however use comparably priced machines though. Did any of you take the time to read the PM article, or are you just going by what was written here?

[Understarsidream]

I'm not surprised about the cost. I priced out a Dell and an HP for my parents then compared them to an iMac with an almost identical configuration (as close as I could get anyway for practical comparision). The HP and iMac were about same. The Dell was about two hundred higher. The clincher though for my parents was HP outsources most of their support out of the country - Apple's is all based in the US. Apple won.

[ethana2]

Who the heck cares about an OS that doesn't run on their perfectly good hardware?<br /><br />Sure, Windows sucks, I haven't used it in a year, but what does /mac/ have to do with this? Have they let their cat out into the real world yet? No? Psshh.

[aftermidnight]

i agree with the comment that said please compare systems that actually match up. why didnt they compare the macs to a dell or an alienware... hmm, i wonder...

[jhance11]

Alienware might (might ) have been able to keepup seeings as how it's A hoptup PC used for gamming. They always have A superspeedy CPU but get ready to shellout about 4grand for one. Lets keep the test in the real world and by the way I've seen the specks on Dell they would have faired no better. It's not the hardware killing you guys it's your software

[Penguinisto]

...because a properly matched-spec Dell or Alienware (Dell owns Alienware BTW) would cost an arm/leg MORE than the Mac.<br /><br />/P

[zknowyou]

I agree with everyone, AND I AM A MAC FAN. But I am also IT and you do NOT do a comparison like this. If anything, they can argue that they can't compare exact hardware since Leopard can't be installed on a PC.<br />They could compare the new Psystart installing Microsoft giving all the technical specs.<br />But this guy does not seem to understand that you can't just compare them like that (at least if you argue efficiency).

[AJ Pants]

"Leopard OS trounced Vista. "<br /><br /> Well no surprise there, really. Why are the two even compared anymore?

[ITGURU78]

Let's get one thing clear shall we...any OS would run fast with a home built quad 6600 chip and 4 gig of RAM. I think this article was geared toward the average computer and what the average household would purchase. Not everybody has the powerhouse of a computer like you do. Hell you have the same specs as my company exchange server running 03' Server R2 and 07' Exchange. Of course Vista will run fast....but that's the catch you have to have a system like that to run Vista. Also, why are you running Firefox? Why not I.E.? I know why....because Firefox loads faster, everyone knows that. The Mac comes with Safari....you don't see Mac users using a third party web browser do you? Don't get me wrong I'm not sold on the Mac all the way but they really are making a comparable system now. Vista was a step backwards for MS...it's a crap product and yet another reason I've given serious thought to buying a Mac.

[anubis2night]

for me a quad core computer with 4gb of ram was still cheaper to go and I have seen many mac users switch to firefox. As it stands now I am using safari and while it has many advantages there are many problems with it also. There's really no one perfect machine, OS (with exception or Linux), or web browser. There's always gonna be a few hang ups or bugs. As for Vista, there have been many problems but there's alot of great things there once you take the time to iron it out a bit.

[jtmajorx]

Worthless. Absolute garbage. I'm a Systems Admin, and we run PCs and Macs. Our Macs are 2x Duel Core Xeons with 4GB ram, so the hardware is nice, BUT the OS is horrible. Runs slow, uses that weird file fork method in smb shares, and doesn?t clean up after its self. Also, for those who don't know, OSX 10.5 Server (I tried to talk corp into running OSS... but they shot the idea down) running 8GB ram, and 2x Quad Core Xeons runs slower than our rack 2003 servers. Why you ask? Because Mac had the genius idea to include a full 3D GUI with their Server releases. Apple just needs to hurry up and die, why people support them is beyond me. If you hate windows and need an alternative, buy a Red Hat or Ubuntu based machine (I say those two because they are the easiest to find preloaded).

[anubis2night]

I have no problem with Apple. I own several ipods including a few touches and am using safari for my web browser but this article is just a farce and holds no water from any technical standpoint. The only real problem I have with this article is the bandwagon mentality that I've seen in the last 6 weeks, one person comes along and claims that Mac's are comparable cost wise to a PC and everyone jumps on board to share the sentiment. Here's the truth at least for me. Last Nov 07 I wanted to buy a new computer the guy at BB spent the whole time trying to sell me a mac I explained that I had alot of programs that needed to run on windows, no problem he sad you can do that with a Mac, so I started to look at Mac's. I wanted a quad core system with 4 gb of ram and the ability to run multiple displays and pvr. I started looking at PC's as they were what I already knew about, I choose a Gateway GM5638E and priced it to expand the memory, the cost? $976 + $56 for the memory + $100 for a extra 500GB hard drive. I looked at the MAc pro since the imac doesn't come in quad core. To build a close enough version would cost me $3199 and that's without a video card that would run dual displays. Furthermore since I made my purchases just before and on black friday I was able to add a 22in monitor for an additional $199. My cost for computer? $1430 with taxes that's half the price of the comparable Mac and $60 less than somewhat comparable (only duo core) Mac @ $1499 and that's not adding tax to it. So let's not get into prices there's really no comparison and if you were to benchmark my machine against the comparably priced Mac as these guys did you'd still come out losing with a Mac. My screen would be bigger my processor and memory twice as large. There's really no comparison.

[The_Decider]

Duo core quad processor is not in the same league as the XEON quad processors.<br /><br />Your comparison is flawed because that $976 machine has considerably lesser hardware than that $3199 Mac.

[anubis2night]

I think people that read this article also should do the research themselves. The writer went for a computer that looks like an iMac so they choose the Gateway 1, and if you go thru gateway for the device you pay $1549.99 (with vista) whereas if you build a comparable iMac you spend $1447. The only problem here is that that's going by pure aesthetics as they both look the same. I don't know anyone that would buy a computer for that price simply because it looked just like a Mac. In fact if you were going to do that you should just buy the Mac. Instead you should look at computer setup that offers the same value as the mac or go by specs. Going by specs I can find a Gateway model GT5685E for $899 for that you get a 2.4Ghz processor a 500 gb hard drive a larger video card, twice the rams and a larger display. Now for a base model iMac you pay $1199.00. Now that's just going by price for a comparable model. I would go by price but using the gateway site I can't get anything close to iMac base specs that's even close, as almost anything by Gateway in that price range is a quad core, and you have to spend 3000 to get a quad core from Apple.

[The_Decider]

Again not all quad cores are equal.<br /><br />These superficial hardware comparisons just shows what I already knew: Windows users are technically ignorant.

[mattumanu]

Who cares?<br /><br />Ok, What I do with my PC, I can't do with a Mac. If the hardware I use for Art and music could be ported over, along with the software, I'd say that's great. Unless you're interested in the Mac only software and have the patience and time to learn that software, making a move to a Mac doesn't make sense.<br /><br />Try running Audacity, Mixcraft and Cakewalk on a mac... You'd have to use boot camp to do it, and after all that after much wasted time, IF you can find software just to replace those three, and that's just for starters.<br /><br />Next time, tell me something useful. Just because you like macs doesn't mean they are the best at getting EVERY task accomplished.

[Sean1314]

I have never seen so much rubbish in all my life. Look at the specs of the notebooks, the mac has 1GB more RAM than the Windows counterpart. Whoever tested these systems want a slap for stupidity. (probably a mac user trying anything they can to get one up on pc's) Yes your mac's break too hence the reason for lots of sites like this: www.macfixit.com. Now Im off to play some GAMES on my PC.

[The_Decider]

Indeed<br /><br />Windows is a toy, OSX and Linux are for real work.

[mustangj36]

Oh yeah, Popular Mechanics ranks right up there with The Wall Street Journal as THE authoritative place to go for computer information. NOT!!!<br /><br />What a joke. Didn't know there were Apple fanboys working at such a pedestrian mag like PM, which should have folded twenty years ago and is unseen outside of barbershops today. Come to think of it, all those magazines are at least five years old. LOL.