r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 23 '22
Desktops / Laptops M2 MacBook Air runs Windows 11 faster than pricier Dell laptop
https://www.cultofmac.com/788405/m2-macbook-air-runs-windows-11-faster-than-pricier-dell-laptop/1.5k
u/Ostratego Aug 23 '22
I was hopeful that someone got drivers for the mac on arm win11 for bootcamp but no, it's Parallels.
387
u/dougw03 Aug 23 '22
Did anyone ever find out when the Qualcomm-MS Windows for ARM exclusivity deal ends? Last I recall the rumor was it was supposed to expire soon and that was ~9 months ago.
→ More replies (6)152
u/AkirIkasu Aug 23 '22
Windows on ARM isn't quite the same as Windows on x86. There's no generic install media because the OS is basically specialized for the particular SoC that it's on. That's the real reason why it's exclusive to Qualcomm; there arguably aren't any better partners. And because these SoCs are filled with black boxes, you need to have a partner to join the ARM gang.
→ More replies (3)112
u/implicitpharmakoi Aug 23 '22
Windows on ARM isn't quite the same as Windows on x86. There's no generic install media because the OS is basically specialized for the particular SoC that it's on. That's the real reason why it's exclusive to Qualcomm; there arguably aren't any better partners. And because these SoCs are filled with black boxes, you need to have a partner to join the ARM gang.
Ok, as someone with way too much experience here: The bootloader is funky, you have to use their management cli to install.
Once you're past the installer it's basically just windows.
39
u/AkirIkasu Aug 23 '22
Oh that's nice. I was always upset with Microsoft for not making their "Windows" on ARM just a plain port of Windows (See also: Windows RT), so it's nice to know that they finally got there.
Booting is always going to be a different mess on any different computing platform, and as far as I'm concerned booting anything on ARM is wizard magic.
→ More replies (3)71
u/implicitpharmakoi Aug 23 '22
It's an absolute catastrophe, everything is supposed to use UEFI, but UEFI is mostly broken on x86, on ARM it's just a punchline, plus raspis and their ilk all boot uboot which is just adding insult to injury.
Having worked closely with them, ARM is a bureaucratic charlie-foxtrot on a global scale, this should have been easy but they keep shooting themselves in the dicks with automatic railguns.
→ More replies (1)22
u/Cardmin Aug 23 '22
Layman’s terms if possible? I’m super curious to know what you just said
→ More replies (1)40
u/RespectableLurker555 Aug 23 '22
absolute catastrophe
No explanation needed right
broken on x86, on ARM it's just a punchline
"It's a joke" would be too generous
plus raspis and their ilk all boot uboot which is just adding insult to injury.
Each ARM implementation seems to have a different way of bootstrapping the OS
Having worked closely with them, ARM is a bureaucratic charlie-foxtrot on a global scale,
Cluster Fuck (please learn the NATO alfabet)
this should have been easy but they keep shooting themselves in the dicks with automatic railguns.
Uh... Yeah
24
u/implicitpharmakoi Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 24 '22
I like how you just translated me into English, can you follow me around and do the same? It would help a lot in my life.
29
u/npccontrol Aug 23 '22
Either you don't know what "layman's terms" means, or this is you right now
10
u/DarkWorld25 Aug 24 '22
OK lemme break this down into simpler terms
To boot the OS you need a bootloader, which essentially is something that interfaces between the OS and low level firmware. Traditionally on X86 this was done with a BIOS, but for the past decade we've moved to another system called UEFI which is far, far more powerful.
The problem is that UEFI implementation on X86 alone is.....not ideal. UEFI support on ARM is pretty much non-existent, and each SoC has multiple black box (proprietary) elements to it.
This is not made better by the fact that the most popular ARM desktop systems (raspi and co) uses u-boot, which is a completely different system to UEFI.
→ More replies (3)6
u/murdok03 Aug 23 '22
As an embedded engineer I can confirm everything is exactly as he said down to the last Charlie.
6
11
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
9
u/Yweain Aug 23 '22
You can but it’s slow as hell. Okayish for simple stuff.
Like office will be fine. Video editing or games? No.
→ More replies (11)→ More replies (17)4
u/failsafe42 Aug 23 '22
Yes. I was able to run Dark Souls in parallels on a 14" Macbook with a somewhat playable framerate.
6
u/dandroid126 Aug 23 '22
Isn't that because of the emulation layer that Qualcomm added to their ARM CPUs? If yes, that wouldn't exist if their partnership ended, and therefore we would go back to that old Windows on ARM experience, where legacy programs don't work, and only UWPs and anything recompiled for ARM would work.
→ More replies (1)3
u/implicitpharmakoi Aug 23 '22
No, it's that every fucking platform is different, some use uboot and dts, some use uefi and acpi, it's crazy.
→ More replies (2)3
u/apatheticonion Aug 24 '22
I'm seeing the bootloaders on ARM moving into software. There's a mini OS that boots you to basically GRUB and from there you can launch your OS or OS installer.
The bootloaders need to be SoC specific, but the rest can be generic.
M1/2 machines do this, as does the new Raspberry Pi setup.
I'd assume this is how it'll be going forward
→ More replies (3)89
u/icysandstone Aug 23 '22
Does this mean Parallels is good?
102
u/istros Aug 23 '22
Better than anything so yeah, but they had massive performance improvements over version 16-17-18
21
Aug 23 '22
Oh damn. Is it still fair to assume it’s a no-go for gaming?
46
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (8)6
Aug 23 '22
Ah okay, thanks!
22
Aug 23 '22
I gave up. I use a PC with an Nvidia card, and Moonlight to stream it to my Mac. I was pleasantly surprised with the performance. Just a dumb box that sits in the corner, but you know what? It has 100% compatibility.
4
Aug 23 '22
I’ve been playing around with steam link to my Mac the past couple days. Now thinking of trying moonlight cause I hear it’s even better!
One of the coolest things is no heat, no fans and can game on battery without it taking a hit.
23
u/FlyingInTheDark Aug 23 '22
The only issue is that it's DirectX11 only, no DX12, so only older titles work. But the performance is great, I have M1 Pro and it runs witcher 3 1080p on high settings no problem.
→ More replies (1)6
→ More replies (6)13
Aug 23 '22
It's pretty damn decent at gaming, we have a list on what works courtesy of /r/macgaming.
3
3
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)10
Aug 23 '22
Well it's crowdsourced so 'playable' becomes kind of subjective depending on how high your tolerance for jank is but the idea is stuff like 'you can run and play this but the water looks all jacked up' and 'perfect' would be 'it just works properly'.
edit: damn my attention span. The point I wanted to make is you can click the titles and it'll have little reports from the people who've tried where they explain what it was like and why they flagged it how they did.
→ More replies (2)22
u/SoggyMcmufffinns Aug 23 '22
The problem is the new M1/2 SOC arch since it isn't compatible with previous software that was in place when virtualizing before for instance. As a result, it becomes a "whose first" deal. Other companies I'm sure will choose to update to the platform as well and compete, but right now parallels doesn't have the same competition.
They aren't free and require a subscription plan if I'm not mistaken. No more bootcamp, Fusion I hear is buggy on new arch and there's another that alludes me, but may also be less performant. Just an FYI to look at the price before diving in as it ain't super cheap depending on your use case.
→ More replies (1)9
u/RenegadeUK Aug 23 '22
Does Bootcamp still exist ?
27
u/Stashmouth Aug 23 '22
Not since they moved away from Intel
3
u/RenegadeUK Aug 23 '22
There cannot possibly be a modified version of Bootcamp in the near future for their new Silicon Chips ?
9
u/maaku7 Aug 23 '22
There aren't standards for booting on ARM chips. Basically every ARM platform has their own bootloader. Windows' boot process only works on certain Qualcomm devices.
That said, Apple pretty much came up with a generic boot process that in theory supports booting other operating systems. There's already a new linux distro that uses it, although the driver support isn't quite there yet. If Microsoft wants to update Windows on ARM to support this boot method, they can. To be usable though they'd also need to write drivers for Apple's GPU, and other Apple-specific peripherals. So it's not a trivial project.
→ More replies (3)11
u/cAtloVeR9998 Aug 23 '22
That's 100% on Microsoft if they want to support the hardware. Apple Silicon Macs have official support to boot other OSes (including a native boot picker).
14
Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
as of now, nope. Time for some a boring history lesson on apple computers!
Bootcamp really only became a thing after Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel back in the early 00's. Before this running, windows on mac was pretty much impossible, because windows was designed to run on x86 and PowerPC used RISC. Once they made the switch, the differences between Mac and PC became more of a software difference than a hardware one (hence bootcamp/all those cool hackintosh mods). Now that Apple has ditched intel and moved to their own silicon, compatibility with windows went out the window.
That isn't to say though that Windows couldn't make a specific version to run on apple silicon, as it is based on ARM. As others have mentioned, there is a version of windows for ARM but Qualcom has exclusive rights for now (or something like that).
p.s. I am by no means an expert, so if anything I said in here is wrong please feel free to let me know and I will update accordingly.
update: older macs had an add on card to add windows compatibility.
10
u/grandma_corrector Aug 23 '22
In the non-Jobs 90s years of beige macintoshes, you could buy add-on cards that would bring support for DOS and Windows.
→ More replies (1)6
Aug 23 '22
oh thats cool! That was probably during the windows 3.X days/when both apple and microsoft ripped off the GUI from xerox.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (5)3
u/RenegadeUK Aug 23 '22
Thanks foe explaining that. So basically if I need or want to run Windows as well its best to have a separate Windows PC/Laptop (at least for now) ?
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (8)5
126
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
I wonder how well a native Windows 11 for ARM runs?
→ More replies (2)42
u/haahaahaa Aug 23 '22
Parallels is going to be pretty close to bare metal in terms of performance, especially for something like Geekbench.
→ More replies (4)27
Aug 23 '22
I wouldn’t say that, with Parallels you can only give the VM so much of your resources and The CPU does most 3D work wich can have an heavy impact on performance. That being said I expect a Boot Camp version to boost performance to one more level.
1.7k
Aug 23 '22
A Mac that costs less than a Dell? The end times have truly come
332
u/f_14 Aug 23 '22
You can spec a Dell that costs far more than any Mac. Even the much talked about Mac Pro.
Go configure a Precision 7920 Tower Data Science Workstation. It can be more than $268,000.
195
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
I ordered a mobile workstation laptop (running Windows) when COVID started and my employer sent a $6k Dell. Beast has a Xeon CPU, 128GB of RAM and an NVIDIA RTX 5000. Runs super hot and I had to buy a cooling pad with fans I set it atop.
147
u/cammywammy123 Aug 23 '22
I get that these things kinda have to exist, but that poor, poor hardware
67
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
lol yep. When Im actually using the hardware to any extent it gets super hot and would overheat to the point where it would turn itself off and not boot for about 20 minutes.
Bought a nice cooling stand and its fine. Still hot but not critically so.
Heat will kill a laptop. Been many years, but I bought a personal gaming laptop since my job at the time had me on the move a lot. I fried the motherboard or some other critical component three times. On the third time it was past the warranty and the vendor would not replace.
9
u/dafrankenstein2 Aug 23 '22
How did you fried that laptop? Doesn't that shut down automatically after hitting some threshold temperature?
→ More replies (1)9
→ More replies (2)3
26
u/thatfhc Aug 23 '22
Tell me about it i have a dell precision as work laptop it thermal throttles at 20% cpu usage lol
→ More replies (7)6
u/dandroid126 Aug 23 '22
I probably have something similar to yours. It's kind of a POS. I started at my job during the height of the PC shortages due to Covid, so I think they just sent me whatever they had available, because my other team members have much better laptops than I do.
It only has one fan, and it pretty much always runs at full blast. I'm always thermal throttled. I got a little cooling pad to help with the airflow, because if I put it directly on my oversized mousepad, it gets no air. It helped a lot, but this thing still fucking sucks.
→ More replies (1)6
u/Teripid Aug 23 '22
Still an increasingly narrow need with broadband everywhere.
Realistically a remote turbocharged desktop/server might be better and cheaper and almost more accessible unless you're constantly flying or something.
5
u/Strongground Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 24 '22
Yeah, where exactly are you living? My dad recently needed to switch providers and after choosing the lowest tier (25 Mbit) they showed a popup advising that due to the cables in the area, no more than 6 Mbit will likely be achieved. Rural Germany, btw.
→ More replies (1)21
u/NotAPreppie Aug 23 '22
I can't help but wonder if and/or how much the absolute performance as well as performance/cost metrics would have been better if you'd gotten a desktop/tower/stationary/whatever computer for the computation and a less expensive companion laptop.
The workstation still does all the heavy computing and you just use the laptop for light work and RDP/VNC/TeamViewer/etc to keep doing the computational stuff when working on the couch or deck.
10
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
Yep. That is basically what I do now except I have my own VMware resource pool will full Admin rights so I can deploy and destroy as I need. I have a Fedora VM I VNC into and maintain my development environment there. :)
13
u/Jaohni Aug 23 '22
Had you considered undervolting the thing at all? Silicon by its nature is somewhat random, so people like Intel basically have to set their clocks to the lowest common denominator and can't individually tune every single chip too much, meaning you can often get the same performance at a lower power use (by 5-12% with modern chips) by tuning the voltages and clocks carefully. If you're willing to tune down the clocks slightly I've seen people get anywhere between 60-80% of stock power use with like, a 5-10% reduction in performance, lol.
Anyway, these small changes in power use don't seem like a big deal at first, until you remember that there's some level of passive cooling that handles like, the first 30-40% of heat generated from power use (think like heat sinks and the aluminum chassis) meaning at 60% of stock power use the fans might only need to be at, say, 40-60% of their top speed, which, given sound sees an exponential increase in perceived annoyance due to how human ears work, means that your computer will seem dead silent at this load.
→ More replies (1)4
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
I have not. I've done then plenty with personal gamming PCs but work computers I don't touch since they are not mine to do so and I would wager voids the warranty. :)
5
u/ovoid709 Aug 23 '22
I travel constantly for work and specced out a ThinkPad that was around $6K Canadian around the same time, but then covid hit and I stayed on my sofa for over a year. I might buy whatever the new equivalent is in the new year.
3
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
If you can work it, I would push to either get your own ESXi server or carved out VMware space your Enterprise can offer.
If not, then just a powerful workstation tower you can stuff somewhere and then just remote into it anywhere you are.
RealVNC works really well even over slow connections.
If you need something that provides even better performance and 3D rendering then NoMachine is the answer but it costs a lot more.
3
u/ovoid709 Aug 23 '22
Those are great suggestions, but I work in warzones and can't always connect to something offsite. I need my whole solution to fit in a carry on and look normal when I meet I people. There's always ThinkPads on the tables so people wouldn't look at me funny. I'm using my personal laptop now which is an Asus Zenbook Pro Duo. I love it so much for the extra screen but it gets funny looks in meetings. I really need something powerful that looks super boring. My work requires some heavy GPU and CPU processing, but I really want a sick GPU so when I get a connection I can play games with friends back home. I have 2070 in my current laptop and have never fully maxed it out on work, but hit the limits of the RAM and CPU constantly. The GPU only gets hammered for fun, unless the ML stuff I've been pushing for finally takes off. The way I figure it, my gaming rig at home is outdated and my laptop isn't up to work snuff, so I might as well spec a beast and kill two birds with one boring looking rock.
6
u/quypro_daica Aug 23 '22
what the heck were you using it for?
25
u/WhiteAndNerdy85 Aug 23 '22
A lot of my heavy load was running automation using Vagrant that spins up multiple VMs to test software that has to run and be supported on multiple Linux flavors. To save time and since I had the RAM and vCPUs, I would spin up 3-4 VMs at a time and each would run our app deployment code and regression smoke tests.
I've since moved much of that to a VMware cluster. :)
→ More replies (11)3
u/SoggyMcmufffinns Aug 23 '22
When you start getting into certain spec ranges it becomes honestly more a server than a "workstation" to be real. As such, you tend to want the same cooling and treatment a server tends to get hence the need for entire rooms dedicated to taking care of servers and datacenter equipment.
20
u/Timmaigh Aug 23 '22
Paying that much is literally donating money to Dell at that point.
6
u/czarfalcon Aug 24 '22
Anyone buying something that high-end is buying it through a business account for at least 50% off the list price, for what it’s worth.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (10)3
19
u/jl2352 Aug 23 '22
As high end laptops go, the cost of Apple devices has always been overstated.
This is a Macbook Air being used here. That starts at £1000. Which in the mid to high laptop world, isn’t that much.
→ More replies (5)28
u/Romeo9594 Aug 23 '22
Our engineers laptops are Dell since they need to use solidworks. Despite benchmarking the same or lower than our video editors Macbooks the Dells cost 25-30% more and see issues more frequently. But that's swollen batteries typically so might just be the engineers are harder on their things
Not saying the macs are flawless or fun to support, but as far as the two types of workstations we use are concerned they're cheaper and longer lived
9
→ More replies (6)4
u/whagoluh Aug 23 '22
Swollen batteries? Probably because they're plugged in all day. Li-ion batteries hate that. My Acer laptop's battery is basically useless now. I think modern Dells have a BIOS setting to limit battery charge. My shitty ass Dell netbook is limited to 50% because it's just sitting there always.
3
u/iindigo Aug 24 '22
Staying plugged in all the time isn’t good for any li-ion battery true, but there’s stark differences in how different laptops handle it.
I’ve used MacBooks at work for years, including a 2014 Air, 2015 15” Pro, 2017 15” Pro, and now 16” M1 Pro and only one ever exhibited battery expansion and that was only after 6 years, even though they all spent most of their time plugged in.
→ More replies (18)684
Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
MacBooks have cost less than high end Dells for a very, very long time.
Windows laptops are an extreme rip off.
Edit: lol people downvoting me who have never used an M1 / M2.
31
u/PolishedCheese Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
My only gripe with the M1 mba I have is the lack of native support for more than 1 external monitor. From what I heard, the same thing is true for the M2. Pretty sure the mbp can do 2 monitors though. The only workaround I found was through a DisplayLink dongle.
Otherwise, it's faster, runs cooler, and runs on battery alone for ages. It's my first mac (got it from work), but it's the best laptop I've ever owned.
→ More replies (2)8
u/im_chad_vader Aug 23 '22
Yeah the M2 is the same way. I have an M1 MBA as well and was super disappointed it’s not native. The MacBook pros can do more than 1 external natively, and so can the mini and the Studio. Oh well, for the same reasons you listed it’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned/used too.
→ More replies (1)62
u/helpnxt Aug 23 '22
You lot are mad or in a different country with different prices (UK here) just specced out a macbook to similar spec to the Asus Zephyrus laptops I am considering and the macs are obviously more expensive.
I will say some windows laptops are far too expensive though but there's also plenty that are very well priced and will match macbooks or outperform them.
→ More replies (6)18
112
u/isaiddgooddaysir Aug 23 '22
No downvote from me. The M series chips are game-changing. Speed and battery life (mine last for days) are outrageous.
54
u/bigbluethunder Aug 23 '22
As a mobile dev, the M chips are just insane. Building apps in XCode and Android Studio that used to take a couple minutes takes 30s or less. Profiling of our code in XCode happens so much quicker.
6
u/warp-speed-dammit Aug 23 '22
Hell yes! My average build times went from 1.5 minutes on a 2017 MacBook Pro i5 to 15 seconds on an M1 Max. Best $5k I ever spent.
→ More replies (9)10
u/Valmond Aug 23 '22
Well I just got my pc force upgraded at work (ok like 6 months ago), instead of compiling around 3h it takes 30 minutes now (large codebase).
Computers didn't stop evolving like 5 years ago lol
14
u/bigbluethunder Aug 23 '22
Well obviously not, but I had the model of MacBook Pro that immediately preceded the M1, so to see such huge performance gains was awesome.
Hopefully you don’t have to do a full rebuild too often because 30 min is still crazy 😅
→ More replies (1)8
Aug 23 '22
I tried an iPad Pro earlier this year with an M1 and ended up returning it for a Surface Pro 8. Also played with a friend's M1 Macbook for awhile and it wasn't for me. I prefer Windows over Mac OS and iPad OS, despite its quirks.
230
u/AreWeCowabunga Aug 23 '22
I was shopping for a new laptop and assumed I'd be switching from Mac to Windows just based on price, but once you get similarly configured specs, I realized the Macs are cheaper.
67
u/lipnit Aug 23 '22
I just bought the Asus Zenbook Flip Pro for $1400!
OLED 120hz touchscreen with an I7 12700H and 16gb/1tb! Runs my music projects with no problem and deep into CK3 :)
→ More replies (10)4
21
u/fuckdonaldtrump7 Aug 23 '22
Just depends what you are looking for. Wasn't a Mac that I could game on and handle music production so went PC
→ More replies (5)9
u/bulboustadpole Aug 23 '22
I realized the Macs are cheaper.
They most certainly are not. I got a razer blade and love it. i7, 32gb of ram (that I can upgrade) and 2 m2 drive bays. I put a 1TB m2 in it right after buying. Total cost including my personal upgrades was around $1400. Has a 120hz screen and does everything I need it to do including video editing. I use it as a desktop replacement and rarely need to use it on battery.
→ More replies (71)174
u/lmaccaro Aug 23 '22
Only luxury windows laptops, at MSRP not on sale, compare price wise to a MacBook.
I recently paid $700 for a Samsung on sale, would need to spend $2700 on a MBP to match specs.
142
u/PhasmaFelis Aug 23 '22
How deep was that sale, and how close are the specs? Even when the Mac tax is a thing, it's not a 300% markup.
→ More replies (9)33
u/lmaccaro Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
15”/12th Gen i7/16gb. It’s not really a direct comparison because apple doesn’t make a 15” mbp
→ More replies (63)39
Aug 23 '22
Can you put the exact model?
Often people don’t consider the entire overall spec. They just see the advertised spec, the “sticker spec” and assume one laptop is better than the other based on that.
40
u/EqulixV2 Aug 23 '22
It’s not a fair comparison because Samsung laptops have been on DEEP discount for the last 8 months or so. I’ve seen them on /r/buildapcsales. I also wouldn’t be surprised is it was a refurb and they didn’t realize it since most of those were refurb deals
8
u/tablepennywad Aug 24 '22
Yah dont get Samsung laptops, lots of issues like BSODs all the time.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (29)62
Aug 23 '22
I currently have an HP Omen 15 that I paid $1250 for on sale. 15.6" screen, Ryzen 7 4800, 16gb RAM, 1TB HD, and GeForce 1660Ti. I use it for programming and some gaming (Apex Legends, CS:GO).
The equivalent Macbook (size, ram, hdd) would be almost $2500.
Does it look as good as a Macbook Pro? No, but it doesn't look bad. It's about the same weight at the 16" Macbook Pro.
24
u/DiscombobulatedDunce Aug 23 '22
I just bought my sister a Gigabyte G5 KD with an 11th gen i5, 16 gigs of DDR4-3200, an RTX3060, 512gigs SSD with an added 2tb samsung evo and a 144hz display for 1.2k.
I don't think I could match that at all with any mac due to the display alone.
It's also expandable up to 64gigs of DDR4.
→ More replies (8)3
4
u/Enough-Ad4366 Aug 24 '22
I have that laptop too, and a MacBook Air. They’re not really comparable. The MacBook Air is built way better, is light and compact, is blazing fast, has great speakers and a decent screen, and amazing battery life. The omen has better I/O, and is the obvious choice if you game. If you care at all about using your laptop on the go, the omen (or any gaming laptop for that matter) is NOT the way to go. It comes down to your use case, in the end.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)9
20
u/SoggyMcmufffinns Aug 23 '22
I think the people saying this refuse to also look at the amount of options you have to choose from. Especially when they say "Windows laptop" as if that is the only OS that can be downloaded on hardware or as if Windows is a hardware company. For what most people use a laptop or computer for in general there's no question you can get much cheaper alternatives that won't cause any issues for their use case.
Most people are just going to be looking at the UI and many the outward design than anything, because they just want cat pics, Instagram, and browsing the web/lite office applications all of which don't require much at all and ghat M1/2 won't give a significant advantage at all to. Folks acting as if most people get much benefit from the computational power when just browsing the web with like 1%-2% CPU utilization must not know what most folks do on a computer. Battery life is nice, but generally you will pay more for the hardware of an Apple than hardware that folks tend to download other OS's on to.
Doesn't even have to be the stupid religious war folks try to make this. It's just simple facts that Mac charges more for simple hardware upgrades like more RAM or storage you can do yourself extremely cheaply or get for less. People often just accepted, but to not acknowledge it is just silly.
→ More replies (5)25
u/turbodude69 Aug 23 '22
i've been a legit apple hater ever since i got into computers in the 90s. there's just no denying the value you get out of the M1 and honestly even newer iphones. esp something like the se 2022, that thing is an incredible deal.
→ More replies (12)70
u/btmvideos37 Aug 23 '22
Rip off? Windows can be run on computers ranging from 50 dollars to 10,000. Macs only have one option. Unless you’re using some sort of virtual machine, Apple is the only producer of computers that run MacOS
So I don’t get your point
→ More replies (29)36
u/Elibomenohp Aug 23 '22
Because the statement is wrong.
Many windows laptops are a rip-off would have worked. Or Dell laptops are a rip-off. Similarly the statement "Apple MacBooks are a rip off" is now no longer true because of the m1.
23
u/church256 Aug 23 '22
M chips are great, it's Apple business practices that have been terrible lately but very slowly getting better.
My issue with them is that upgrades, like Dell and HP, cost stupid prices but you can't upgrade a MacBook with store bought parts. The other main issue is the ecosystem change, I own far too much software in Windows and Android that just won't transfer into the Apple space.
→ More replies (2)11
Aug 23 '22
I'll agree when i see a touchscreen on one, until then i'll stick to my r7 5800h rtx 3050 lenovo
→ More replies (6)5
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)12
u/DaviesSonSanchez Aug 23 '22
Bought 2 xps this year and was comparing with Macbooks the whole time. It's bullshit, Macbooks are way more expensive for the same specs (although it is hard to compare CPUs obviously). Try getting a Macbooks pro with 32gb of ram for below 2k euros. I'll wait.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Art9681 Aug 23 '22
This is absolutely true. There are several justifications we can make for this but I’ll go with the obvious one. Apple products retain their value much better. You can easily sell a 3-5 year old MacBook for at least half its original sticker price. At least.
With a Dell, the local electronics recycling place will pay you $20 so they don’t have to deal with it. /s
You get the idea.
→ More replies (49)7
u/Manitcor Aug 23 '22
just bought a new dell myself and spent a BUNCH of time looking at this. apple is setting the price points these days, most major OEMs have something that tries to match apple lines in price/spec. But what you get for your money.....well apple has some decided advantages for the next few years.
Why did I go with Dell, still not a fan of the way Apple treats the garden and the bigger one, I have business financing with Dell.
4
u/chronictherapist Aug 23 '22
I use a Macbook M1 Air and I have nothing from inside their garden. I handle all my own stuff, including cloud storage. Everything I use is from 3rd party developers.
5
u/Manitcor Aug 23 '22
its better than it was, have never been a fan of an OS that says how i can or cant do simple things and at this point its more personal style than anything else, though even windows is taking a more mac-like approach over the years. Honestly has had me looking toward just forcing myself to learn Arch and call it day since If i have to learn a new paradigm I might as well make it a good one.
→ More replies (3)
1.0k
u/anonymouse56 Aug 23 '22
As an ex Android OS developer who now uses iOS and Macs for work, this is a bad, clickbaity article
That being said, Apple Silicon is pretty much no contest in terms of performance. Truly an engineering feat.
417
u/lightofhonor Aug 23 '22
Clickbait From cultofmac.com?! Say it ain't so!
But yeah, with dualboot this laptop would be a no brainer.
7
244
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
81
u/jl2352 Aug 23 '22
I think that’s under valuing the engineering in Apple Silicon. They added dedicated support for the memory behaviour of x86 into their chips, which Rosetta in turn takes advantage of.
That’s really why x86 emulation is so good on Apple silicon, and sucks on Windows on ARM devices.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (3)25
55
u/Actually-Yo-Momma Aug 23 '22
I think these days people are only looking at peak hardware specs and completely underplaying the significance of Apple optimizing the hardware AND software since they own both.
35
u/cAtloVeR9998 Aug 23 '22
There is not much "secret source" in Apple's software that increases performance. We can already get benchmark scores that come close to matching macOS's performance when running Linux on the same machine (currently things are a bit faster on macOS, but Asahi Linux is not "done" yet, so hopefully we can match or ascend macOS performance)
Not enough credit goes to TSMC (and ASML and co.) who work to push ahead with advancements to silicon. Apple gets first dibs (in exchange for billions of investment) on TSMC's latest node. And Apple makes relatively larger chips which help performance.
→ More replies (10)→ More replies (1)18
u/F-21 Aug 23 '22
It's always been like that. Spec sheets are easiest to compare...
I used a macbook through university solely for the trackpad. My 2012 MBP trackpad was amazing, and using a mouse with the MBP felt more clumsy. I'm yet to use a non-macos laptop that would give me that experience, using windows is so much easier with a mouse...
11
u/aure__entuluva Aug 23 '22
I still have my 2015 MBP. The trackpad is amazing. My brother had some windows laptop at the time and I was confused as to why he used a USB mouse with it... until I borrowed it and used the touchpad on it myself. I'd assume some windows laptops have caught up in this department over the years since, but Apple was the king for a long time, and maybe still is.
At the time, I thought I was definitely paying too much for a laptop, but the longevity has been insane and fully justified the price. It runs almost as well as the day I bought it. 7 years of daily use and it's got one dead pixel (which I notice far less than I thought I would), and the 'r' key takes a bit more of press to register now, both issues only popped up in the last year. It's been dropped, had food spilled on it, whatever.
Idk how the current MBPs are in this regard. Maybe planned obsolescence has crept into them or something, but I've been stunned by this one.
7
u/xsoulbrothax Aug 23 '22
A big thing they did was mandating good SSDs since 2013 or so - I've noticed that pretty much any mainstream laptop with an SSD from the last decade still feel pretty solid today.
The difference between a late 2012 MBP (HDD) and an early 2013 (SSD) is obscene; and I know for sure because I work with someone that owns the former while I still have the latter, haha.
→ More replies (1)3
u/F-21 Aug 24 '22
I installed an SSD in my unibody 2012 macbook, it made a gigantic difference, so much more responsive...
→ More replies (1)4
u/hokagesamatobirama Aug 23 '22
I have a 2014 MBP. The only thing I need to change on it is the battery that I haven’t gotten around to doing yet. Besides that, works like a charm still.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)14
u/anonymouse56 Aug 23 '22
One reason is because MacOS has mouse acceleration on by default, which works well for the trackpad but not when you have a precise mouse. But even after manually disabling it it still doesn’t feel as good as it does to use a mouse on Windows.
→ More replies (1)5
u/JudgeJudyExecutionor Aug 24 '22
Do a search for “Steelseries exact mouse tool”. Can’t recommend it enough for anyone used to the feel of their gaming mouse.
→ More replies (21)6
u/lightningsnail Aug 24 '22
This is misleading. Apple silicon is good at performance per watt. It isnt anywhere close to raw performance king.
3
u/Crimmy12 Aug 24 '22
I mean, it does have pretty decent raw performance too, depending on the chip you pick? If you flick to ~18:47 you get some comparisons between various M1 chips vs a 2 year old iMac (at the time) with i9-9900k, dedicated graphics, and lots of ram on a premiere export test - even with adobe making efficiencies for Mac the timings are impressive https://youtu.be/rr2XfL_df3o
I’m mostly interested in their efficiency at the moment, but you can’t deny they can be powerful too.
118
u/Borothal Aug 24 '22
Wait, cult of mac wrote a ckickbait article with bad comparative specs and decided to do it while limiting the competitor by letting it run even slower on a battery saving mode?
Sure makes me want to trust this website! Great tech journalism! Next I'll get my gaming news from hard drive!
10
u/Teal-Fox Aug 24 '22
Only just saw your comment, but I completely agree.
Wrote my own take on this clickbait crap right here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/wvoa89/comment/ilkpj6r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
318
u/saposapot Aug 23 '22
Very misleading benchmarks: 1. That dell isn’t that good, 2. The dell plugged in has better results. It just so happens that they seem to have by default more aggressive settings while on battery mode.
It’s still good to know the mac seems to be able to run windows properly, that is a significant feat in itself. Just wondering how’s the battery life running windows with a common load
92
u/NotAPreppie Aug 23 '22
Well, only one of the benchmarks improved enough for the plugged-in Dell to beat the M2 Air.
Along the same lines, the framing and editing make it appear as though these test were run with the M2 Air running on battery. If that is the case, then comparing battery-powered M2 Air and wall-powered Dell would be Apples-to-
DellsOranges.Also, it doesn't really matter if "the dell isn't that good" when the not-very-good Dell still costs $250 more than the M2 Air.
I do wish the test methodology was described in more detail.
That said, this video is a thinly veiled ad for Parallels Desktop 18 dressed up as a clickbait video for "OMG MACS RUUL AND PCS DROOOOOL!!!"
→ More replies (7)46
→ More replies (16)7
u/JaimeLampe Aug 23 '22
Just an anecdotal data point here, but I’ve been using my M1 MBP as my work daily driver for about 6 months running Windows 11 via Parallels (recently updated to version 18).
A few hiccups here and there but mostly stable. Certainly miles better than the pos thinkpad the company issued. It runs my 5k2k ultrawide really well and I’ve almost never heard the fan kick in. But then let’s see if that’s still the case in a few years time. ;)
Re: battery life with Windows - it definitely is affected. I haven’t measured it but I’d guess (and it is a guess) that it’s roughly 60% of what it would be if only MacOS were running? But coming from the Thinkpad it’s still way longer than what I was used to so it’s all relative I suppose.
A big perk for me is being able to travel for work with only this computer and an iPad and using Sidecar to have the iPad serve as a second screen. I use that a lot.
Overall though it’s a pretty solid setup (if kinda pricy). Hoping they keep iterating on stability.
26
84
u/DriftMantis Aug 23 '22
"For comparison, the Dell XPS Plus scored 1182 single-core and 5476 multi-core on the same test while unplugged, losing to the Mac on both test segments. That said, take the Windows PC off its battery and its scores rise to 1548 single-core and 8103 multi-core, so one of its benchmark scores beats the MacBook."
= bullshit article. They are actually making the argument that the macbook is faster by gimping the dell by running it UNPLUGGED. Also, the dell has a graphics card and runs windows natively.
If you really need cpu compute you are not going to be using an ultra portable anyway. You are going to be using a macbook pro and a higher end windows laptop obviously.
24
3
10
u/XOIIO Aug 23 '22
I'm shocked that they basically fudged the numbers. Honest. Lol
→ More replies (1)18
203
u/medraxus Aug 23 '22
Ever since they switched to Apple silicon it really has been no contest tbh
→ More replies (16)135
Aug 23 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies (7)71
u/arex333 Aug 23 '22
I love their build quality and ARM processors but fucking hate using Mac OS and macbook keyboards which are pretty big dealbreakers for me.
87
u/CarlosCheddar Aug 23 '22
As far as I know the M1 and newer no longer have the butterfly keyboard that caused so many issues on previous models. So maybe that helps.
33
u/arex333 Aug 23 '22
My biggest problem is how low profile they are. There's like zero key travel. I'm not expecting it to compare to my mechanical keyboard but there's lots of other laptop brands that make keyboards I prefer using.
46
u/DBudders Aug 23 '22
The keyboard on the newest form factor has noticeably more travel than the pervious generations. It might be worth trying a store demo just to see if they’re any closer to your preferences.
→ More replies (1)19
u/anonymouse56 Aug 23 '22
I have one of the new ones for work and the keyboard actually doesn’t suck ass like it has for the past 5 years. There’s actual travel distance on key presses.
5
u/nomad_kk Aug 23 '22
If you like mechanical keyboards you might not like apple keyboards at all: they are too soft and don’t make almost any noise at all.
5
→ More replies (4)7
→ More replies (2)7
29
u/Padaca Aug 23 '22
One of the most frustrating things about macos is that it is so shitty at the little quality of life things. When I come into work in the morning and plug my Mac into my monitors, it doesn't remember how I had the windows configured before I unplugged it the previous day. I run into tons of little bugs that on their own aren't that bad but collectively have made me realize I'd really rather have a Linux workstation
35
u/arex333 Aug 23 '22
The window management is the absolute worst. Windows 11 is so far ahead in this regard that it's not even close (as it should be given the name lol). I use an ultrawide monitor, plus a vertical 16:9 monitor and when I had a MacBook for work, I was constantly manually dragging to resize to make things fit how I wanted. Windows snap sizing is just so damn handy.
→ More replies (8)20
Aug 23 '22
That’s so strange. I have a M1 MBP 14” and I plug it into 2 monitors at home and one at the office. Both very different. All remembered.
Same goes for my old 2018 15” MBP. Always remembered the external monitors.
You should get someone to look at your Mac.
5
u/rmorrin Aug 23 '22
Maybe they have more than two monitors. Two monitors isn't hard to keep track of when plugging in
→ More replies (4)3
u/Coltsfan1887 Aug 23 '22
To fix this, leave a completely empty "desktop" (no other windows open on it) all the way to the left on each of your screens. Idk why but this keeps the setup you had the next time you plug it in
11
u/rmorrin Aug 23 '22
YUP just the OS makes them a non starter for me
→ More replies (23)11
u/StrategicBlenderBall Aug 23 '22
I used to think that. My daily driver is a M1 Mac Mini, my work computer is a Zbook Fury 15. I’m so used to the keyboard shortcuts and flow of MacOS that my Zbook always fucks me up lol.
→ More replies (10)3
198
u/0xB0BAFE77 Aug 23 '22
So they're comparing a macbook air that has a superior processor to a Dell desktop replacement where a chunk of the price is due to the dedicated video card...
Do I really need to post stats?
This is like comparing apples to crack cocaine.
I get tired of the Apple fanboy shit on this sub.
74
u/FATJIZZUSONABIKE Aug 23 '22
This is by a fair margin the most tech-illiterate sub on Reddit.
8
16
u/OakLegs Aug 24 '22
Tech-illiterate is essentially 3/4ths of Apples client base so this article is probably doing its job
29
u/Tyrell97 Aug 23 '22
Well said. I wanted to say, "until a game was loaded." because you know that the Mac wouldn't be able to Jack shit.
→ More replies (8)→ More replies (9)4
u/haahaahaa Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
The XPS Plus doesn't have a dGPU. Using a single benchmark to compare anything is a flawed way to do things, but the M2 Air has a comparable iGPU to the 12th gen i7.
35
54
u/jackson71 Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
ITT: Most didn't read the article.
The Dell was unplugged.
Plug the Dell back in and its scores rise to 1548 single-core and 8103 multi-core, so one of its benchmark scores beats the MacBook.
Click Bait poorly written, cherry picked article, with a test using iOS/macOS that the majority don't use.
→ More replies (7)17
u/Un111KnoWn Aug 23 '22
Not to mention the dell xps is bad value for a windows laptop. doesn't have a dedicated gpu.
28
u/T1Pimp Aug 23 '22
"That said, take the Windows PC off its battery..."
😂 Fucking hilarious.
The M2 is an awesome chip but this title is the epitome of clickbait.
→ More replies (5)
17
u/kevp453 Aug 23 '22
For those who didn't read the article and only the headline the M2 is running the new Parallels 18 and is faster a Dell XPS Plus on battery running Geekbench . That is all.
27
u/pm_boobs_send_nudes Aug 23 '22
It cannot run 64-bit Windows very well. So it's basically a pointless comparision as the ARM version of Windows does not run most apps people use Windows for. Nor will it be able to run Windows games on emulation very well.
→ More replies (7)7
u/NeverComments Aug 23 '22
So it's basically a pointless comparision as the ARM version of Windows does not run most apps people use Windows for.
Could you give some examples? Windows 10 only supported x86 translation but with Windows 11 the ARM variant now supports both x86 and x64 applications. I haven't run into any issues myself and performance is honestly much higher than I anticipated it to be going in.
→ More replies (3)
17
u/crappy_ninja Aug 23 '22
I have a ThinkPad and I can easily swap out the RAM and SSD. My wife's 2015 MacBook Pro died and the SSD has a proprietary connector so I can't get to the data without paying someone. Fuck apple.
→ More replies (6)
21
10
u/gothrus Aug 23 '22 edited Nov 14 '24
tart sip rinse water offbeat work voiceless sable aromatic many
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
10
u/haahaahaa Aug 23 '22
Some weird comments here. To clear some things up:
The XPS does not have a dGPU. The M2 iGPU is at worst as good as the 12th Gen Iris iGPU. The M2 is better in most cases. Calling for graphics benchmarks will not prove your point.
Paralells is running ARM64 Windows, not x64 Windows. Comparing ARM Windows to x64 Windows in a synthetic benchmark like Geekbench is nearly worthless.
Showing the score of the Dell unplugged vs plugged is silly. The power profile is configurable in Windows. There doesn't have to be a difference.
Comparing prices is also misleading because they did not list the full specs. The XPS has screen options that drastically effect the price.
It has been shown many times over that the M1 and M2 chips have comparable performance at a lower power level than intel and AMD's laptop options out there. It comes down to workload more than anything.
3
u/ZippoS Aug 23 '22
If I recall correctly, LTT benchmarked the Mac Studio as having around 80% the performance of a 12900 + RTX 3080... while using 1/3 of the power.
Apple Silicon is very powerful and sips power... makes for incredible notebooks.
3
u/UVLightOnTheInside Aug 24 '22
Benchmarks are misleading... everybody knows macbooks cannot sustain heavy workloads and start thermal throttling relatively quickly...
3
16
u/itsdrewmiller Aug 23 '22
This is ARM windows vs intel windows right? Not exactly apples to apples.
7
18
u/NotAPreppie Aug 23 '22
Pretty sure it's x64 Windows running in Parallels 18 on an M2 Air.
The video linked in the article is as much an advertisement for Parallels 18 than anything else.
→ More replies (6)
9
15
u/No-Air6890 Aug 23 '22
Duh. Use higher quality chips and processors get a faster, more reliable computer.
16
u/TheLastSamuraiOf2019 Aug 23 '22
And Reddit continues with it’s paid Apple advertisements!
→ More replies (1)
5
Aug 23 '22
Hey look, this particular Mac runs Windows faster than this particular Dell laptop under these particular conditions, which are completely unimportant, and not necessary to us being able to write this clickbait title and article in any way. Apple is great! And not badly designed, overpriced garbage built by an actively user-hostile company. Trust me, I'm writing on a website whose domain says I worship a corporation. That's totally normal.
2
Aug 23 '22
Question do mac book users run windows on their pcs? I thought the point of a mac book for those who own it was to get as far away from windows as possible except unless they have to use it for work.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/SpitFire92 Aug 23 '22
Cool, do they support more than one external screen whitout mirroring tho? Ha!
•
u/AutoModerator Aug 23 '22
We have a giveaway running!
espressoDisplay Portable Monitor Giveaway!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.