CNet has a series of articles on Apple’s Boot Camp, which lets users with Intel-powered Macs (currently new iMacs and MacBook Pros) install Windows XP on their machines. One conclusion from the various tests and benchmarks done: the Windows version of Photoshop runs faster than the OSX version!
With Windows XP Pro running on a 2.0GHz iMac Core Duo, we ran our Photoshop test in less than half the time it took than with the same system running OS X 10.4.5– 2 minutes, 49 seconds vs. 6 minutes, 30 seconds to be exact, or a difference of 57%. It’s also worth noting that the iMac Core Duo with Windows beat a Pentium D 830-based PCs from Dell and Gateway on Photoshop as well.
Frankly, this is expected, as the Photoshop version for the Intel OS X is actually still running under the Rosetta emulation engine, and still not a native application for the new Macs’ Intel processors, so this takes a hit on performance (reportedly by half). What’s great to hear is that the iMac beat other Intel Core Duo-based computers in terms of performance. So really, the best, fastest, meanest Windows XP machines today are Macs! And Apple isn’t even a Microsoft “partner” company.
I just bought a MacBook and was looking for this kind of information! Since Photoshop for Windows is much cheaper, I was wondering how it would run on Bootcamp vs. Photoshop for Mac running on OSX. Any other thoughts on whether it would be smarter to get the windows version of Photoshop (and Illustrator, as well) to run on Mac bootcamp vs. buying the Mac versions?