Speed Tests: Windows 7 slower than Mac OS X?

CNET has just waded into the debate.  Their test results showed that Windows 7 was a lot slower on a MacBook Pro than Mac OS X.  Just look at this graph: the longer the bars, the slower the task was performed--and the less impressive the performance.


While multitasking, Windows 7 proved to be almost twice as slow as Mac OS X.  The same was true when it came to shutting down, which leaves Microsoft's 30% lag on boot time seem like a good result.

Some of the results are surprising though: 42.7 seconds to boot to the desktop?  We did our own tests a little while back, and on an entry-level machine, we managed a boot time of 33 seconds, and just 26 seconds on a more powerful computer.  And while CNET found that the battery lasted almost 30% longer on Mac OS X than on Windows 7, that also surprised us: we found that Windows 7 was relatively energy efficient.

On the other hand, they found that Windows 7 did better with games. 

Let's take these results for what they actually show: Windows 7 is slower than Mac OS X on an Apple computer.  There's nothing else to conclude …

> Windows 7: faster than Vista and XP?

> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products