[X4U] Is there a Mac Pro list? (question about Windows under Boot Camp)

[Tim Collier]

On Nov 24, 2007, at 12:33 PM, Jim Robertson wrote:

> Macintouch's detailed review of the Mac Pro talks about one problem  
> for
> those of us who must run Windows - the fact that Windows (including  
> Vista)
> still uses an ancient process for connecting the OS to the hard drive
> (BIOS). Apparently this affects the Mac Pro particularly, resulting  
> in VERY
> poor performance for applications that do lots of disk access, such as
> Photoshop.
>
> Macintouch's review was written quite some time ago, and there are  
> some
> discussions on Mac web forums suggesting that this problem has been  
> resolved
> with newer versions of Boot Camp, but I don't know for sure, and  
> when I
> asked at my local Apple Store, they basically said "duh..." or the
> equivalent when I showed them the Macintouch review at
>
> <http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/macpro/followup.html>
>
> (read the part about Boot Camp).
>
> I'm considering buying a computer to replace my PowerMac G5. I do a  
> fair
> amount in Photoshop (and will do it in the Mac OS with CS3), so I  
> don't want
> to step down in performance in the Mac OS (and I can take two of the  
> SATA
> drives I have in the dual G5 into the Mac Pro), but I'm not keen on  
> having
> crippled Windows OS performance (my work requires me to run web based
> software that requires Internet Explorer for Windows - won't even  
> run in
> FireFox for Windows).
>
> Anyone have knowledge of whether this is still a problem with the  
> current
> version of Boot Camp in Leopard. Alternatively, anyone know if  
> there's a Mac
> Pro listserv akin to this one?
>
> Thanks so much,
>
> Jim Robertson

I've run Vista and XP on my Mac Pro and I was never quite satisfied  
with how they ran.  I had Vista on it for about 2 weeks and it started  
getting corrupted then got to the point where it would no longer  
boot.  So, I gave up on that, XP is 'OK' but still not great.  Maybe  
I'm just spoiled by Tiger and now Leopard.  Everything on the Mac side  
runs fine, actually better than fine--excellent.  Another problem you  
run into with XP and Vista is that they only recognize 2 gig of RAM.   
I have 8 gig RAM installed on my Mac Pro.
My solution, as I do need to occasionally run something only a PC will  
do (gasp).  I went out and bought a cheap PC, built in graphics and  
sound, in other words, crap.  But it does the job and actually runs  
Vista a lot better than my Mac Pro does.

Tim