Here's a good question:

Is Linux better at utilizing hardware efficiently to produce optimal performance out of your components. I hear a lot about Mac OSX being so much better with Intel processors and yada yada, but I don't know if this is true or if a bunch of Mac elitists said a bunch of crap and ran with it. I don't think there are actual comparable benchmarks, but if there are, where does Linux lie in the hardware efficiency race? (Or is it dependent on which Linux distribution it is, like how XP still beats Vista in performance?)

Ah, i wish i still had this one article i saw that showed Linux running a super computer no problem. I think i saw the article at linuxdevices.com. The super computer had 1,024 dual-core processors all running under one Linux kernel. The computer was being used by NASA according to the article, i think. I'll see if i can dig up the article again. Found it: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9254503858.html

Linux can be better at utilizing hardware efficiently and you can do more common graphics operations such as clipping, lighting and 3-D transformations, as well as special effects involving application of physical models.

I've no benchmarks but Mac are well optimized on some hardware

Linux instead has to run efficiently on a large range of hw

Maybe a comparison can be made beetwen linux from scratch and a mac (And I think linux will win the challenge)

Another important note is that linux has a lot of different graphics libraries (QT, GTK, EFL, etc...) and there are a lot of differences in performance beetwen them
The new QT4 for example is damned fast (tested on old hw )

I'd agree that Mac is better with some specialized hardware (ie. Intel processors, and Apple hardware), but Linux is great in general hardware usage...

First of all, it allows for a complete control of hardware, whereas, Wintendo restricts access to the physical device...

For instance, I had several problems connecting my Nokia 9300 under Wintendo, via USB cable... Under Linux, all I had to do is connect USB cable, to a lsusb command, and there it was, "Nokia Mobile Phones 9300 GSM Smartphone"... I installed KMobileTools and guess what... I can send SMS from my computer via my phone, I can download my phonebook, and a bunch of other stuff...

I know mobile phones are not exactly your every day hardware, but hey, it's still a piece of equipment...

Same goes for my Genius Webcam, my sound card, even my ancient TV/FM card... Only thing I haven't tried is installing drivers for two of my winmodems.... But linux sees them, and allows me to access them, even though there are no drivers available...

How's that for hardware management

Also, that supercomputer story.... /me drools.... I want one fo those

After trying ubuntu for a couples I would have to say that linux under utilizes the hardware a bit and the reason I saw that is the SWAP file. Instead of using your RAM, linux uses the SWAP file as your RAM thus the reason you want to have at least 2GB in the swap file. On the other hand, linux that is used in server base technology is a lot, because of the fact that 50-60% of hosting servers are using linux compared to Windows and on top of that, every day tech products are using linux as well.

So linux can stand on its on, but as a operating system, it still has years to go because of how easily it can be customized and what not.