How Windows 10 Performs On a 12-inch MacBook

An anonymous reader writes: As Microsoft prepares for the launch of Windows 10, review sites have been performing all sorts of benchmarks on the tech preview to evaluate how well the operating system will run. But now a computer science student named Alex King has made the most logical performance evaluation of all: testing Windows 10's performance on a 2015 MacBook. He says, "Here's the real kicker: it's fast. It's smooth. It renders at 60FPS unless you have a lot going on. It's unequivocally better than performance on OS X, further leading me to believe that Apple really needs to overhaul how animations are done. Even when I turn Transparency off in OS X, Mission Control isn't completely smooth. Here, even after some Aero Glass transparency has been added in, everything is smooth. It's remarkable, and it makes me believe in the 12-inch MacBook more than ever before. So maybe it's ironic that in some regards, the new MacBook runs Windows 10 (a prerelease version, at that) better than it runs OS X."

Comments

OSX performance is dismal nowadays

[ironduke-particle]

It has long appeared to me that all the best talent at Cupertino is being assigned to work on iOS, and OSX is suffering as a result.

One upon a time, a new MacOSX release meant you might need to put more RAM in the box, but even some seven-year-old piece of hardware would go faster, and there would be fewer bugs or crashes. [Consider a late G3 iMac, upgraded all the way from Public Beta to Tiger.] These days, you put more RAM in (if you can if you have a machine old enough that Apple didn't solder all the memory in during manufacture) just to make it less sluggish.

Drawing performance seems especially poor, which makes me wonder: if I bought a top-end top-of-the-range Mac Pro, would it be any better at being a desktop computer than what I have now? I'm not sure it would.

Re:Anecdotal evidence

[phayes]

Apple has been optimising OS X for years, but not for Graphics Performance. They've been optimising it for longer battery duration.

It's been years since I've needed or even noticed needing better graphics performance yet battery performance of OS X pure versus Windows? Oh yeah, THAT I notice. On the occasions I forget a charger I have to minimise running Windows or I'll be running out of battery at least twice as fast as when using OS X. I can get work 7 Hours using just the battery on my rMBP with occasional excursions to Windows to check mail but or use corporate windows only tools but running windows will only give me 3 hours. Windows isn't even doing much, it just does it all the time & never lets the CPU sleep for any significant time - see here for reasons why.

Yeah, the pure graphics performance may be poorer on OS X. Most people don't care as long as it's good enough.