Laptop with 12600H vs Apple Silicon MacBook?

[gdourado]

Hello,

I am looking at either a MacBook Air or a Windows Laptop.
The windows Laptop is a Dell with an i5 12600H.

I always hear how game changer the Apple Silicon is and how much ahead of everything else else is in performance.

So I am wondering how better or worse the 12600H is compared to either a M1 air or an M2 air.

The i5 is a 45W chip while the Apple Silicon is a 10W chip.
Can it really perform better?

Also, the Dell comes with 32Gb of DDR5 ram and the MacBooks only have 8Gb.

That is for the same price. The MacBooks can be upgraded to 16gb, but then they are way more expensive than the Dell.

So, in regard to performance, can the Apple Silicon MacBook Air really outperform a 45W 12th Gen i5?

Regards.

 

[bobcomer]

So, in regard to performance, can the Apple Silicon MacBook Air really outperform a 45W 12th Gen i5?

It depends on what you want to do, but in general, no. The Air's Achilles heel is not having an active cooling system, which means when you push it, it will throttle -- a lot.

I bought the first M1 MBA, and I used it for 2 months, then put it on the shelf to wait for an apple trade-in. It did not do well with my normal workload, and it was upgraded to 16G of RAM. The i5 would be a nice machine.

 

[gdourado]

It depends on what you want to do, but in general, no. The Air's Achilles heel is not having an active cooling system, which means when you push it, it will throttle -- a lot.

I bought the first M1 MBA, and I used it for 2 months, then put it on the shelf to wait for an apple trade-in. It did not do well with my normal workload, and it was upgraded to 16G of RAM. The i5 would be a nice machine.

Thank you for your reply.
Curious I of what your workload consist of that it didn’t work well with the M1…

Cheers

 

[bobcomer]

Thank you for your reply.
Curious I of what your workload consist of that it didn’t work well with the M1…

Cheers

I'm an IT manager, and I do development as well, lots of VM testing...

 

[1BadManVan]

Do you plan to use it plugged in most the time? If so, the i5 is a very powerful chip and the extra ram is definitely worthwhile as well. But if you plan to use off battery more, you will definitely be happy with a MacBook m series chip. I use a i7 desktop pc but an m2 air for portability as the battery life is just unmatched