Mac vs. PC in 2025 - has the balance shifted?

[PAK]

Windows will be in the same position MacOS was in once the inevitable migration to ARM begins. Intel will be sold off in piecemeal, and you'll have to hold on to an obsolete x86_64 machine to run those old plugins.

It’s not just the difficulty Microsoft face making the ARM transition either (Which they’ll arguably have to do to compete with anything battery powered..). There’s also an awful lot of crap Microsoft are engaging in, lately, which appears to be pushing people away from them..

All the privacy stuff is one thing. The forced obsolescence of half a billion PC’s another (If they're doing the same as Apple, why bother with MS?!) But they really stepped in it when their enshitification of Windows 11 is tanking gaming performance. Worse, thanks to alternatives like Steam OS, the gamers are noticing that Linux is out-performing Windows 11 on the same hardware! Oh noes!

Cue the next Xbox! They will allow vendors (Dell, HP, Lenovo etc) to license AMD PC’s with a special X-Box mode button.. Y’know ..to disable all the Windows 11 (by then 12) crap nobody wants. Stuff which isn’t doing your music software any favours either, btw. Unfortunately the audio niche isn’t big enough for Microsoft to give audio users their own decrapify button too.

[MrJubbly]

Ok. But I’m not sure what any of that has to do Microsoft’s move to ARM or Intel’s slow motion implosion. All of the Windowsphere is going to be affected.

Firstly, needless to state the obvious, but both Microsoft and Intel are going nowhere. They will continue to be successful, for as long as computers continue to be manufactured.

But it's also like comparing Apples to Oranges (pun intended). Since both OS developers have different remit and business philosophies for their customer bases. There is no reason for Microsoft or Intel to mimic every business decision from Apple and AMD. There will always some amount of cross-over in their consumer bases. But fundamentally, these companies have separate core business and customer needs from one another.

Microsoft have already proven their commitment to backward compatibility over their long lifespan. Which is not something that is going to change any time soon (or ever), moving forwards either. Neither of these companies would ever abandon their established customer base requirements, by switching entirely to an incompatible architecture for their new hardware. Even when ARM compatible products are rolled out, that will still be a niche subset of these companies' overall global audience portfolio, for very specific purposes outside or alongside their core products, which will continue to be developed and released for decades.

Microsoft and Intel have far more professional business sectors and contracts to cater for than a company like Apple does, which mainly only operates within a professional capacity to the far more limited creative/media domain. Microsoft/Intel on the other hand, have responsibilities and profitable financial incentives for maintaining their OS compatibility with existing software and hardware, far beyond the scope of what Apple has ever managed to deliver for its more specialised consumer base.

Most businesses in the world today are entirely reliant upon software which requires continual compatibility from Microsoft and its partners. It would be commercial suicide for these companies, to abandon their established worldwide customer base, by introducing Apple-like incompatibilities. Microsoft are many things, not all of which are positive for certain, but they are not that naïve, so an Apple-like ARM-only ecosphere simply would never happen for Windows devices.

[Scotty]

M1 Macbook Pro User: You need a dock and a hub. A dock for wired ethernet, thunderbolt based external drive, external monitors. The hub to plug in a sensible mouse, the audio interface, and midi controllers. I really like the Macbook Pro in general but for ports , you're packing a dock and a hub. If you start talking about the studios yes they have a lot of ports but some audio professionals will use powered hubs and docks anyway because if you blow up one of those ports it isn't getting repaired.

My only problem is that you need a damn USB hub for peripherals.

You don’t. Mac Studio has 6× Thunderbolt 5/USB4 USB-C ports. Mac mini and MacBook Pro have 3 ports each. But since the keyboard and mouse/trackpad are either wireless or built in, that’s probably all you need.

I use a hub with my MacBook Pro, not because I don’t have enough ports, but rather so all I have is a single cable to plug or unplug to go from laptop to desktop and back again. This single cable instantly delivers my audio device/monitors, MIDI controllers, 4k display, and power.

[PAK]

Microsoft have already proven their commitment to backward compatibility over their long lifespan.

Well, sometimes. Remember Seer Systems Reality? The various Yamaha instruments? Or the Korg Oasys PCI card? Just to name some prominent audio casualties of the transition from 9x to XP. Your ability to run 32 and 64 bit binaries is arguably more down to AMD. Your plugins, Steinberg’s VST standard. (Left to Microsoft you get things like DXi.)

At least Microsoft do some things I suppose, which is certainly more than Apple’s “our way or the highway” approach. But running old Windows software, on modern systems, isn’t something unique or special to Windows. Whilst WINE or CrossOver aren’t flawless, they run many things trouble free, and such methods aren’t all downsides. The prominent recent example being Linux out-performing Windows 11 on Windows games, despite having to translate API calls.

The biggest threat, to Windows continued status, isn’t another OS. It’s Windows itself. And I think the road ahead, for Microsoft, might be a bit more bumpy than your words appear to imply..

[PAK]

For $2800 I can get a Mac Studio with 64GB RAM, 16 P-cores, 1 TB SSD.
Perf wise is there any PC I can buy that can come close?

I see your question got lost in this. You won’t get an equivalent performing PC with the same form factor and power usage. Lack of fan noise would also be an advantage for some audio purposes. If you don’t care about this, nor the OS, then of course a PC can usually do more with less money.

A system based around a 16 core AMD 9950 (~$530 CPU) would be one way to go. Graphics wise anything over an Nvidia 3060 would mostly suffice in comparison to M1/M2 Ultra. Though, with good components (128GB DDR5, Samsung storage, Noctua cooling, Seasonic PSU etc) you’d still be getting close to $2k with mobo, and easily over that depending on the graphics card chosen.