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 such as 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 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 percent. It's also worth noting that the iMac Core Duo with Windows beat Pentium D 830-based PCs from Dell and Gateway on Photoshop as well. Come back tomorrow, when we'll have Windows-based iMac Core Duo results for the rest of our benchmark tests.

• See product information for Apple Boot Camp (beta)
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