The Apple Silicon MacBook Pro range, armed with the latest chipsets and paired with faster flash memory and macOS, is a solid guarantee that the machine will be snappier than its competitors in the same price range. However, that’s not the case anymore with older MacBook Pro models.
One owner shows that an M3 Pro version is slightly slower than ASUS’ Zenbook S16, which is equipped with AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 processor, in a basic app opening speed test. In short, Windows notebooks are keeping up the pace, but we’re still keen to find out how the same configuration would fare against the M5 MacBook Pro.
M3 Pro should have the edge for the MacBook Pro due to single-core dominance, but one person points out that Microsoft apps open up slowly on Apple’s machines
A non-comprehensive app speed test was performed by Lewis Doyle, who owns both an M3 Pro MacBook Pro with 36GB of unified RAM, along with the ASUS Zenbook S16 sporting the same memory count. The start of the test includes a fresh boot, with the MacBook Pro gaining a lead against its rival. Next is Evernote, which opens up faster on the Zenbook S16, and MS Word and Spotify fire up faster on the Windows machine.
Looking at these results, readers would naturally be surprised that the Zenbook S16 is actually snappier than the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, but a few things need to be pointed out. For instance, older-generation portable Macs run their flash memory at slower PCIe NVMe Gen 4 speeds, which results in lower IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), meaning programs open more slowly. The Zenbook S16, equipped with the faster PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSDs, will naturally have the edge here.
Also, solid-state drives that are filled to their capacity have a tendency to slow down, which again wasn’t shown anywhere in the speed test, so it’s not exactly a fair representation. Also, just because an app opens faster on one operating system doesn’t mean it will run fluidly on that platform. There can be performance hitches when scrolling or opening up sub-functions of that program.
Windows isn’t exactly known for its fluidity compared to macOS, and a better comparison would be to include the M5 MacBook Pro against the Zenbook S16, since both feature modern processors and newer PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSDs. Regardless, it’s a decent showing by the Windows laptop.
News Source: Lewis Doyle
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
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