Speedtest.net

[steckrca]

So I've got three computers sitting here in front of me. The first one is a hackintosh running 10.5.5 with a P4 3.0GHz, etc, etc. The second running Windows 7 with a PentiumD 3.0GHz. The third, a MacBook running 10.5.5 and XP. I've run bandwidth tests on Speedtest.net, only to find really different results. On the hackintosh I get speeds of around 28 mb/s, consistently. On the Windows 7 box, I get only around 16 mb/s. I have identical wireless cards in each, and the processors are similar enough to warrant similar results. And then running XP on the MacBook, I get only about 4 mb/s down. Running 10.5.5, I get about 21 mb/s. I understand the discrepancy between the XP and OSX on the MacBook, but between windows and OSX on two different machines, that seems a little absurd.

 

So three machines, three different operating systems:

 

MacBook on XP: 4mb/s

MacBook on OSX: 21mb/s

Hack on OSX: 28mb/s

Box on Windows7: 16mb/s

 

I'd like to think that it's the operating systems making the difference here. Anyone else see similar results??

[inimicus]

What sample size are you working with? My speedtest results on the same machine often vary as much as the above.

 

The best approach would be to do at least ten speedtests each on ten different cities and post them all in a table with the averages. Then we'd get a better idea of how accurate these results are.

[steckrca]

I'm not certain what the sample size is on speedtest.net. I've done multiple tests, and the results from each computer don't vary all that much between iterations. The results I quoted are essentially averages, I just haven't documented them and done the math for accuracy.

[bofors]

So I've got three computers sitting here in front of me. The first one is a hackintosh running 10.5.5 with a P4 3.0GHz, etc, etc. The second running Windows 7 with a PentiumD 3.0GHz. The third, a MacBook running 10.5.5 and XP. I've run bandwidth tests on Speedtest.net, only to find really different results. On the hackintosh I get speeds of around 28 mb/s, consistently. On the Windows 7 box, I get only around 16 mb/s. I have identical wireless cards in each, and the processors are similar enough to warrant similar results. And then running XP on the MacBook, I get only about 4 mb/s down. Running 10.5.5, I get about 21 mb/s. I understand the discrepancy between the XP and OSX on the MacBook, but between windows and OSX on two different machines, that seems a little absurd.

 

So three machines, three different operating systems:

 

MacBook on XP: 4mb/s

MacBook on OSX: 21mb/s

Hack on OSX: 28mb/s

Box on Windows7: 16mb/s

 

I'd like to think that it's the operating systems making the difference here. Anyone else see similar results??

 

That is pretty wild. What happens on bandwidth meters other than Speedtest.net?

[KrazyDawg]

So I've got three computers sitting here in front of me. The first one is a hackintosh running 10.5.5 with a P4 3.0GHz, etc, etc. The second running Windows 7 with a PentiumD 3.0GHz. The third, a MacBook running 10.5.5 and XP. I've run bandwidth tests on Speedtest.net, only to find really different results. On the hackintosh I get speeds of around 28 mb/s, consistently. On the Windows 7 box, I get only around 16 mb/s. I have identical wireless cards in each, and the processors are similar enough to warrant similar results. And then running XP on the MacBook, I get only about 4 mb/s down. Running 10.5.5, I get about 21 mb/s. I understand the discrepancy between the XP and OSX on the MacBook, but between windows and OSX on two different machines, that seems a little absurd.

 

So three machines, three different operating systems:

 

MacBook on XP: 4mb/s

MacBook on OSX: 21mb/s

Hack on OSX: 28mb/s

Box on Windows7: 16mb/s

 

I'd like to think that it's the operating systems making the difference here. Anyone else see similar results??

 

XP and Windows 7 are still two different OS. I've read that Windows7/Vista don't need to be "tweaked" to optimize your bandwidth but with XP you do have to change the RWIN and other settings to maximize your speed. That might be where the difference lies. I noticed in OS X the RWIN is set significantly higher. I don't know if that's by default but on Dell D620 dual booting XP and OS X, OS X is significantly faster and maximizes my bandwidth. My speed test results are 8Mbit on OS X and on XP it struggles to hit 6Mbit. My connection is also rated for 6Mbit through Comcast and I verified it with real time speeds, so it's not a fluke. I've been hitting stable speeds of 870 KB/sec on OS X which are not powerboost speed bursts. This was performed on over 1GB of anime downloaded consecutively.