[HingVista]

These benchmarks are reliable indicators of performance, but the numbers feel somewhat meaningless to ordinary users. Which is why we (at Popularmechanics) created our own suite of tests to meas­ure the speed of everyday tasks. We logged boot-up and shutdown times, and launch times for the Internet browser and media player built into each operating system, as well as for common applications such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. We tested how long it took for each computer to rip a CD and install a few big software suites. The laptops were forced to play the longest movie we could find (Saving Private Ryan—2 hours, 49 minutes) until they wheezed, sputtered and shut down. Finally, we put all four computers through a stress test. We ran three video sources (a YouTube clip, a DVD and an .avi file), DivX encoding, instant messaging, Word, Adobe Acrobat and a spyware scan simultaneously—then retimed our launch of Photoshop.

The results gave us a clear winner in the performance categories, but the big surprise was how little difference we found in user preferences. Turns out, both platforms are capable and easy to use, but only one was the victor.

Desktops Specs & Speed test
Laptops Specs & Speed test

Benchmark Scores:

[Fraxtil]

Macintosh computers are specially designed to work with the hardware and software, but the down-side is that it's a lot harder to modify the system.

[M!W]

Well, If your running OSX you won't need to modify the hardware, it is just working pretty well!