I'm having to give up on Apple Silicon and macos

[Danfango]

This isn't a criticism of Apple really, well it is a bit, but primarily my circumstances are changing and everything is now kicking me in the nuts on Apple's ARM proposition so I'm unfortunately out.

Firstly the day job has landed me right in the middle of x86-land, which is quite frankly where everything still is, and I'm actually finding my MBP to be incredibly difficult to deal with in this space. Firstly the lack of half decent x86 virtualization is a problem. It's slow. Really slow. Secondly it appears that there are no compiler targets for macos/arm64 for some languages out there yet (.net 7 AOT for example) and bugs in some (Go/arm64). And annoyingly some software I need to run has really horrible as hell ports on macOS (mostly CAD). I recently bridged some of this by buying a dirt cheap Intel i5 12400 desktop (at the mere cost of 2/3 an entry level M1 mac mini) that runs windows 10 and virtualbox on it. Unlike the M1 Pro / Mac Studio I can afford to drop 32G of RAM in it without the risk of that custom SKU not being available if it blows up. It's also less hard switching between that and work than it is switching between macos and work.

Secondly, I went through a not particularly messy but inconvenient divorce over the last couple of years. I've finally got myself back on my feet and I find that my priorities have changed. I want to throw the charred remains of my cash into a house but quite frankly the upkeep on the Apple ecosystem is eating into that. If I actually sell all my apple kit and use the crappy PC desktop and a Pixel 7, factor in all upgrades and maintenance, project hardware spend over the next 5 years I am actually nearly £6000 better off if I jump now. With retirement looming in about 15 years I'm looking at whether or not I'm going to be able to keep the upkeep going after this and the answer is that I probably can't justify it. Even a bottom end MBA is a poor value proposition for people in that situation. I feel like I need to exit now and hedge the risk early.

Thirdly, the AppleCare coverage which is pretty much required isn't necessarily the best hedge in retrospect. I just bought a whole damn brand spanking new PC for what I spent on my AppleCare 3y TCO. Comparatively if something breaks you can afford to buy another thing every 3 years and shrug just for the coverage costs.

In retrospect:

• The hardware is too expensive for the lifespan and the expense tradeoff is not favourable any more.
• The custom configurations (32G for example) have limited availability and turnaround which means I can't risk buying anything other than stock configurations for work purposes.
• There are real compatibility issues for technical folk which get in the way of things on a regular basis.

Anyway not sure what the point is of this is past "hrmph!". I think I'm out. I enjoy the platform but I've got to be realistic and it hurts me to do that.

Edit: note that I'm moving from laptop to desktop as well here. My M1 MBP was used as a desktop 99% of the time.

 

[bearcatrp]

Got to do what you need to do. Been down this road awhile back. Was doing video editing on a 2008 Mac Pro. Started getting more weddings to shoot and edit. The Mac Pro was pushing its limits so looked at a new Mac Pro. Apple jacked that price out of my reach. Built my own dual processor monster for a third of the cost of a new Mac Pro. My build lasted 10 years without any issue. Got to go with what works For your budget. Good luck.

 

[rworne]

This isn't a criticism of Apple really, well it is a bit, but primarily my circumstances are changing and everything is now kicking me in the nuts on Apple's ARM proposition so I'm unfortunately out.

I too was disappointed at the switch-over. The change from PPC to intel was a blessing to me, as the virtualization of having Windows on the computer - even as an accessory - was a huge benefit.

In the end, I didn't run windows all that much, and the Late 2013 i7 iMac now has Windows 10 on it (exclusively) to run emulators and the occasional Windows program.

I splurged and got a Mac Studio. I love the thing, but the games Apple is playing with the storage on it is infuriating.

Never feel bad about getting the tools you need for the job - or are right for you. If your use case makes running a Mac a hassle, by all means switch to something more useful to you. The computer is a tool, get the best tool for the job.

 

[theorist9]

You of course know your own needs, but one option if you want to continue to use MacOS is to get a 2019 or 2020 27" Intel iMac (which can be had at very good prices these days), and run Parallels on it. If you get an i9 you may find its speed isn't that far off AS's. And if the machine doesn't already come with it, you can inexpensively increase the RAM to 64 GB ($150) or 128 GB ($300), which provides ample RAM for the Parallels VM.

Since it comes with its own display, you could combine it with the ASD you already have or, alternately, sell the ASD and buy a couple of 27" 4k's for a nice triple-monitor setup. And some of the used machines still have Apple Care on them (especially if they were bought more recently, as Apple refurbs).

I can't predict how long the OS support on those iMacs would last, but I'm guessing maybe five years (the 2020, which has a T2 chip, might have longer support; the tradeoff is that its SSD isn't upgradeable like the 2019's), at which point Windows-for-ARM might be sufficiently well-developed that you can do the same thing with Apple Silicon.

Speaking more generally, the easiest way to stay in the Apple ecosystem economically is to buy used gear that's a couple of years old (well, 2nd easiest--the easiest is if work buys your gear for you). I recommend buying locally instead of on Ebay (Craig's List is good if you're in the US, but it sounds like you're in the UK, where you probably have something similar). You save shipping and taxes, and you get to inspect the machine before purchase; plus the prices are often lower even before ship + tax.

 

[bobcomer]

This isn't a criticism of Apple really, well it is a bit, but primarily my circumstances are changing and everything is now kicking me in the nuts on Apple's ARM proposition so I'm unfortunately out.

Firstly the day job has landed me right in the middle of x86-land, which is quite frankly where everything still is, and I'm actually finding my MBP to be incredibly difficult to deal with in this space. Firstly the lack of half decent x86 virtualization is a problem. It's slow. Really slow. Secondly it appears that there are no compiler targets for macos/arm64 for some languages out there yet (.net 7 AOT for example) and bugs in some (Go/arm64). And annoyingly some software I need to run has really horrible as hell ports on macOS (mostly CAD). I recently bridged some of this by buying a dirt cheap Intel i5 12400 desktop (at the mere cost of 2/3 an entry level M1 mac mini) that runs windows 10 and virtualbox on it. Unlike the M1 Pro / Mac Studio I can afford to drop 32G of RAM in it without the risk of that custom SKU not being available if it blows up. It's also less hard switching between that and work than it is switching between macos and work.

Secondly, I went through a not particularly messy but inconvenient divorce over the last couple of years. I've finally got myself back on my feet and I find that my priorities have changed. I want to throw the charred remains of my cash into a house but quite frankly the upkeep on the Apple ecosystem is eating into that. If I actually sell all my apple kit and use the crappy PC desktop and a Pixel 7, factor in all upgrades and maintenance, project hardware spend over the next 5 years I am actually nearly £6000 better off if I jump now. With retirement looming in about 15 years I'm looking at whether or not I'm going to be able to keep the upkeep going after this and the answer is that I probably can't justify it. Even a bottom end MBA is a poor value proposition for people in that situation. I feel like I need to exit now and hedge the risk early.

Thirdly, the AppleCare coverage which is pretty much required isn't necessarily the best hedge in retrospect. I just bought a whole damn brand spanking new PC for what I spent on my AppleCare 3y TCO. Comparatively if something breaks you can afford to buy another thing every 3 years and shrug just for the coverage costs.

In retrospect:

• The hardware is too expensive for the lifespan and the expense tradeoff is not favourable any more.
• The custom configurations (32G for example) have limited availability and turnaround which means I can't risk buying anything other than stock configurations for work purposes.
• There are real compatibility issues for technical folk which get in the way of things on a regular basis.

Anyway not sure what the point is of this is past "hrmph!". I think I'm out. I enjoy the platform but I've got to be realistic and it hurts me to do that.

Edit: note that I'm moving from laptop to desktop as well here. My M1 MBP was used as a desktop 99% of the time.

I feel for you. For work, I live in x86 land and apple just doesn't cut it there anymore. That doesn't mean I can't use it at home though, and maybe you can in the future. I'm a bit down on Apple and MacOS right now, and I may never buy a Mac again, but my Intel Mac Mini and my Mac Studio will work for quite some time. Maybe long enough for a mood upswing and better hardware.

 

[pshufd]

I am running Windows 11 ARM on UTM on my M1 Pro MacBook Pro and couldn't be happier with the few things that I need to run on Windows. It's not released software but it gets the job done currently.

There's discussion in the Hackintosh thread about how good 12700s are for running macOS and Intel is selling their previous generation chips at good prices right now to try to slow down AMD. If you must have x86, then you must have x86. I do have a 27 inch iMac on my desk next to my Mac Studio (love the display) and I have that if I need x86 macOS and a couple of old Windows desktops if I must have a real and not virtual system.

 

[maflynn]

In retrospect:

• The hardware is too expensive for the lifespan and the expense tradeoff is not favourable any more.
• The custom configurations (32G for example) have limited availability and turnaround which means I can't risk buying anything other than stock configurations for work purposes.
• There are real compatibility issues for technical folk which get in the way of things on a regular basis.

I'm a big fan of the adage, using the right tool for the job. I too have needs that require X86 and windows. I'll offer my $.02 on your bullets as well.

• Hardware - There is a thing called the Apple tax, to be sure, and while less expensive, the differences isn't all that huge. I think you can easily spend 1700 to 2000 for a well designed, high quality windows laptop.
• Configuration - Apples way or the highway. More so when all of the components are soldered onto the logic board. Choice, is a huge advantage with windows machines.
• Compatibility - When Apple transitioned from the PPC to Windows, it was a huge boon, for many people wanted apple hardware and got to install the OS of their choice. Those days are now over and if you need to be on X86, the writing is on the wall. I don't think ARM windows is the solution at least not yet. Many apps do run, many apps do not. I find that enterprise specific apps are more problematic then general office apps.

Overall, I love the M1 MBP, its a fantastic laptop, there's so many positive things going for it, yet I'm severely handicapped in using that for my day to day work needs. If I'm traveling on vacation and may need some quick access for light superficial tasks. I can do them on my MBP. If I need to spend hours doing my job from a hotel room, or even waiting room at a dealership - well then my Razer is infinitely the better choice, even if the battery may only last for a few hours.

I'm considering replacing my 15" Razer laptop as I'm wanting something with a bit more pep, and the 16" MBP is on my short list but, and its a big BUT. I need to be able to do my job on it. I can't see spending well over 2k and not have it run the apps I want and need.

 

[yellowhelicopter]

note that I'm moving from laptop to desktop as well here.

Well, maybe just a used basic Mac Mini M1 for like 400-500$ then? And maybe a PC with lots of RAM etc. if you need it. I'm also in a (very) poor financial situation, but I found used MM M1 was quite competitive when compared with similar specs PC I would have to assemble as alternative.

 

[120FPS]

I think a lot of people forget what a big deal Apple moving to x86 was for people (and Apple). It opened up so many more options to more people. Buying a mac seemed like less of a risk and back then it wasn‘t much more expensive and made sense to do it when XP and Vista was around and if customers did not get on with OS X they could fall back on Windows. Apple switching to Intel meant more customers from different backgrounds that would help convince developers to port their apps over. It felt like Apple was properly back in the game.

This move to ARM is a big headache as it means moving the underpinnings of essential software components to run on ARM and even Microsoft are struggling to convince others to get this done. There may be a good case to do this but it seems slow going. To be honest I feel Apple are not hungry for the Mac market, it feels like they are too scared and need to protect the iPad because they cannot lose control. I think for Apple when they lose control things get interesting and better for the customers and even better for Apple in the long term. Too much of their priorities over the last few years seemed to be so Eddie and Jonny could drive Ferrari’s and Aston Martin’s.

 

[theorist9]

I think a lot of people forget what a big deal Apple moving to x86 was for people (and Apple). It opened up so many more options to more people. Buying a mac seemed like less of a risk and back then it wasn‘t much more expensive and made sense to do it when XP and Vista was around and if customers did not get on with OS X they could fall back on Windows. Apple switching to Intel meant more customers from different backgrounds that would help convince developers to port their apps over. It felt like Apple was properly back in the game.

This move to ARM is a big headache as it means moving the underpinnings of essential software components to run on ARM and even Microsoft are struggling to convince others to get this done. There may be a good case to do this but it seems slow going. To be honest I feel Apple are not hungry for the Mac market, it feel like they are too scared and need to protect the iPad because they cannot lose control. I think for Apple when they lose control things get interesting and better for the customers and even better for Apple in the long term. Too much of their priorities over the last few years seemed to be so Eddie and Jonny could drive Ferrari’s and Aston Martin’s.

I think that's overstating things. To be sure, this is an issue for those who need x86. But AS has been overwhelmingly popular, so I don't think this is an issue for the vast majority of Mac customers.

The situation is very different from when Apple moved from PPC to x86. Then they had very low market share, and there were many programs that simply were x86-only. Now the Mac market share and ecosystem is vastly larger, so the apps that didn't transition to AS, while they certainly exist, are the exception to the rule.

 

[120FPS]

I think that's overstating things. To be sure, this is an issue for those who need x86. But AS has been overwhelimingly popular, so I don't think this is an issue for the vast majority of Mac customers.

The situation is very different from when Apple moved from PPC to x86. Then they had very low market share, and there were many programs that simply were x86-only. Now the Mac market share and ecosystem is vastly larger, so the apps that didn't transition to AS, while they certainly exist, are the exception to the rule.

2006 was still economically quite prosperous for a transition to a very popular architecture. There seemed to be a lot of optimism at that time. It doesn’t feel like ARM is being embraced by the rest of the industry as quickly as the Intel transition. If something is that good you would think everyone would follow.

We are heading into a really tough economic period now, with so much uncertainty. People are looking further ahead in regard to whether their purchase decision will make sense in the long term with more flexibility required. It feels like Apple is moving from X86 to PowerPC in some respects and customers are being corralled into a corner with fewer options.

These items are now prohibitively expensive and take forever to ship if being customised so customers are going to be thinking more carefully about their options.

 

[exoticSpice]

It feels like Apple is moving from X86 to PowerPC in some respects and customers are being corralled into a corner with fewer options.

Not really. Apple sillicon is in every Apple product and ARM is actually becoming also good in the PC space. Qualcomm today said that native Adobe products are coming to Windows on ARM.

 

[120FPS]

Not really. Apple sillicon is in every Apple product and ARM is actually becoming also good in the PC space. Qualcomm today said that native Adobe products are coming to Windows on ARM.

Till I see Intel and AMD moving to ARM it’s not serious. Qualcomm doesn’t really have a strong showing outside of mobile phones. Adobe is going to move to ARM because of Apple anyhow, they are a smaller chunk of the overall picture.

 

[bwillwall]

"The hardware is too expensive for the lifespan"

....

 

[subjonas]

I switched to a Windows laptop late last year, partially because my work software didn’t support Apple Silicon, but also because I was looking to switch to a convertible laptop for portable pen input for my work software. For many years I had been using a MacBook with a portable Cintiq, but it was extremely cumbersome and impractical in many mobile situations. Apple Silicon was a big catalyst for the switch, but another big catalyst was Microsoft had just come out with the Surface Laptop Studio, which had a somewhat unique convertible form factor that was perfect for my needs. Hardware-wise it’s close to ideal (a few complaints), but man I don’t like Windows. What I wouldn’t pay Apple to make something similar.

 

[theluggage]

I think a lot of people forget what a big deal Apple moving to x86 was for people (and Apple). It opened up so many more options to more people.

I think that's partly hindsight. The reason for Apple moving to x86 was that PPC development - for which Apple was reliant on IBM and Motorola - had stalled/headed in a different direction, and (at that moment in time) Intel's new Core chips were the best thing available, especially for Apple's flagship laptops (one feature of the new Intel Core processors was better power/performance). The Intel switched happened after Apple had been unable to deliver a PPC G5 laptop, and the first Intel MacBook pros came with a significance performance boost.

Apple didn't initially push Windows compatibility - BootCamp only came out after hackers had demonstrated Windows running on Intel Macs, Parallels promoted virtualisation.

Likewise, with Apple Silicon, I think the #1 motivation has been that it has huge power/performance advantages in the thin, light laptops which probably account for the bulk of Mac sales. It's not just the ARM instruction set: machines like the MacBook Air and 13" MBP were being knobbled by Intel's feeble integrated GPUs, 15/16" MBP by the power consumption of discrete GPUs. The Apple Silicon's integrated GPU performance - plus things like the neural engine, hardware video codecs, fast on-package RAM are just as important as the ARM instruction set - maybe it would have been a better compromise for Apple to build an x86-based system-on-a-chip with those features... except (a) they (probably) couldn't license the x86/AMD64 ISA and (b) they already had a huge headstart on ARM from the A-series processors.

I'm not going to second-guess anybody who says that they can't do their job with Apple Silicon. That's pretty obviously the case if (say) you need to build x86 binaries or your workflow is built around applications which either won't run on Apple Silicon or doesn't perform adequately with Rosetta2. Question is, does that affect enough people to counteract the other advantages of Apple Silicon, especially as the core of the Mac business is - like it or not - thin but powerful laptops which benefit hugely from ASi.

A lot has changed since 2006. Particularly, a little thing called the smartphone & the ripples it caused. Developing "native" software for Windows hasn't gone away, but it's a smaller niche than before relative to the huge rise in developing mobile apps (mostly ARM) or web apps (mostly platform independent). In 2006, if you were developing a website, you had to test it on Internet Explorer or it probably wouldn't work on 80% of browsers. Today, browsers are better standardised, virtually everything is either Chromium or Webkit-based and the modern pain-in-the-backside browser that you can't ignore is mobile Safari. If you need an x86 instance to build or test a binary, just spin one up in the cloud for as long as you need it - that's mainly good for server-side at the moment but running remote desktops is a lot more practical now than it was, and likely to be the future.

For end users, too, the days of needing Windows - or even just IE - to run your online banking (or whatever) are receding - what used to be "Requires Windows XP or later" is now mostly "available for iOS and Android". Even MS Office, although still important, has lost a lot of its dominance c.f. Google Docs etc. Even if you "need Windows software for work" I think the future is going to be remote desktop into a cloud-hosted machine - because that way employers can "outsource" a lot of their regulatory compliance to the host. If nothing else, the Mac market has expanded and there's a better choice of Mac software today than there was in 2007. Again, I'm not saying that "nobody needs Windows any more" - but that's the way the tide is flowing.

This move to ARM is a big headache as it means moving the underpinnings of essential software components to run on ARM and even Microsoft are struggling to convince others to get this done.

ARM itself isn't the big problem - yes, there are a few technical issues that affect complex multi-threading - but the vast bulk of the codebase of anything written in high-level languages is unaffected. The biggie is that, to get real advantages out of Apple Silicon, code has to be optimised to ensure it makes full use of the GPU, media engines, neural engines etc. where possible (and the best way of doing that is to use Metal and other MacOS frameworks wherever possible). In many cases, Rosetta 2 copes admirably with translating the x86 code to ARM, but it can't optimise code for Metal etc.

The dilemma for Apple really is "Do you make the best machine possible for running modern written-for-MacOS software, or do you make compromises to support Windows and/or make it easy to port Wintel software?

I think Apple Silicon has made Macs interesting again - and given things like the MBA a clear performance lead over comparable Wintel machines - whereas Intel Macs were ind danger of turning into PC clones with nicer trackpads.

Hardware - There is a thing called the Apple tax, to be sure, and while less expensive, the differences isn't all that huge. I think you can easily spend 1700 to 2000 for a well designed, high quality windows laptop.

To re-iterate what the OP said, though - it's not just the cost, but Apple's habit of low-balling the RAM and SD on their base configurations can make getting the better BTO configurations a headache - they often have limited availability, might not be available outside of the Apple online store (not everybody has free choice of supplier) and often won't benefit from deals and discounts. If you spend $1700-$2000 on a Windows Laptop it is very likely to come with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD as standard (unless it's a MS Surface - MS seem determined to make Apple prices look reasonable)

 

[maflynn]

for which Apple was reliant on IBM and Motorola - had stalled/headed in a different direction

Yep and then Intel struggled for years with their CPUs and the design theme Intel was using to squeeze more performance was to increase the power, was in opposite of what Apple was trying to do.

Apple certainly can still fall into the same trap, simply if they start struggling with new chip designs or they start falling behind in chip innovation against Intel and AMD. I've said this in another thread, that its too early to tell how the M series chip will do after the M1, but If the only improvement in the M2 is due to fabrication, then that's something. The M2 Pro and Max will add clarity to how things are headed, but we have to wait until 2023 for that.

Apple didn't initially push Windows compatibility - BootCamp only came out after hackers had demonstrated Windows running on Intel Macs, Parallels promoted virtualization.

Not hackers, hobbyists. There's a huge difference in my mind where folks who like to tinker saw an opportunity and jumped in. Likewise Apple saw an opportunity to increase market share for very little effort and embraced the idea.

The inverse is now happening, where people who loved the hardware but wanted (or needed) to use Windows (or Linux) have largely been excluded. I'd say the difference is, today that percentage of users is smaller so the decrease isn't being felt by apple.

Edited for clarity.

 

[pshufd]

Yep and then Intel struggled for years with their CPUs and the design theme Intel was using to squeeze more performance was to increase the power, was in opposite of what Apple was trying to do.

Apple certainly can still fall into the same trap, simply if they start struggling with new chip designs or they start falling behind in chip innovation against Intel and AMD. I've said this in another thread, that its too early to tell how the M series chip will do after the M1, but If the only improvement in the M2 is due to fabrication, then that's something. The M2 Pro and Max will add clarity to how things are headed, but we have to wait until 2023 for that.


Not hackers, hobbyists. There's a huge difference in my mind where folks who like to tinker saw an opportunity and jumped in. Likewise Apple saw an opportunity to increase market share for very little effort and embraced the idea.

The inverse is now happening, where people who loved the hardware but wanted (or needed) to use Windows (or Linux) have largely been excluded. I'd say the difference is, today that percentage of users is smaller so the decrease isn't being felt by apple.

Edited for clarity.

Those that want Windows can just buy a Windows system.

Those that prefer macOS but need to run Windows can buy a Windows system or get one from their workplace.

It's harder if you want both in a portable solution.

I used to carry two laptops with me so about 12 pounds in my backpack. One way to skin a cat.

 

[maflynn]

Those that want Windows can just buy a Windows system.

Yes, no question but many people flocked to the Mac when they shifted over to Intel, so in a sense they had the best of both worlds. Great hardware and run the OS of their choice.

 

[pshufd]

Yes, no question but many people flocked to the Mac when they shifted over to Intel, so in a sense they had the best of both worlds. Great hardware and run the OS of their choice.

There may be a supported solution in the future but I'm happy with Windows on ARM (in development) for now.

Those so inclined can always just run macOS on a Windows laptop even though it is unsupported and takes a moderate amount of work to do.

 

[maflynn]

There may be a supported solution in the future but I'm happy with Windows on ARM (in development) for now.

I've been trying that, and every so often I'll go back and see if I can install my VPN. My thinking is Parallels, Arm windows and cisco any connect gets updated occasionally, and I may finally hit a combination where I can actually install my company's VPN.

 

[pshufd]

I've been trying that, and every so often I'll go back and see if I can install my VPN. My thinking is Parallels, Arm windows and cisco any connect gets updated occasionally, and I may finally hit a combination where I can actually install my company's VPN.

I've had Cisco Anyconnect issues in the past with new operating systems or less-used operating systems and the solution was to stay on an older version of the operating system. I assume that Cisco and Microsoft will get it working eventually. Microsoft is a winner with Windows on Apple Silicon if for nothing else than operating system, cloud and application software sales.

I took the same approach on Windows. I ran it on Intel Macs or Intel Desktops and just tried it out every couple of months until it got stable enough to use reliably. So now I only run Windows on my MacBook Pro. I will likely set it up on my Studio at some point though I'm not in any hurry.

One other potential solution is to carry a MacBook Air 15 and a thin and light Windows laptop so maybe the combined weight is about 6 pounds. I think that the LG Gram may be a good choice to do that. At any rate, there are solutions - they just require compromises for most right now. Hackintosh would be an easy solution for me if I had to run both for personal stuff. I wouldn't use unlicensed or unauthorized software for work or business purposes though.

 

[theorist9]

Today, browsers are better standardised, virtually everything is either Chromium or Webkit-based and the modern pain-in-the-backside browser that you can't ignore is mobile Safari. If you need an x86 instance to build or test a binary, just spin one up in the cloud for as long as you need it - that's mainly good for server-side at the moment but running remote desktops is a lot more practical now than it was, and likely to be the future.

Standardized except for desktop Safari as well. I use a few websites that simply won't work in Safari for MacOS.

ARM itself isn't the big problem - yes, there are a few technical issues that affect complex multi-threading - but the vast bulk of the codebase of anything written in high-level languages is unaffected. The biggie is that, to get real advantages out of Apple Silicon, code has to be optimised to ensure it makes full use of the GPU, media engines, neural engines etc. where possible (and the best way of doing that is to use Metal and other MacOS frameworks wherever possible). In many cases, Rosetta 2 copes admirably with translating the x86 code to ARM, but it can't optimise code for Metal etc.

Two additional key optimization issues that arise when porting x86 code occur when that code (1) uses vectorized instruction sets; and/or (2) uses specialized libraries (e.g., Intel MKL).

No one outside Wolfram knows the reason for this, but Mathematica is now on its 2nd major native release for AS, yet its single-threaded performance on symbolic tasks averages only ~10% faster on an M1 Max than on a 2019 iMac (i9-9900K) (one would expect a much larger performance improvement, with equivalent optimization). It is also slower on some graphics and numerical tasks; a Wolfram employee suggested the latter was because Intel MKL is very fast.

 

[Muckd]

I’ve been holding out on Apple silicon, but at the same time dying to replace my cmp.
I use an ancient x86 drafting package that I rely on. I’ve since moved the vm image to my server and remoting in on my cmp, it’s been workable, it’s not as good an experience that’s for sure.
But I decided to take advantage of the holiday returns to see if I can transition over relying on Remote Desktop from a Mac Studio, as the solution.
Turns out Microsoft Remote Desktop was a pretty poor experience. Jump however is so much faster and windows runs pretty much as i expect it to.
It’s looking very likely my cmp will be retired.

 

[Danfango]

Firstly thanks for the comments. Well received and interesting all of them.

Quite frankly I'm going to look like a dick here.

I just put £1000 on the table for an experiment and trialled over nearly a month and it went as follows:

Firstly I bought a Lenovo Neo 50s workstation, a relatively meaty in perspective Intel i5-12400 and upgraded it with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD. This is a mid-range current line desktop. This was plugged into my spare Iiyama 27" 4k monitor, Durgod K320 keyboard and reused the MX Master 3 I use with my Mac. I installed a fresh windows 11 64-bit install (not Lenovo crapware stuffed). Network was hard wired 1Gb ethernet to my router.

The good

1. Honestly it's pretty damn fast. It feels slightly more responsive than my M1 Pro MBP.
2. Virtualisation works pretty well. No issues there. I had a whole Kubernetes cluster running on it in the first afternoon.
3. Cheap. So so so so so cheap for what you get. I can't complain there at all. Even the O365 sub at £5.99 a month for personal with 1TB storage is crazy cheap.
4. It was nice to see some things in actual files rather than opaque containers.

The bad

1. Windows 11 is just absolutely ****ing horrible. I spent the first day battling with getting Windows 11 settings and privacy and generally getting it to stop bugging me every 5 minutes about something or other. Since then it's a constant stream of difficult to reproduce things I've had to do to it to stop it annoying me in some new way.
2. Power. This thing will quite happily suck 80W doing what my M1 uses about 20W for.
3. Microsoft's cloud stuff is garbage. The whole O365 and cloud sync stuff built into the OS is absolutely dire. It's unreliable. Within 3 hours of me doing something I'd managed to irreparably corrupt a OneNote notebook. I'm not even starting on OneDrive which has some serious consistency issues with syncing a mere 20Gb of files.
4. Sorry but absolutely nothing even touches the Studio Display. Side by side with the Iiyama which is 99% sRGB and I did colour cal on, it doesn't even compare. It's horrible. Add the Windows 11 HiDPI problems and required 150% scaling blurriness and it's obvious that the Studio Display is more than worth the money. You plug it in, it works and it looks bloody amazing. That's what you're paying for.
5. There is absolutely no competition for the stuff built into macOS. Mail/Calendar/Contacts/Notes/Reminders/Apple Music/Numbers/Maps/iMessage/Safari/Photos are nothing special independently but together they are absolutely amazingly good tools.
6. Microsoft have just discontinued custom domain support for outlook.com unless you fish out money for O365 business which is $$$. This is effectively free with anything but the basic iCloud sub.
7. There is no replacement for Apple Photos and Apple Music that works across iOS and windows. It just doesn't exist. There is nothing. I spend days looking. Spotify is not it for reference! Neither is Lightroom!

Conclusions

1. It's mostly bad on the windows side of the fence. I'm solving the virtualisation gap by renting cloud instances now and doing work on there. If you shut them down when you're using them it costs < $30 a month and there's no hardware around to depreciate.
2. You get what you pay for. I'm paying for Apple and I'm perhaps happier now I've tested this.
3. I probably look like a dick based on my first post but I am a big proponent of owning up to your mistakes. I will wear the dunce hat and sit in the corner and reflect.
4. I burned £1000 on this experiment. I will get perhaps £800 back when I bounce all the crap on eBay. So the total cost of this thread is £200. Please enjoy watching me pissing cash out of the window to hurt myself for no good reason.

As a side note I have sold my iPad Pro because it turns out it's mostly an ornament. The MBP and the iPhone do 95% of the work and the rest does not justify the cost. I will miss it for digital art but I hit cultpens.com and bought some toys to play with on paper for a change. Display is also faster than 120Hz