Performance – Act 2, Scene 2

Count OS X puts up a good fight, but is pummelled mercilessly. Dizzy with pain and barely able to see Baron Vista wooing an impressed maiden, the count ponders why he was beaten. Both have lightning fists and quick responses.

We can find a winner even without resorting to talk of clock cycles and gigaflops. PCs are definitely the place to go if you want the latest technology.

PCs were privileged to the first Intel Core and Core 2 Duo CPUs, they've had access to high-speed wireless 802.11n wireless for some time, not to mention high-capacity Blu-ray and HD DVD drives.

OS X is no shrinking violet -- it excels in disciplines like video encoding and image processing, and can help you render a 3D necklace of posies really quickly.

Vista is arguably just as good at such foppish tasks, but has superior gaming abilities. Frag-happy mouse jockies are better off with a Windows PC because all the best graphics cards and games are released there before they're released for OS X. Vista looks set to extend its lead in this area even further with forthcoming DirectX 10 games.

Baron Vista takes the win.

Score: Mac OS X-1, Windows Vista-1