Snow Leopard vs. Leopard – Real World Speed Tests

Snow Leopard is fast. It really is. Benchmarks can’t really show this, as they primarily only measure hardware speeds. Unless you got a new Mac with your new Leopard, the best way to compare speed is by timing a task several times and taking the average of it. This is what I did.

A few Mac review/blog sites have posted benchmark comparisons, but these don’t show off the true speed increases you’ll achieve with Snow Leopard. Here are some real-world tests I’ve done on my own on my two personal machines.

* note that for this experiment, both machines had completely wiped hard drives and fresh installs of Leopard and then Snow Leopard.

2GHz Intel Core Duo iMac 20″
Western Digital Caviar Green 7200rpm 1TB HD
2GB DDR2 SDRAM
2006 model, 3+ years old

With 10.5.8 Installed

Full Boot: 48 seconds
Launch Photoshop CS4: 7.4 seconds
Launch xCode: 21 seconds
Launch REALbasic: 1 minute 22 seconds

Copy 750MB of files in Finder: 2 minutes 54 seconds
Empty 2GB from the Trash: 1 minute 19 seconds

Wake from Sleep: 3.5 seconds
Activate REALbasic from being hidden in the Dock overnight: 40+ seconds
Load apple.com: 4 seconds
Login to MySpace.com: 9 seconds
Login to PayPal.com: 14 seconds

Max download speed from ISP News Groups using Panic’s Unison (as reported in Activity Monitor): 642KB/sec

Shut down: 26 seconds

With 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Installed

Full Boot: 27 seconds
Launch Photoshop CS4: 3.9 seconds
Launch xCode: 14 seconds
Launch REALbasic: 54 seconds

Copy 750MB of files in Finder: 2 minutes 12 seconds
Empty 2GB from the Trash: 58 seconds

Wake from Sleep: <1 second Activate REALbasic from being hidden in the Dock overnight: 1.5 seconds Load apple.com: 2.8 seconds Login to MySpace.com: 6.5 seconds Login to PayPal.com: 11 seconds Max download speed from ISP News Groups using Panic's Unison (as reported in Activity Monitor): 714KB/sec Shut down: 3.5 seconds 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 15″
Western Digital Caviar Green 7200rpm 250GB HD
2GB DDR2 SDRAM – 2006 model, 3+ years old

With 10.5.8 Installed

Full Boot: 39 seconds
Launch Photoshop CS4: 6.9 seconds
Launch xCode: 17 seconds
Launch REALbasic: 1 minute 4 seconds

Copy 750MB of files in Finder: 3 minutes 7 seconds
Empty 2GB from the Trash: 1 minute 12 seconds

Wake from Sleep: 2 seconds
Activate REALbasic from being hidden in the Dock overnight: 30+ seconds
Load apple.com: 5 seconds
Login to MySpace.com: 10 seconds
Login to PayPal.com: 15 seconds

Max download speed from ISP News Groups using Panic’s Unison (as reported in Activity Monitor): 628KB/sec

Shut down: 14 seconds

With 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Installed

Full Boot: 29 seconds
Launch Photoshop CS4: 3.5 seconds
Launch xCode: 11.5 seconds
Launch REALbasic: 51 seconds

Copy 750MB of files in Finder: 2 minutes 4 seconds
Empty 2GB from the Trash: 49 seconds

Wake from Sleep: <1 second Activate REALbasic from being hidden in the Dock overnight: <1 second Load apple.com: 3 seconds Login to MySpace.com: 7 seconds Login to PayPal.com: 11 seconds Max download speed from ISP News Groups using Panic's Unison (as reported in Activity Monitor): 708KB/sec Shut down: 2.9 seconds The Results: Snow Leopard Runs Circles Around Leopard in Every Task

As you can see, Snow Leopard is A LOT faster in just about every basic task. Some tasks, such as waking heavy apps from being open but inactive for 12+ hours, are just insanely quicker. Other tasks are just a smidgeon faster, but multiplied by a few times each day over a couple of years, the time saved adds up quickly. Getting info on a big folder to figure out its size, searching within Mail.app, Spotlight indexes and searches, everything feels genuinely snappier.

The speed increases alone are enough to warrant an upgrade to Snow Leopard, but add all of the additional new (albeit small, but very welcome) feature enhancements, and more importantly, the foundation for future potential that this operating system promises. In another year or so, expect many apps and common tasks to fly at much quicker rates than my modest 3 year old Apple hardware can currently achieve; meanwhile, I’ll enjoy my 15-35% speed increase throughout.

Go Snow Leopard!