apple's performance per watt is a remarkable accomplishment. but the second half of your comment has more to do with the anemic thermal design of windows OEMs than anything else. my intel desktop (9700k with 5ghz all-core OC) is also barely audible while running anything less intense than prime95. it just takes a large air cooler with a sensible fan curve. dell could easily do better with a custom case if they actually cared.

Endless series of comments that don't understand the manufacturing side of processor development...

The Intel parts that perform similarly to their Apple counterparts need at least twice as much power (and cooling). There’s no magic in either.

I find the different balances of performance and efficiency cores interesting. I’d love to have a lot more Icestorm cores on a Mac to play with background tasks that don’t need the firestorm ones.

On the Intel side, I’m also disappointed by not having the option to implement the missing instructions in software.