Windows runs better on a mac?

That is something I was told in the Apple store today. I am still working on my decision to switch and i made an appointment at the Apple store to learn more about the macbook. The guy was awesome and able to answer all my questions and do some terrific demos. I am almost there. He made an interesting statement to me. I told him that I may on occasionally need to run software that will only run on windows and this software is slow even on a windows machine. I was concerned about how fast it would run it I booted to windows through bootcamp and ran the software. He said it would run faster than on a windows machine because of the way the mac handles ram. He drew a little diagram of it and he sounded very credible but I had honestly never heard that before. Does this sound true? Very nice if it is.

I don't know about the memory part since the latest versions of Windows (at least from NT on handle memory more efficiently) but I can relate from experience that my MacBook runs Windows XP very well. Does it run it better than a PC? That depends.

Anyway, the important thing to keep in mind is that folks buy a Mac to run OS X. OS X is a Unix and BSD derivative, extremely stable, and powerful. Macs are also built very well and have the best customer support and satisfaction of any other brand of computer in the world. (That according to latest magazine write ups.)

When you buy a Mac you also get a bonus in that (ever since the use of Intel CPUs) Windows can be run natively. Two for one!

Regards.

I agree with all of that and that is why I'm leaning Mac. So I guess you are saying it will run at least as well as a windows machine so what's the decision. Good point.

I'm not exactly sure what the Apple guy was trying to say, but Windows on an Apple machine runs just like Windows on any other machine with the same hardware. The "Mac" is not "handling" the RAM when the system is running Windows; Windows manages its own RAM just as it would on any other machine.

My guess is that he was trying to play up the RAM architecture of the Mac Pro, which is a fairly fast and sophisticated system, (FB-DIMMs, 256-bit wide, error correcting...) but:
1. This fancy setup is only found on the Mac Pro, not on the iMac or any other Apple product, and
2. That setup is not substantially different from what you'd find on a Dell Precision or other high-end, high-priced Xeon workstation.

So, in short, Windows runs on an Apple box just like it would on any other box. Faster Apple boxes run Windows better than slower Apple boxes.

technologist nailed it on the head. Windows will run as well as it would on any other machine with comparable hardware. It won't run any faster just because it's a Mac.

Thanks. That is helpful. I am trying to stay with the Macbook because I travel a lot and am trying to stay as mobile as possible but for specs, the MBP sounds faster I guess. From what I've read in various articles, while it may be faster, I wont be doing any graphics intensive tasks so the speed difference from the 2.4g MB and the MBP's will be small. That's what I'm reading anyway that the MBP really shines if you are working with video, gaming, or other heavy graphic use. Do you agree with that? or that is that off as well. Trying to decide today. Thanks.

Personally am a MBP fan vs the MB.

Having said that, with this new generation, doubt that you would notice much, if any, difference speed wise between the 2.4 GHz MBP and MB. Especially if you're not doing a lot of video and/or 3D gaming and such.

You're looking at one that uses 'shared' memory vs one that has dedicated video memory. As a long time 'gamer', have never been able to bring myself to buy a machine with shared memory, but it's just fine for the vast majority or regular users.

The one thing to look at between the two - do you need firewire? You'll only get that on the MBP.

If I remember correctly, several months ago, PC Magazine or one of its ilk published a story about how well the MacBook Pro benchmarked running Vista as compared to a number of other high-end notebooks. This article was blown out of proportion by a number of Mac fan sites and has sensationalized this rather arbitrary article into a mantra of "Vista runs even better on a Mac than it does on a PC!".

Tech is absolutely right. Windows will run just as well as it would on a comparable PC. My guess is the Apple Store employee is confused. The fact that the current aluminum Macbook uses DDR3 (which is somewhat unusual amongst notebooks of this class), tempered with the sensationalized story above, probably led to this comment.

Despite the fancy packaging, current Intel Macs are PCs at heart in that they use the same x86 architecture. What sets them apart is the operating system (OS X). So claims like this just don't hold a lot of water.

I run Windows under VMware on my iMac. I didn't install any virus protection on Windows because if it does get infected, I'll just blow it away and restore to the snapshot I took when it was first installed and ready for me to use. Windows runs so slowly because of all of the anti-virus you need to be protected. Without it, in my configuration, Windows XP Pro on my iMac is, in fact, faster than it is on my Dell Inspiron quad core box with all the antivirus stuff.

Jawjuh said:

That is something I was told in the Apple store today. I am still working on my decision to switch and i made an appointment at the Apple store to learn more about the macbook. The guy was awesome and able to answer all my questions and do some terrific demos. I am almost there. He made an interesting statement to me. I told him that I may on occasionally need to run software that will only run on windows and this software is slow even on a windows machine. I was concerned about how fast it would run it I booted to windows through bootcamp and ran the software. He said it would run faster than on a windows machine because of the way the mac handles ram. He drew a little diagram of it and he sounded very credible but I had honestly never heard that before. Does this sound true? Very nice if it is.

Click to expand...

Check out this link regarding the CPU used in iMac's. It could explain things... I suspect that later 2008 iMac's were overclocked as well, not just the 3GHz parts. Electronista | 3GHz iMac's CPU overclocked, not next-gen

jakerich said:

I run Windows under VMware on my iMac. I didn't install any virus protection on Windows because if it does get infected, I'll just blow it away and restore to the snapshot I took when it was first installed and ready for me to use. Windows runs so slowly because of all of the anti-virus you need to be protected. Without it, in my configuration, Windows XP Pro on my iMac is, in fact, faster than it is on my Dell Inspiron quad core box with all the antivirus stuff.

Click to expand...

With all the free antivirus, I don't know why you would not install it. AVG is my favorite along with ad-aware as spyware protection.

Also, quadcores only run as fast as the speed of each core. Most programs cannot take advantage of the quadcore. VMware does take advantage.

This is awesome guys. Going to the apple store later on today to purchase my first mac. Thanks for all the help!!

Windows on your Mac...

Hi,

I have been using VMWare fusion with Windows-XP on my MBP for about a year, and the one additional piece of info I can offer is that the window's window will (still) crash; though in EXACTLY the same manner as it would on a dedicated PC.

But the good news is that now, its just a "window", so now you can surf the web, check you mail, etc while your Windows window reboots itself.

Maybe this says more about VMWare (and BTW, 'Parallels' gave me similar experiences !) than Apple, but somehow the reboots don't anger me nearly as much when they are just a window.

tob

jimd144 said:

With all the free antivirus, I don't know why you would not install it. AVG is my favorite along with ad-aware as spyware protection.

Also, quadcores only run as fast as the speed of each core. Most programs cannot take advantage of the quadcore. VMware does take advantage.

Click to expand...

I don't run antivirus, free or not, because it slows Windows down too much. Because I can whack it and restore the snapshot so much faster than on a hardware Windows machine, I'll live risky.

True about quadcores (and dual cores). Which is actually to my advantage. VMWare uses one core, OSX the other, so both run pretty quickly simultaneously.

tob said:

CLIP...

Maybe this says more about VMWare (and BTW, 'Parallels' gave me similar experiences !) than Apple, but somehow the reboots don't anger me nearly as much when they are just a window.

tob

Click to expand...

Heh! My thoughts exactly. It's just a window...

jimd144 said:

With all the free antivirus, I don't know why you would not install it. AVG is my favorite along with ad-aware as spyware protection.

Also, quadcores only run as fast as the speed of each core. Most programs cannot take advantage of the quadcore. VMware does take advantage.

Click to expand...

I run absolutely zero virus protection or spyware protection. How can I? Easy, I'm a boring person who visits the same sites, stay away from junk porn =p, and download things I am 110% confident with. Ever since I uninstalled all of that on my Windows machine, it runs much smoother and with less hiccups.

Back on topic, Just to restate what everyone is pretty much saying here, from a hardware perspective it's all the same and Windows won't run any "better" on a Mac if all things hardware being equal.

All motherboards are not made equal. They'll be a 7 or 8% spread in benchmarks between identically specced motherboards from various manufacturers.

Looking at the Mac Pro benchmarks, it could just be that Apple happen to make a very decent motherboard.

When people complain that Macs are expensive, they should bear in mind that they could get a PC with a cheap, generic motherboard which would be more expensive than one with a decent Asus mobo - even if the spec sheets are the same.