Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[pshufd]

Here's where gaming laptops have a major downside. Those GPUs need lots of power, and they also generate a lot of heat, so fan noise is a major thing.

I fired up my Razer (I7 9750H/RTX 2070) to run benchmarks to compare that laptop with the studio - after hours of updates, I realized at how used to the quietness I got with my desktops (even my pc desktop) and how ungainly large the brick was. This is running a relatively low powered CPU (compared to later generations) and GPU yet those fans were annoying. I'm not sure how I was so used to them back in the day. I never got used to lugging the power brick with me, but it was something I did often.

AMD has some really nice offerings, and while the Thinkpad T14s isn't a gaming laptop, I was able to run some of my games fairly decently. What I likked about that was the smaller brick, light design, and thinkpad quality. I'm a big fan of thinkpads, and I'll grab the thinkpad before I think about my M1 MBP

One of my requirements is a 4k display (the MacBook Pro 16 falls a little short there which is one reason I bought the portable monitor). I do not need a lot of GPU horsepower and my desktop has a GTX 1050 ti. But there are assumptions in laptops that when you want one thing that's considered premium, you want everything premium. So I was looking at the ProArt 16. It is available with a 4k OLED display and a 4060 which is not too crazy on power. And it has the Ryzen 9 AI 370 which I really like. But it has the 200 watt power brick. There are 28 watt laptops that use the same CPU.

In my office days, I bought extra Apple charging bricks and left them in the office. So I have several MagSafe I and MagSafe II chargers in the basement. I didn't have to bring the charger back and forth to the office. People in the office with Macs would also borrow them if they forgot their bricks.

A ProArt might work if I could verify that an Anker 65 watt brick would provide enough power for my workload. I'd have to buy one to try it out. They have them at Best Buy for $2K and open box for $1,400 so it looks like people routinely buy these to try out and return them if they don't work out. One of the problems with going from a MacBook Pro is the stuff you miss.

 

[pshufd]

One of my financial sites is apparently blocking Downie now for video downloads. I've been using this for years to record the morning videos and then listening to them on walks.

So I looked into downloading them via screen recording and tried it with the speakers on my iMac Pro but the sound is awful doing it that way. Then I started looking into how to record the screen using internal audio and it always involves third-party products, most of them which do way more than what I want.

So I looked at Windows 11. It has Xbox-Live built-in and the program has a built-in screen recorder that captures internal audio for streaming your game play. And it's times like this when I really like having macOS and Windows at the same time.

I did try running it in a virtual machine on my Mac Studio using the screen snippet tool on Windows but it didn't work. The audio wasn't captured.

 

[pshufd]

I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the Asus ProArt 16 and 13. What I like about both is the Ryzen 9 AI 370 which is a powerful and efficient chip and the ability to dial down power profiles. What I don't like about the 16 is the 200 watt power brick which effectively brings up the weight to 5.38 pounds.

The ProArt PX13 is on sale for $1,249 this weekend at Best Buy. This is 30% discount so nothing to sneeze at. I could use a 13 inch laptop with my 17.3 inch 4k portable monitor except for one problem. Windows. I do this with my MacBook Pro because I can put my trading stuff on the portable monitor and my non-trading stuff on the internal monitor and just use Spaces to change the trading monitor. But I can't do this with Windows because Windows doesn't have Independent Virtual Desktops. It's an incredibly annoying issue with Windows and Microsoft said that they'd fix it back in 2018 but haven't as of yet.

So the choice would then be to bring a Windows laptop and a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro and the portable monitor.

I set up a macOS virtual machine running under Windows so that I have access to iCloud apps if I eventually go that route. This would be good until Apple ends all Tahoe support or probably 2-3 years. So any Windows solution would be good for 3 years at the most. By then, I expect my vendor for the only x86 software I need to run will have a released native Apple Silicon version. So a Windows solution would be a throwaway in at most three years. Of course I could sell it but Windows stuff depreciates like mad.

I made some changes to the beta software to workaround a few of the major bugs affecting me on their native beta so it is more usable. There is one other thing that is missing which is a major issue for me but I found a workaround for it for now. I reverted my desktop systems to just run the M1 Studio and the iMac Pro with three monitors on the Studio and the PC turned off. And we'll see how that goes on Monday. It looks like I will be in an all macOS world in two to three years and there is some logic in staying that way now instead of switching to Windows now and then switching back when my software is native.

So what would improve my current situation?

An M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14 would make my bag lighter and it would make for a less unwieldy laptop experience. Is it necessary? No. Just more convenient.

An M4 Studio 48 GB model would replace my M1 Studio and give me more flexibility with the added RAM. Is it necessary? No. But the single-core performance would help and the greater performance per watt would be welcome to reduce power consumption.

A base M4 mini could be used along with the Studio and the higher single-core performance would be helpful and it would reduce the RAM load on the M1 Studio. Necessary? No. Fun? Yes. Especially at $450 (Microcenter/Best Buy) to $500 (Amazon). My workload can be partitioned pretty easily into 2-3 Macs and three base minis would be $1,350, give me 48 GB of RAM, 12 performance cores and 18 efficiency cores.

The most logical improvement would be the M4 Studio as it's less to manage.

Fun stuff to think about and often changing the software environment can improve the hardware environment.

 

[pshufd]

The new approach worked fine but was not as responsive as I'd like. The Windows version is more responsive than the native Apple Silicon beta. I suspect that it's not built with full optimization which is what could be expected in a relatively early part of the beta.

 

[maflynn]

So the choice would then be to bring a Windows laptop and a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro and the portable monitor.

What about parallels and running the ARM version of windows. Its just me, but I think carrying two laptops plus a portable monitor will get old. Depending on your travel needs a portable monitor can be a game changer, but two laptops - the suckage will be high

Asus ProArt 16 and 13. What I like about both is the Ryzen 9 AI 370 which is a powerful and efficient chip and the ability to dial down power profiles. What I don't like about the 16 is the 200 watt power brick which effectively brings up the weight to 5.38 pounds.

The ProArt laptops are good laptops, but I wonder if the 13" would be too small - maybe if you include the portable monitor but with my old eyes, I'd personally avoid anything smaller then 14" I get the argument regarding the 16" model with the power brick. I stopped traveling with the Razer laptop for that very reason - I love the Thinkpad T14S, its a smaller laptop with a smaller power brick. I don't think it has the cpu/gpu that would satisfy your needs, but for my needs its perfect.

 

[pshufd]

What about parallels and running the ARM version of windows. Its just me, but I think carrying two laptops plus a portable monitor will get old. Depending on your travel needs a portable monitor can be a game changer, but two laptops - the suckage will be high

The ProArt laptops are good laptops, but I wonder if the 13" would be too small - maybe if you include the portable monitor but with my old eyes, I'd personally avoid anything smaller then 14" I get the argument regarding the 16" model with the power brick. I stopped traveling with the Razer laptop for that very reason - I love the Thinkpad T14S, its a smaller laptop with a smaller power brick. I don't think it has the cpu/gpu that would satisfy your needs, but for my needs its perfect.

I use the Wine/Rosetta 2 solution right now. My tests running it via Wine/Rosetta 2 and in a Windows 11 VM show the same results. That's fairly reasonable as there is some overhead in running two operating systems.

Carrying two laptops and a portable monitor is doable when I'm traveling to the Boston house as I just throw it into the car and then bring it all inside. But I've been thinking of just buying a system and leaving it down there. I could leave a desktop and a 4k 27 inch monitor down there which would mean that I wouldn't have to bring a lot of hardware back and forth. Or I could buy a full setup down there so I don't have to bring anything at all. Carrying two laptops isn't doable on air or other travel.

The Pro Art 13 is 2.8K and I'd probably run it at 2K. I run my 27 inch 4k monitors at native resolution. Same with the portable 17.3 inch 4k display. I run the resolution at 2,6xx x ???; not 3.5k but not far away. The ProArt PX 13 would be something I could bring to the gym too. Right now, I bring an iPad mini if I need something at the gym and it's not all that useful outside of watching YouTube or reading. The Pro Art PX13 was a steal at $1,249 though.

So I'm back to the Windows desktop this morning in my mixed environment. It is possible that M4 would make a big performance improvement in the native Apple Silicon beta. But I'd have to buy one to test it out. I reported the performance issue as a bug and will see what they say. I found another bug that's pretty bad too and I reported that as well. Sometimes I think that I shouldn't be using beta software for real work.

At any rate, if I see the ProArt PX13 at that price again, I'll pull the trigger. That's a machine that I think would be good for five years. There is a lot of cheap junk from Dell and HP that are $300 - $400 off that would make for a good throwaway after two years but I don't like to buy stuff that way. It's also hard to buy a throwaway when a base M4 mini basically costs the same.

The thing is that I have two real issues in my home desktop setup, what to use at the other house and what to use when on the road and I'm trying to use one or two solutions to fit all three cases and there may not be an ideal way to do that.

 

[pshufd]

I looked at review comments on Asus which led me to look at build quality, reliability and support by brand. Apple and Microsoft are on top with Lenovo and Dell next. Comments from folks here say that Dell quality has dropped a lot so I think that Lenovo is probably the best after Apple and Microsoft. Everyone else is lower, including Asus. We've had build quality and support issues with Asus in the past and they are horrible on support.

So I looked at a Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i, 14 inch, 4k, OLED thin and light and it checks all of the boxes for what I'm looking to do. I asked our son about it (he's a lot more into the Windows world) and he said that it's a great device but the price ($2K) is ridiculous. The other two Asus laptops that I'm looking at are $1,800 for the PX13 and $2,000 for the ProArt 16.

What I've read in reviews is that these things always go on sale on a regular basis and just wait for one to go on sale. Lenovo, surprisingly, makes a bunch of other laptops with 4k displays. The Yoga Slim 9i is the only model at Best Buy though. I am thinking of taking a drive there to play around with it along with the PX13 and ProArt 16.

One of the things that is an impetus to moving forward is the tariffs deadline of August 1. Apple is going to get hit with 35% tariffs for their products made in Thailand and that means some Macs and the Apple Watch. I do not know which Macs are made in Thailand but the tariffs could change the PC pricing landscape by quite a bit. I've no doubt that Apple, Amazon and Best Buy are busy bringing in as many devices as possible before the tariffs hit.

I can use a 4k display at native resolution at 17.3 inches. I would like to test it on 16 and 14 inches. It may not be possible to use at 14 inches but I could rearrange my virtual desktops to probably go with 3k scaled. One thing that I'd really love is virtual desktops where you could set the resolution per virtual desktop. So that one might be 2k, one might be 3k and one might be 4k and the resolution switches automatically when you switch desktop.

I suspect that a number of people here have gone through this process in the past - they requirements are different but the journey may be similar. When people say that Apple products are expensive, they are in certain ways but it's also true in the Windows worlds - just different aspects of it.

 

[Cape Dave]

I looked at review comments on Asus which led me to look at build quality, reliability and support by brand. Apple and Microsoft are on top with Lenovo and Dell next. Comments from folks here say that Dell quality has dropped a lot so I think that Lenovo is probably the best after Apple and Microsoft. Everyone else is lower, including Asus. We've had build quality and support issues with Asus in the past and they are horrible on support.

So I looked at a Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i, 14 inch, 4k, OLED thin and light and it checks all of the boxes for what I'm looking to do. I asked our son about it (he's a lot more into the Windows world) and he said that it's a great device but the price ($2K) is ridiculous. The other two Asus laptops that I'm looking at are $1,800 for the PX13 and $2,000 for the ProArt 16.

What I've read in reviews is that these things always go on sale on a regular basis and just wait for one to go on sale. Lenovo, surprisingly, makes a bunch of other laptops with 4k displays. The Yoga Slim 9i is the only model at Best Buy though. I am thinking of taking a drive there to play around with it along with the PX13 and ProArt 16.

One of the things that is an impetus to moving forward is the tariffs deadline of August 1. Apple is going to get hit with 35% tariffs for their products made in Thailand and that means some Macs and the Apple Watch. I do not know which Macs are made in Thailand but the tariffs could change the PC pricing landscape by quite a bit. I've no doubt that Apple, Amazon and Best Buy are busy bringing in as many devices as possible before the tariffs hit.

I can use a 4k display at native resolution at 17.3 inches. I would like to test it on 16 and 14 inches. It may not be possible to use at 14 inches but I could rearrange my virtual desktops to probably go with 3k scaled. One thing that I'd really love is virtual desktops where you could set the resolution per virtual desktop. So that one might be 2k, one might be 3k and one might be 4k and the resolution switches automatically when you switch desktop.

I suspect that a number of people here have gone through this process in the past - they requirements are different but the journey may be similar. When people say that Apple products are expensive, they are in certain ways but it's also true in the Windows worlds - just different aspects of it.

Lenovo tends to have some very good "sales". One can get a great price when that happens.

 

[pshufd]

Just back from Best Buy and I looked at the three models I was interested in and all of the other models on display. I did not see anything interesting outside of the models that I was interested in, either because of size, weight or screen resolution. The best that I found for what I need was the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i. Thin, light and I was able to read it at native 4k resolution on 14 inches.

The Asus ProArt PX13 was heavier than I expected and I didn't like the screen movement - that's likely due to it being a 2-in-1. The ProArt 16 was very nice though large. One thing I found on both ProArt laptops was a lag between operations. I've heard of this issue from other people. It can be a second or two. I suspect that it's power-levels on the CPU or something to do with the GPUs. The ProArt laptops use the AMD Ryzen 9 AI 370 while the Lenovo uses an Intel Core Ultra.

So I'll just watch for sales. If I don't see any in the next couple of weeks, I'll get the Lenovo.

There's no substitute for going into a store (or ordering one with willingness to return), to try them out, pick them up, check how the keys feel and look at the screen. Best Buy has lower prices than the online places I looked at too.

 

[Madhatter32]

Just back from Best Buy and I looked at the three models I was interested in and all of the other models on display. I did not see anything interesting outside of the models that I was interested in, either because of size, weight or screen resolution. The best that I found for what I need was the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i. Thin, light and I was able to read it at native 4k resolution on 14 inches.

The Asus ProArt PX13 was heavier than I expected and I didn't like the screen movement - that's likely due to it being a 2-in-1. The ProArt 16 was very nice though large. One thing I found on both ProArt laptops was a lag between operations. I've heard of this issue from other people. It can be a second or two. I suspect that it's power-levels on the CPU or something to do with the GPUs. The ProArt laptops use the AMD Ryzen 9 AI 370 while the Lenovo uses an Intel Core Ultra.

So I'll just watch for sales. If I don't see any in the next couple of weeks, I'll get the Lenovo.

There's no substitute for going into a store (or ordering one with willingness to return), to try them out, pick them up, check how the keys feel and look at the screen. Best Buy has lower prices than the online places I looked at too.

Isn't Lenovo having a sale right now?

Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (14â³ Intel) | Creativity Powered by AI | 83CXCTO1WWUS1

Learn more about the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (14â³ Intel), a powerful, stylish, Copilot+ PC with a groundbreaking camera-under-display design.

www.lenovo.com

 

[pshufd]

Isn't Lenovo having a sale right now?

Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (14â³ Intel) | Creativity Powered by AI | 83CXCTO1WWUS1

Learn more about the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (14â³ Intel), a powerful, stylish, Copilot+ PC with a groundbreaking camera-under-display design.

www.lenovo.com

Yes, I found that after that post at 12% off. I'm looking at a different model but the discount percentage is the same.

One thing that amazed me at Best Buy was that there were so many lower-spec'd models. 32 GB of RAM is considered premium these days and it's soldered and the upgrade is $200. Sounds like another company I know of.

I may pull the trigger today or tomorrow. The sale is this week I think.

 

[LiE_]

Been getting the gaming itch recently so tried out GeForce Now which a friend recommended. Paid for the ultimate tier so I could get the best experience on 1gig internet via ethernet. It's surprisingly good! I can feel the input latency but this is in a fast game like Space Marine 2. After a while you adjust and it's fine. I'm loving having this as an option to play games on a 4080 streamed to my Mac mini at 4k, no heat, no noise.

 

[LeeW]

Been getting the gaming itch recently so tried out GeForce Now which a friend recommended. Paid for the ultimate tier so I could get the best experience on 1gig internet via ethernet. It's surprisingly good! I can feel the input latency but this is in a fast game like Space Marine 2. After a while you adjust and it's fine. I'm loving having this as an option to play games on a 4080 streamed to my Mac mini at 4k, no heat, no noise.

I quite like GeForce Now, never had an issue with it, and I have been using it since launch when I got an early invite.

 

[maflynn]

I quite like GeForce Now

I have to try that again, I've heard good things lately, though I don't think its a feasible option when It travel. I tried various streaming options in the past while not at home and the issue is hotel wifi is just too slow - even their paid tier can be painfully slow for game streaming.

 

[maflynn]

wow, I just tried Geforce Now, and I was pleasantly surprised - my go to game Fallout 76 played better on the free tier of Geforce Now then under Crossover. Not to say everything was unicorns and rainbows. The wait was significant, and loading into a private world was also slow. Yet in game there wasn't too much lagginess. I went through the West Tek building which can bring the game to its knees under crossover for some reason. This location isn't really playable under crossover. The game performs pretty well in crossover but certain locations - not so much

The big question is, is it worth 50 dollars for 6 months of higher tier access?

 

[pshufd]

I watched a number of reviews on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i and the vast majority of reviewers said that it wasn't worth the money. I'd basically be spending $800 for the 4k display over a 2k display. Even with the discount, it would be $550 and that's an awful value. It would be more efficient to get the WUXGA and use the portable monitor.

So it appears that there aren't any laptops that will do what I want at a reasonable price.

So this morning I booted up the 2015 MacBook Pro 15 to Windows and I'm running my Intel program on it and performance is as good as my M1 Pro MacBook Pro so I'll just do that when I'm at the house in Boston.

This doesn't solve my plane/train travels but it solves one out of the three problems as I can just bring the 2015 MacBook Pro, the 2021 MacBook Pro and the portable monitor.

 

[LiE_]

The big question is, is it worth 50 dollars for 6 months of higher tier access?

The ultimate tier is a little pricey, but the experience is as good as it's going to get on a cloud streaming gaming service. Why not dip your toes in for 1 month before going for a 6 month sub?

 

[LeeW]

The big question is, is it worth 50 dollars for 6 months of higher tier access?

I would say so, the free tier is ok, but as soon as you unlock more by paying the difference, in my view is substantial. As @LiE_ says, give it a go for a month.

 

[LiE_]

Also if you can, go ethernet for the best experience.

 

[maflynn]

Also if you can, go ethernet for the best experience.

Yeah, no question. That's one thing I've been contemplating, not just for the mac, but overall for my work office. I'm debating whether its worth the time, and cost to run some ethernet to my office.

 

[pshufd]

Yeah, no question. That's one thing I've been contemplating, not just for the mac, but overall for my work office. I'm debating whether its worth the time, and cost to run some ethernet to my office.

We upgraded to a 2.5 GB modem/router last year but I haven't upgraded the switches and cables so wired is still GBE but I think that WiFi is quite a bit faster than wired Ethernet but it depends on where you are relative to the wireless router along with the additional traffic in your neighborhood.

 

[pshufd]

Still looking at a few Lenovo thin and light products and coupons and deals stack and you can get the price down quite a bit from MSRP.

Daughter wants my PC so I'm going to upgrade the PSU to a Titanium 750 and she can have it. She'll swap her GPU and SSDs in. It looks like I may be running off the Mac Studio for a while unless I order the laptop really soon.

 

[LiE_]

I'm debating whether its worth the time, and cost to run some ethernet to my office.

Put my ethernet in today, very pleased having the absolute fastest response times and speeds.

Need to tidy up the hole but the cable fits nicely under the carpet between the skirting and grippers.

 

[pshufd]

Ordered an RTX 5050. Amazon had them on sale this morning for slightly more than MSRP. Best Buy will have them in in two weeks for MSRP. MicroCenter is sold out and there's no indication as to when they will be back but I suspect that they'll have them in 4-6 weeks in a mode where you don't have to get there within an hour if you actually want to snag one.

I'm going to run 2x4k off the Windows PC instead of just one so that this takes some of the GPU load off the Studio.

For some reason, the GPU load on Java is much higher on Apple Silicon compared to running on my Windows box and the iMac Pro. All three have comparable GPUs but the GPU load is about 80% on the Studio, 30% on the Windows PC and 30% on the iMac Pro. CPU load on all three is relatively low after it starts up. I suspect that this is the implementation of Java on Apple Silicon or maybe just the version that Schwab bundles in with Think or Swim.

 

[maflynn]

Ordered an RTX 5050

Its funny how all of the tech YTers that cover PCs and GPUs basically call the RTX xx50 and xx60 series of cards wastes of sand, yet they tend to be most popular cards for consumers