Linux hands down is going to be more profitable if you know what you're doing. We ran extensive tests on 58xx and 69xx systems running both Windows XP and Ubuntu 11 even with the "limited" overclocking controls we found Linux to be faster by far than Windows. Keep in mind that we first searched for the sweet spot of profitability, sometimes overclocking reduces your profit margin.
Long term this is a game about maximizing profit, and while maxing out MH/s seems like the thing to do, you should be much more concerned with MH/J, we found that over clocking outside of the 'normal' settings, resulted in a lower MH/J in all cases.
Then you obviously don't know what you are doing. Post some settings and screenshots and we'll soon find out if you're talking fanboy crap. With a 5830 the best hash rate you're going to get is around 330 MHz in Windows. "Faster by far" would be around 400 MHz. So, lets see then.
He is not talking mhz here. He is talking overall profit.
If OS A. gives 1000 MH using 500wats = 1000/500= 2
OS B. Gives 1200 MH using 550wats = 1200/500= 1,83333333
in this examble OS B i clearly filling you butcoin wallet faster but in return it is emptying it even faster than OS A. making it less desirable if you want to maximize your profit.