So Negative,

He was comparing a non-server beta os to a unix deployment? And a sun at that. OK XP loses. lol. I don't think anyone would argue the speed of a unix installation versus a windows installation on similar hardware back in what was it... 1998? Traditionally Unix machines where faster because they ran on high end hardware as compared to small deployments of Windows. Unix was developed down one path, windows down the other. Server versus workstation. Shoot the fastest decently priced mini frames were Sun and Data General Unix. Both extremely expensive compared to Windows. Hundreds of times the cost. No make that thousands.

Now when we go into this realm of a supercomputer with 30 some processors? Well that's apples and oranges. Since moors law is in effect perhaps some research into a modern reality would be better considering it's 2005. Outside of the super computer realm where I would wager unix is king or some of the grossly proprietary OS', when you compare Unix and windows on the same harware they vary in performance based on what you are doing.

Once you cross a threshold though Unix is appropriate without rival. But you pay out the ass for that. In fact many older unix deployments often get replaced by clusters of windows machines that rival the speed at a fraction of the cost.