| 12-25-2021, 07:52 AM | #5 |
| Many good points in that article. 10 years ago when I got my i7 4 core iMac, Macworld did ac omparisin, and found that the i7 was the cheapest way to buy processing power. And that computer still performs at a high level, though I've barely used it since I go my 8 core M1 Mac mini. The reason for looking at Apple numbers is, the rest of the platform is apples to apples, where as some companies may beef up thier i7 platform, and some cripple it. But as pointed out in the article, the use of multiple cores helps out only with software that has been configured for multiple cores. When you have a company like Apple you can be sure your software, most of it provided by Apple will be updated to take advantage of the new hardware, free of charge. Looking at the software I own, almost none of the third party software has been updated for the 8 core M1. My Apple software 90% of what use, just flies, non Apple software, same as always. And there in lies the issue. If your software isn't from a company that upgrades for available chips (much harder to do in the Windows world than in the Apple world, you will see no difference. If you don't have supporting hardware to match the speed of the processor, it's wasted. From 10 years ago, the i5 wasn't much better than the i3. The jump from i3 to i5 was about 20% improvement in performance. i5 to i7 was about 60% (if and only if the hardware had been configured to take advantage of the 4 core i7.) While the numbers may not be the same, I expect the numbers would be similar. But in the Windows world, as much depends on who manufactures the motherboard and how the hardware is configured as it does on chip speed. You need to compare whole systems, not just what chip is in it. I recently got a message from one of my third party vendors that they would sell me an update that would take advantage of the M1 chip for $40 or so. I bought the software about 6 months ago... I no longer send that company money. Last edited by normhead; 12-25-2021 at 07:58 AM. | |
