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MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
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who the what the why and where?
well, i can start this topic by stating the Dell XPS 9380 can perform many tasks and is very responsive and fast.
i just installed a WD blue ssd card and up the speed a bit.
the boot time is in seconds to launch an app and the processor can send a signal to an HDMI TV without any problems, while sending a sound signal to an external speaker like 2010.
 might have a similar notebook but there are problems with the intel processor on the 2020 MacBooks especially the airs were many users complained on the apple support forms all last year.
 
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alien3dx

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2017
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reason i ask is i almost went intel this is my first apple computr
er
The point is usage. If travel a lot, battery is the most important and m1 macbook battery the best of its class not crunching power.

If need more power not travel, mac pro the best choice.
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
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i almost went xps
i was referring to the intel processor only
the other aspects such as screen, battery, and power chord always lit are plusses
the typing experience is great, the trackpad features many gestures and the overall laptop is constructed very solidly and the back panel has a better air flow design than others.
dell says their thermal cooling system is a gortex® material that keep the cpu and keyboard cool.
windows 10 is cleaner, music sounded better and i have NO ads (on websites) while on Edge- safari lets some through
i am very happy with the laptop
the only thing i did not like about the dell xps laptop was loosing the interaction with the iPad gen5 and iphone G5, but apple wont support these much longer as my MacBook air is discontinued and unspoortive.

I'm not trying to sell you a Dell xps , rather just pointing out some information on a Intel vases laptop.
 

DimaVR

Suspended
Nov 14, 2017
1,146
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If you going to buy your first apple computer it should be M CPU simple as that, nothing comes close to Intel speeds when compared to M power running MAC OS.

you would loose serious money buying Intel Mac right vs M Mac computer
 

DimaVR

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Nov 14, 2017
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Unless you are in a digital 3D making business world where you need Mac Pro and 128GB or more and you are a music producer and works in major projects than Intel Mac Pro will be good for for many years to come until Mac Pro M series comes out that can support pci cards and everything in between
 

mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
362
621
i was referring to the intel processor only
the other aspects such as screen, battery, and power chord always lit are plusses
the typing experience is great, the trackpad features many gestures and the overall laptop is constructed very solidly and the back panel has a better air flow design than others.
dell says their thermal cooling system is a gortex® material that keep the cpu and keyboard cool.
windows 10 is cleaner, music sounded better and i have NO ads (on websites) while on Edge- safari lets some through
i am very happy with the laptop
the only thing i did not like about the dell xps laptop was loosing the interaction with the iPad gen5 and iphone G5, but apple wont support these much longer as my MacBook air is discontinued and unspoortive.

I'm not trying to sell you a Dell xps , rather just pointing out some information on a Intel vases laptop.
RE edge: I run edge on my Mac and it is the way to go at this point. Clean, fast and secure.

I agree with you on the overall smoothness of win 10 20H2. But it has its clunky parts too. The two big issues I take with it are eGPUs and Bluetooth.
When doing a video or audio call on windows 10 and you use a Bluetooth headset it drops A2DP which means sound is mono only and it doesn’t reroute the regular computer audio through that output even if you have the default audio source set to the headset. It actually creates a second output. I understand that these changes allow for a better audio stream on higher latency networks but when I’m at home on gigabit why do this? Additionally audio cuts out when I have a game controller hooked up via Bluetooth as well as a mouse. No such issues on macOS.
As for eGPUs you have to enable a special reg key now for most computers to work with them (worse still the key has the work “hacks” and is unsupported by MS). This is effectively the same as leaving the eGPU capabilities of a machine up to oems which is not great for end users. MS can and should push a hard standard here. Apple has the eGPU game in much better shape.

I see a refinement of a good UI game from MS with the latest Win 10 releases but a regression in good underlying tech. I see the opposite in the macOS with the underpinnings solidifying during a processor architecture shift but the UI floundering due to a shift to unify the design languages of the macOS and iOS/iPadOS.
 

Kung gu

Suspended
Oct 20, 2018
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As for eGPUs you have to enable a special reg key now for most computers to work with them (worse still the key has the work “hacks” and is unsupported by MS). This is effectively the same as leaving the eGPU capabilities of a machine up to oems which is not great for end users. MS can and should push a hard standard here. Apple has the eGPU game in much better shape.
At least eGPU is there someway of making it work on Windows, on M1 macs there is no eGPU support at all.
 

robco74

macrumors 6502a
Nov 22, 2020
509
944
It's going to depend on what you do with the machine. If you have any apps that take advantage of AVX-512, that's Intel only. If you have apps that run better with CUDA, that's Nvidia only. If you want comparable configs and pricing, the XPS 13 and Carbon X1 fit the bill. They will take a performance hit on battery though.

I would of course also make sure any external peripherals you need are supported by Big Sur and/or M1. Many companies are still making the transition from kexts to DriverKit.

Without knowing specific workflows and apps, it's impossible to make a blanket proclamation. As in the days of PPC vs Intel before, the days of PPC vs 68K, and the olden days of MIPS vs SPARC vs PA-RISC vs Alpha vs IA64 vs x86 - you'll have some benchmarks that favor one or the other, and some apps that are better optimized than others. If you're looking at laptops, then matching the PPW of M1 is a tough order.
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
6,975
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I would say bluetooth is worse on M1 macs
the Bluetooth on the Dell XPS 13" is quite impressive, which never lost a connection when i sue that to stream muisc.
the past aspect i love about the Dell XPS is the elegance with added lines around the laptop.
the cover has several silvers around the logo and detailed shine around the ports.
overall the laptop is quite remarkable!
 

padams35

macrumors 6502a
Nov 10, 2016
502
348
reason i ask is i almost went intel this is my first apple computr
er

Check the Apple Refurbished store page for 13" Macbook Pros. 2018 and newer in general, 2020 in particular. Those come reasonably close to the M1.

However if you want a Macbook Air then it is M1 all the way. None of the Macbook Air Intel models come close.
 

mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
362
621
At least eGPU is there someway of making it work on Windows, on M1 macs there is no eGPU support at all.
Yet. The M1s have been out for half a year and when the GPU in the M1 is rivaling a mid tier desktop class GPU it isn't a bit deal on what you'd expect from a lower end laptop like a Air or 13" pro.

But are we comparing the OSs on the same hardware or different hardware platforms? My comments were largely around the software on Intel because that is a bit more Apples to Apples.
 

ctjack

macrumors 68000
Mar 8, 2020
1,556
1,574
Since i came from a monster of a laptop in 2020 - i could share my thoughts.
Previously in Dec 2020 i have owned Lenovo legion 5 17" 10750h/1660ti/16gb RAM. I will compare it to base 512gb M1 Air.
1) Speed. Across the OS UI and opening the programs: well that is surprising, less hardware capable M1 Air opens in the same time all of my programs like Lightroom(even Rosetta), DaVinci, R, Python. That is a huge plus for Air m1 from me.
2) Battery. On M1 i get 15 hrs, while with lenovo that was barely 6-8 hours on very low brightness and dGPU off manually, which needed the system reboot.
3) Gaming. Yeah gaming is better on Windows monster, but that was also more expensive machine. So for the difference in price i could afford xbox ses and close the gaming topic for myself here.
4) Noise. Well as i said the speed is on par between both, but Air is silent and cold and portable. Lenovo was also silent, but i could hear fans sometime and it run warm all the time.
5) Lags. On M1 Air i was happy at first, but once i installed manually IOS apps, it became luggy. So far i have seen reboot reports(blue screen on Win) far more than on Win laptop. I am sure that clean install of Mac without ios apps will help the problem, but that is annoying and considered to be a first mover bug for me. I hope they will fix it in the future models. So far this is my only biggest concern.
6) Speakers. Sound is so better on Air, while lenovo freaked me out by offering to pay additional money for some sort of Dolby to get better sound. I mean really? I paid more than grand and now i have to pay another 60 bucks to make my speakers/headphones sound not crappy?
7) Camera and mic. Hands down camera and sound are better on Win laptop. It also had a cover to close the webcam and the image quality far better.
8) OS. Well some things better here and some there. Up to preferences. Personally i do like the screenshot, screen recording features of Mac OS and multiple desktop feature. So Mac is good to have many things open side by side, while Win felt better at organizing my stuff and dragging windows, icons and folders.
9) Screen. Screen was better in Win laptop in terms of ergonomics, but Air has more pixels and retina does the job. However i prefer Win on this case for ergonomics.
10) External display support. That is a well know problem, so to get 1080P UI you need either 1080P or 4K display on Mac. I have 2k display and the fonts are super small, if i make it 1080P then the screen is blurry. If i mirror my mac to external in 1080P, then the image is big and crystal clear but i have big/wide black frames on the left and right of 2k monitor. So Win laptops do better with external.
=================
As a conclusion, you need very powerful Win laptop to be on par with M1 Macs.
 
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mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
362
621
Some people are reporting problems with Bluetooth especially on the M1 mini. I haven’t had any trouble that couldn’t be fixed by toggling Bluetooth off and on.
I have also heard of these issues. My father among them. But on a thread like this a one line statement like that doesn't fly. 😄 If you're gonna say something is better than something else that has know issues you gotta be specific.
 

Kung gu

Suspended
Oct 20, 2018
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Yet. The M1s have been out for half a year and when the GPU in the M1 is rivaling a mid tier desktop class GPU it isn't a bit deal on what you'd expect from a lower end laptop like a Air or 13" pro.

But are we comparing the OSs on the same hardware or different hardware platforms? My comments were largely around the software on Intel because that is a bit more Apples to Apples.
M1 8 core is equal to a 1050 ti from 2016!!
It's not even equal to a 1650
1617926278953.png
 
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robco74

macrumors 6502a
Nov 22, 2020
509
944
most users don't care about that, they want results and the 1650 is better
And you know this because...?

A lot of Apple's core user base does care about battery life. The MBA and entry-level MBP aren't marketed as gaming laptops. One reason the MBA became so popular is because of long battery life.

And as pointed out repeatedly, M1 is just the first Mac chip. No doubt future versions will have more GPU cores to offer even better performance. That the M1 can offer comparable CPU and GPU performance, along with the Neural Engine, at such a low power draw is impressive.

Most 13" thin and light laptops have integrated graphics. The GPU in M1 holds its own quite nicely.
 

alien3dx

macrumors 68020
Feb 12, 2017
2,193
524
And you know this because...?

A lot of Apple's core user base does care about battery life. The MBA and entry-level MBP aren't marketed as gaming laptops. One reason the MBA became so popular is because of long battery life.

And as pointed out repeatedly, M1 is just the first Mac chip. No doubt future versions will have more GPU cores to offer even better performance. That the M1 can offer comparable CPU and GPU performance, along with the Neural Engine, at such a low power draw is impressive.

Most 13" thin and light laptops have integrated graphics. The GPU in M1 holds its own quite nicely.
snapdragon 662 struggle to run genshin impact while m1 quite smooth.Its still can be high end game if apple open ipad games to m1. Remember nintendo tegra aint powerfull either but stil.
 

mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
362
621
M1 8 core is equal to a 1050 ti from 2016!!
It's not even equal to a 1650
View attachment 1755482
You're quoting one benchmark. With the Mac mini virtualizing another chips architecture. And leveraging an old graphics platform. I suspect that'd easily account for a 20% difference in performance between it and the 1650. You're grabbing your bench mark from notebook check which has the 1650 listed as class 2:mid-tier. Let's see how things run when Baldur's Gate 3 rolls out and we have the same game running on top of Metal and DX 12. Gonna be much closer than you think. Better yet, when we get Windows native on the M1 and can get an even closer comparison. The arguments you post are flawed due to a lack of data. And you won't get it because it isn't out there yet. The M1 has been out for six months. We don't have good real world comparisons yet in graphics performance. Only the bare metal numbers. And those are darn close.
 
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