First impressions are, it is faster, but it’s not the huge gap I was expecting.  Apple have re-written the entire operating system to run natively in 64 bit.  Good news since Apple have been pushing 64bit Core 2 Duo processors out for a few years now.

I was teetering on the edge of swapping back to a dedicated Windows machine.  Those who read my last post would have seen me surprised to see how well Vista runs through Bootcamp.  Well, I decided to run a little test.

Photoshop CS3, 141 JPG images and an automated action with the following commands:

1. Auto levels
2. Auto colour
3. Resize to 50%
4. Save for Web
5. Close

So, Snow Leopard was first, and completed the test in 6:55.  Windows was booted up, and I opened the images.  I wish I had timed the opening of the 141 images, as Windows was considerably slower.  Once it finally opened, the action was run.  Windows completed in 7:45.

Both tests were run from a folder on the desktop, both from the same hard drive.

I think if the RAM was upgraded, the Mac would have steamed ahead thanks to it’s 64bit-ness.

So, for now, I’m back on the Mac side of the fence…