Apple's Mac Pro, however, presents a different story. Our latest Apple test bed has two dual-core Xeon 5160 chips, each running at 3.0GHz. That makes its raw CPU speed faster than that of the Core 2 Extreme QX6700. On some of our apps -- iTunes and Photoshop in particular -- differences between running the programs on Windows XP and Apple OS X are likely to impact on performance, but it's worth noting that even with a slower hard drive, the Mac Pro outpaced the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 chip on a number of tests, probably due to its clock speed advantage.
It seems to us that the performance takeaway is that for Windows users who can afford it, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 is the way to go for the fastest PC today. As our single-core CineBench scores show, you might run into some apps that benefit more from raw clock speed than having multiple cores, but in general, we haven't seen a faster desktop chip. But professionals who have the luxury to choose among platforms are probably better off sticking with a Mac Pro, all other things being equal.
We imagine that due to its partnership with Intel, Apple will be updating the CPUs in its high-end desktop in the near future, so it's not hard to fathom a Mac Pro with a single quad-core chip or perhaps two quad-core chips, so just because the current two dual-core Xeon design isn't quite a true 'quad-core CPU', Mac loyalists shouldn't feel like they're limiting themselves.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
RSS Feeds 
Send Us Tips