MBA or MBP 2020 or XPS13

[Rzyrek]

Hey. Hopefully you can help me with my decision.

I need a new device for:
- Excel
- learning to code Python/SQL for Windows (Bootcamp ?)
- Casual Gaming: Rimworld and Diablo 3

At the moment I own an
- iPhone XS Max
- Air Pods Pro
- Apple Watch 3 (planing to upgrade this fall)
- iPad Pro 10,5
- windows gaming PC

Money isn‘t the issue but actually don‘t want to pay too much, when I don‘t need to. I don`t want to do photo or video editing but I want to code on Windows.

At the moment I am undecided between:
- MacBook Air i5 256Gb 8Gb 1133€
- MacBook Air i5 256Gb 16Gb 1410€
- MacBook Pro i5 8. 256Gb 8Gb 1409€
- MacBook Pro i5 8. 256Gb 16Gb 1527€
- MacBook Pro i7 10. 512Gb 16Gb 2002€
- XPS13 UHF+ i7 512Gb 16Gb 1861€

I don‘t know how good the MBA or MBP perform with windows with Bootcamp and with Diablo3/Rimworld and I‘m worried that the MBA will overhead during these tasks.

Thanks for your help.

 

[throAU]

If you plan on gaming, given the games support the Mac, I'd recommend the pro over the Air.

The air will do casual gaming stuff but the cpu and thermals will be better on the pro doing so.

For sustained CPU workloads, the Air is not the best tool for the job.

I've been gaming on mine (2020 Air i7) a little bit with Knights of the old Republic today and the fan is not too bad in a Windows VM with 2 cores allocated, but that's not a very heavy game at all.

That said, I haven't tried diablo 3 on this yet. I'll see what the fan noise is like and report back.


edit:
tried diablo 3. it runs OK I guess, but suspect it would run better on a MBP. Then again I normally run it on a fairly hefty gaming PC so...

 

[KPOM]

For what it’s worth, in GeekBench and Cinebench, I get similar CPU scores in Boot Camp on my Ice Lake i5 MacBook Pro as I do in macOS. When I had the i7 Air, the Geekbench multi-core score was about 15-20% lower in Windows. I can’t speak to battery life in Boot Camp since I was using it plugged in, but for CPU performance, it looks like Apple’s Boot Camp drivers for the Pro are better than the Air. The Dell would be better if you plan to use Windows exclusively (better driver support, etc.).

None of the Macs or Dell XPS would completely replace your gaming system, but the Dell or Ice Lake Pro would be better than the Air or 8th-gen Pro.

 

[mtneer]

If your stated goal is to code on Windows then get the Dell that best runs Windows without any penalty.

 

[SaguaroSeven]

You first question is do you want a Mac or PC? I run several Python environs on Macs, and would give it the edge due to Terminal/unix/homebrew. YMMV.

Agree with @mtneer - to a point. Going back to my first question. Maybe you want a Mac because of the "Apple ecosystem" or other reasons. That's valid too. Reading above, I'm not clear those games need Windows? If you will be running a VM on Mac then I'd stay away from MacBook Air: it's processors are "more mobile" than the Pro's. (or any gaming beyond Apple Arcade, for that matter)

Assuming VMs, I'd do depending on your price tolerance:
- MacBook Pro i7 10. 512Gb 16Gb 2002€
- MacBook Pro i5 8. 256Gb 16Gb 1527€

For the 500€ you get better speakers, better graphics, more Tbt/USB ports, faster memory, more SSD, and of course faster processor.