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Does Windows 10 under Mac run as good as Windows 10 on Windows laptops?

  • Yes (please explain)

    Votes: 20 58.8%
  • No (please explain)

    Votes: 10 29.4%
  • Depends (please explain)

    Votes: 4 11.8%

  • Total voters
    34

theorist9

macrumors 68040
May 28, 2015
3,701
2,795
Drivers, Apple is slow to the party when rolling out drivers and it seems getting worse. They're in the business to get people to use their services and ecosystem, that breaks down when people choose windows.

Yes, I experienced that several years ago running Windows on an older MBP. I found disk access performance was much better on the Mac side than the Windows side, because the latest disk drivers were available on the Mac side only.
 
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Altemose

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2013
9,189
487
Elkton, Maryland
It is the iMac that was released in 2017. I downloaded the current version of Windows 10 (I know that's vague but I'm not near my iMac right now). I'm having a problem similar to this one listed on the Apple support forum.

I got sick of it and just removed my Bootcamp partition. I'm giving Parallels a go now.


Parallels is a great option since it gives you the energy saving features of macOS while still running Windows. As for the original fan and heat issue you were experiencing, typically that is caused by the graphics drivers being incorrect. Oftentimes, Boot Camp will install a driver and then Windows Update will overwrite that driver with a newer version (based on released date). While this is fine in theory, it tends to pose problems when interacting with other drivers included as part of the Boot Camp package. We are having similar issues with some newer Dells and their respective graphics drivers breaking audio functionality as well as increasing heat output (fans go full blast under strain in comparison to half blast before).
 

MisterSavage

macrumors 601
Nov 10, 2018
4,639
5,487
Parallels is a great option since it gives you the energy saving features of macOS while still running Windows. As for the original fan and heat issue you were experiencing, typically that is caused by the graphics drivers being incorrect. Oftentimes, Boot Camp will install a driver and then Windows Update will overwrite that driver with a newer version (based on released date). While this is fine in theory, it tends to pose problems when interacting with other drivers included as part of the Boot Camp package. We are having similar issues with some newer Dells and their respective graphics drivers breaking audio functionality as well as increasing heat output (fans go full blast under strain in comparison to half blast before).

Definitely sounds like what happened to me. When I updated the drivers and was able to get into Bootcamp the games I tried ran great. I thought I was good to go until I rebooted back to Mac and eventually tried to get back into Windows. That's when I hit the reboot loop from hell.
 

Altemose

macrumors G3
Mar 26, 2013
9,189
487
Elkton, Maryland
Definitely sounds like what happened to me. When I updated the drivers and was able to get into Bootcamp the games I tried ran great. I thought I was good to go until I rebooted back to Mac and eventually tried to get back into Windows. That's when I hit the reboot loop from hell.

This has caused more problems than you can imagine at where I work, particularly on the newer Dell Latitudes becoming essentially paperweights due to drivers. Windows Update pushes an update, overwriting the initial driver, and thus all of a sudden I have 10 laptops being brought into the Help Desk due to lack of dock connectivity (to a USB-C dock) or poor resolution on the HD displays. Alternatively, we had a couple go into boot loops and had to disable the updates from our WSUS servers. Ultimately, at the end of the day, a Mac is a plain jane PC underneath with some fancy features (e.g. Internet recovery) and it serves us well as Windows-only machines as well. That being said, I see where so many of the grievances against Boot Camp come from, yet oftentimes they are not necessarily due to Apple or their drivers.
 
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robbybara

macrumors newbie
Feb 7, 2021
1
0
I have a 2019 Macbook Pro 15 and a 2015 Macbook Air with 4 GB Ram. I have to say the Macbook Air runs Windows really really well. I am actually shocked. Big Sur has made the machine unusable so I am basically using it as a windows machine. My Macbook pro is running well too but this was not always the case. I use some windows only software and a year ago the Macbook Pro had lots of issues with the software. Now it runs perfectly (February 2021). It could have been a software issue as it was known to be buggy. I also have lots of colleagues that run Mac for the hardware and use it as a windows machine. It is hard to beat the build quality. I have stacks of HPs and Lenovos at home but the Mac never hits the stack...hahahahaha. I might be alone but I am sad that Mac is going away from X86...
 

DrEGPU

macrumors regular
Apr 17, 2020
191
80
As the Apple software ecosystem become more and more closed, I've been using bootcamp more over the years. Windows has been great on my machines through the years (2012 13MBP, 2018 15" MBP, 2019 16MBP, and 2019 Mac Pro 7,1). The one place where Apply really excels is with TB3 support and implementation. I built a PC workstation because the Mac Pro was to expensive, and getting TB3 to work was a nightmare (add in cards have to be in specific slots, motherboards need headers, drivers suck, etc etc etc).

It not Apples to Apples comparison (get it? lol!), but the benchmarks that have both Mac and Win10 versions seems to perform a little bit better in Windows, or at least they report higher numbers. Not a huge difference, but just a little.
 

Rimmsi

macrumors regular
Jun 19, 2021
167
65
Czech Republic
Windows 10 on my MBP Mid 2015 works great, even when playing YT videos I have CPU temperatures lower by 10°C. I've tried some SSD tests and the performance is lower, but in practice I don't know the difference.
 
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MysticCow

macrumors 68000
May 27, 2013
1,561
1,740
Hi, some users mentioned that running Windows via bootcamp on the Mac is not as good as running Windows on Windows laptops. Is this really true? Could you please provide some examples?

My 2011 mini in my signature runs Winders 10. I downloaded the Radeon driver directly from AMD (choose the 2011 MacBook Pro's download link at the very bottom of the chart) and put it with the Apple Boot Camp Drivers on the flash drive.

Once Windows is installed on the mini, DON'T GO ONLINE YET, because Windows Update's drivers tend to choke the system down so that it can't be used especially their Radeon driver (it sucks). I then installed the Radeon driver first and then hit the Boot Camp drivers, which installs for the wireless card in there. Reboot and done.

I have yet to run into major problems in Windows 10, it plays any game better than the Mac version of it, and it feels much snappier than the 10.13 partition that this particular mini is forced to endure now. Most times now, that same system just plain boots into Win 10 now and I ignore the Mac partition entirely.
 
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hajime

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
7,783
1,221
Yes, Windows 10 is quite nice. Not sure about security but the rest are as good as Mac OS. No regret in returning my Macbook Pro 16” 2021 and cancelled another order. My next laptop will probably be a Windows PC if they can make it quiet and no backlight bleed. I want to be able to upgrade RAM and SSD by myself.
 
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MysticCow

macrumors 68000
May 27, 2013
1,561
1,740
Yes, Windows 10 is quite nice. Not sure about security but the rest are as good as Mac OS. No regret in returning my Macbook Pro 16” 2021 and cancelled another order. My next laptop will probably be a Windows PC if they can make it quiet and no backlight bleed. I want to be able to upgrade RAM and SSD by myself.

You should have sent it to a poor starving teacher like me! ;)
 

4743913

Cancelled
Aug 19, 2020
1,564
3,713
Yes, Windows 10 is quite nice. Not sure about security but the rest are as good as Mac OS. No regret in returning my Macbook Pro 16” 2021 and cancelled another order. My next laptop will probably be a Windows PC if they can make it quiet and no backlight bleed. I want to be able to upgrade RAM and SSD by myself.

I bought a new 2019 Macbook Pro 16 two weeks before the M1 Pro/Max keynote. I wanted AppleCare and knew the i9 would disappear if Apple announced the new ones. I love having my windows games with me when I travel. When it dies, I will just get a windows notebook and slide my M1 Air (that I got for free when I traded in my 2017 MBP) in the bag with it.
 
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IowaLynn

macrumors 68020
Feb 22, 2015
2,145
588
Mac Mini 2020 16/512 and runs W10 very smoothly. No regrets. My laptop is Surface Laptop Go small lite 8/256 which is handy. Used Macs for over 30 years along with Vista (on Mac Pro) and built some Windows desktop machines (7/10) over the years.

It takes a few days to setup Windows with all the updates and customization but once done it’s been rock solid.
 
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