Microsoft Says 'We're Faster Than a Mac' in Latest Windows PC Ad

[digidude]

Yeah, but the problem is, you have to use Windows. And CoPilot sucks. It's the revenge of Clippy.

And we're talking fractions of a second here. Speed is irrelevant at this point, unless you're doing engineering calculations or a Pixar movie, but if you're that person, you aren't using a laptop. I have the M1 Ultra with 128GB RAM, I regularly render huge images and merge multiple 4 layers, and I have never waited more than 3 seconds for anything.

 

[iSayuSay]

Well this is an Apple forum what do you expect with giving articles like this?

Mac is all great and dandy for certain workloads, sure. But when it comes to gaming no one takes a step forward against PC and Windows.

Mac doesn’t have the latest RTX 5090, or 3D vcache cpu, or latest nvme drives despite what Apple promises with M chips. Mac doesn’t have the warranty of upcoming and latest PC games on Steam nor AppStore.

Since it’s a desktop PC I wouldn’t care about battery life nor low power efficiency.

Some of us (including me) just want to buy a single computer for both work and play. Bootcamp helped to a degree but no longer exists. So yeah PC will always have a nice comfy place in my home office 😉

 

[Marx55]

Besides cheating, Microsoft does not get it. The most important feature of a computer is NOT the hardware, but the user interface. The one of Mac (macOS) is much better than the anti-intuitive Windows or the even more obnoxious Linux, for instance.

 

[Big_D]

Sure. Now, talk about the compatibility of X64-86 based apps on the Arm powered Surface you’re advertising to be faster than a MacBook Air. Sure, it’ll be faster, but it won’t be nearly as versatile as the MacBook Air with any M-series chip.

To be fair, I've been running Windows on Arm for about 3 years now and I haven't had any compatibility problems, yet... All the software I need runs without any problems.

 

[cjsuk]

I haven't found a single software that can't run on the new Qualcomm CPUs, the x86 emulation is working really well.
I have read tho that some games do struggle, but that was 6 months back so my guess there is that some of those issues are prob solved. I don't game so that might be one reason why I haven't run into issues.

Do you have an example of SW that don't work? Would be fun to try and install to see if these issues still persist.

Lightroom. Absolutely unusable.

 

[darkcompass]

It's the interface thats the most important, not speed.
All they're saying here is that the hardware is fast, thats it.

 

[cjsuk]

I would like to point out that Microsoft recently closed their flagship Microsoft store in London. Having been past it many times it was dead. There is no interest in it. The Apple Store around the corner is however always completely rammed.

You buy a PC because you need to. Not because you want to. Microsoft need to get to the place where you want to and that ain’t happening with the current state of things.

 

[aevan]

Just curious, in your opinion, which way does this go? I have no idea,

I wouldn’t say Qualcom and AMD are close to Apple when it comes to performance per watt, they are just closing the gap.

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

Benchmarks should include OS and user interactions and interventions.

 

[baconcat_8964]

Oh Microsoft. Did you remember that deleted commercial, that a boy comparing a Surface Pro with an iPad Pro? He uses the Core m3 model without a keyboard cover to compare the price, and uses the Core i7 model with the keyboard cover and the pen to compare the gaming performance, claiming it is a full-featured Windows PC. Audiences know your tricks.

 

[WDKOztotl]

What a crock. Comparing older Mac hardware to the latest Intel chips is like like stacking the deck in Microsoft’s favor. That aside, take a brand new Mac and a brand new clean Windows machine. Now start adding applications like Office, Adobe Photoshop, etc. With the install of each, the Windows registry keys grow and will slow the system down with every application loaded because the system reads all that mess at boot. (This was the case with older Windows OS’s as it grew .INI files prior to switching to the registry pig.). Now do the same to the Mac. Unless you load some 3rd party application that continuously interacts with OS, i.e antivirus, VPN or other 3rd party apps you probably don’t need, the Mac will run just fine. Mac OS doesn’t not allow apps to directly interact with the “inner circle” that protects the OS from outside sources. Windows is full of holes, i.e DLLs that have hooks everywhere.


My 2 cents

 

[CausticSoda]

That is a seriously cr*p advertisement, and why are they talking about the M3 after the M4 has been released? Perhaps I'm missing something but I can't be bothered to think about it much.

 

[Earendil]

Apple loves talking about performance per watt, and they do win there, but for those who want raw processing power, Intel/AMD/NVidia run circles around Apple Silicon.

You do get that no one here OR Microsoft is talking about desktops, right? Microsoft is comparing themselves to the smallest and lightest Mac, in fact.

 

[Chomp81]

Well, good thing we have M4.

And, they might be faster than M3, until the first Windows update and Norton Antivirus kicks in

 

[Fuzzball84]

Besides cheating, Microsoft does not get it. The most important feature of a computer is NOT the hardware, but the user interface. The one of Mac (macOS) is much better than the anti-intuitive Windows or the even more obnoxious Linux, for instance.

There is practically a Linux for everyone. There are distributions catering to every level of user in the Linux world.

And windows out of the box is way more intuitive and easy to use in productivity than Mac.

 

[Fuzzball84]

That is a seriously cr*p advertisement, and why are they talking about the M3 after the M4 has been released? Perhaps I'm missing something but I can't be bothered to think about it much.

Why do Apple compare against iPads and Macs and iPhones released years ago?

They all do it

 

[Fuzzball84]

who doesn't love updates, updates, and more updates with windows PCs. I feel like with a Mac, for work especially, I can set up the machine and someone can use it for years without my intervention. With our windows PCs, I am constantly dealing with driver issues, updates, etc.

I used a windows PC for years at one company and never had issues. Maybe it wasn’t set up properly in the first place.

For many companies the versatility of windows is essential.

 

[mike090910]

Microsoft needs to include that they have many more viruses and spy ware than Apple.

 

[Big_D]

I used a windows PC for years at one company and never had issues. Maybe it wasn’t set up properly in the first place.

For many companies the versatility of windows is essential.

Try activating the Copilot+ features.

Paul Thurrott has been on a rant about that for a while now. To enable Recall, you hit the Recall option, it then says you need to update. Run update, reboot, start Recall. It says it needs an update. Run update, reboot, start Recall... 6 times! Just to start one application.

The current version loads 1 local LLM, reboots, decides it needs 2nd LLM, installs and reboots, then the 3rd, then the 4th and so on. Why Microsoft can't script it to download everything in one go is beyond me. Must be a "hard science problem," as Microsoft is fond of saying.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Try activating the Copilot+ features.

Paul Thurrott has been on a rant about that for a while now. To enable Recall, you hit the Recall option, it then says you need to update. Run update, reboot, start Recall. It says it needs an update. Run update, reboot, start Recall... 6 times! Just to start one application.

The current version loads 1 local LLM, reboots, decides it needs 2nd LLM, installs and reboots, then the 3rd, then the 4th and so on. Why Microsoft can't script it to download everything in one go is beyond me. Must be a "hard science problem," as Microsoft is fond of saying.

In almost all enterprise environments IT policy dictates that copilot and related AI features are disabled due to data compliance and security concerns.

The rest of the OS and its features and app compatibility are perfect for enterprise users.

 

[raythompsontn]

The Apple Store around the corner is however always completely rammed

Because people are buying watches, phones and tablets. None of which Microsoft sells. The rest of the people are looking for support because they have issues they cannot solve on their Apple devices. The comparison between Microsoft and Apple is not equal in that regard. The Apple Store is supporting the hardware and the software beyond the desktop and laptop. Apple no doubt did it correctly with their stores. But that contributes to the cost of Apple's products.

Microsoft supports dozens of different computers from different manufacturers, with dozens of different configurations, and thousands of software packages. The legacy support is leaps ahead of Apple. I have 10 year old software I can still run on my Windows machine that no longer runs on Apple hardware. To buy new versions to work on the Mac has been costly.

Then you have the memory and storage pricing on Apple. For the price of an upgrade to 1TB on my Mac I could easily install 64 Gig of memory and 2TB of storage an my W11 desktop. And if I want to increase either of those it can be done. I could increase my storage to 32TB on my desktop for less than the price of 8TB on the current Mac systems.

For speed my W11 desktop exceeds my M5 (oops, M4, with apologies to Dr. Daystrom) MacBook in almost everything. Boot time on my W11 machine is 15 seconds. Lightroom and Photoshop are both faster on my W11 machine. I paid less for the W11 machine, with 64GIG of memory and 8TB of storage than I did for my MacBook with 24GIG and 1TB.

Neither platform is superior. They both have their strengths, and weaknesses. I use both. Some things about Apple and MacOS are really annoying. Some things about Windows are annoying. You can't copy and paste images with Apple unless the images in the folder are in list view. Microsoft makes no difference. As a photographer that is my biggest complaint.

Buy what you want, and like, and move on. If you really want a horrible experience get a Chromebook, from any vendor.

 

[TydalForce]

How fast do you want to crash today?

 

[chucker23n1]

Faster at layoffs, that's for sure.

Top performing Copilot+ PCs outperform the MacBook Air M4​

OK. Can you name one that's fanless? No, you can't, because none of the CPUs you list have a TDP low enough for that to be feasible.

Copilot+ PCs are up to 5 times faster than the most popular 5 year old Windows PCs still in use today​

…OK?

Who thought "you know, that's a really great stat to bring up"?

 

[Fuzzball84]

How fast do you want to crash today?

I’ve not had a crash on windows for a long long time I can’t even remember

But on iOS and iPad OS etc I’ve had numerous crashes

 

[Fuzzball84]

Faster at layoffs, that's for sure.



OK. Can you name one that's fanless? No, you can't, because none of the CPUs you list have a TDP low enough for that to be feasible.





…OK?

Who thought "you know, that's a really great stat to bring up"?

Doesn’t Apple often compare to devices over 5 year old?