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Windows iMac runs Photoshop faster than on OS X

Rich Brown Former Senior Editorial Director - Home and Wellness
Rich was the editorial lead for CNET's Home and Wellness sections, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Before moving to Louisville in 2013, Rich ran CNET's desktop computer review section for 10 years in New York City. He has worked as a tech journalist since 1994, covering everything from 3D printing to Z-Wave smart locks.
Expertise Smart home, Windows PCs, cooking (sometimes), woodworking tools (getting there...)
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Rich Brown

One of the biggest hang-ups with the Intel Macs is that there's still software, notably Adobe Photoshop, whose Apple-specific code has not yet been converted to run on Intel-based hardware. Apple's answer was emulation, but the performance in intense content creation apps like Photoshop and Sorensen Squeeze for video editing is ugly. But here in the post-Boot Camp world, Intel-based Apple owners can now have it both ways.

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. Stay tuned for tomorrow, when we have Windows-based iMac Core Duo results for the rest of our benchmark tests.

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