Quite the opposite.
I’m highlighting the the difference of the drivers and platforms.
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That both systems are not comparable in that simple way.
but at the end of the day, playing back your projects is all that matters and if one platform/computer does this better…i.e. using less recources …then surely that’s all that matters….. we all have work to do and the fact that my M3 ultra wouldn’t play back a mix done 6 months ago on the 9950x meant I had to get that machine back in action to do a mix revision which took me some time as I’d packed it away and had to conect everything up to it.
regarless of what metric you want to use if Machine A cannot playback a mix done from Machine B due to ASIO guard overload then it doesn’t matter what the differences and and why, all that matters is you can’t get your work done on machine A.
So people looking to buy a computer for their work might be interested to know that despite Machine A being touted as the latest and greatest and being showered with praise from influences and users who’ve never used machine B, this isn’t actually the whole truth if you’re a DAW user/producer/mixer/composer.
I had a similar experience when I jumped from a Windows machine (can’t remember what it was) to a Mac Studio M2 Pro a while back. Based on what I had seen so many people talking about and what I had researched with DAW performance between the two, I expected a major difference with the exact same sessions using the exact same latency settings…but it was barely better on the M2. My Windows machine was a PCI-e RME, and the Mac is USB RME UFX II. I feel you that it doesn’t feel good having spent so much money, and that in your case performance is even less. I learned that, for me, there is simply no Holy Grail when it comes to computers.
And for the general discussion: It doesn’t matter what the reasons are as far as how the systems are different/handle things differently. It only matters what the results in actual daily use are. I’m scratching my head at some of these responses…but that’s forum life, hahaha.
Respectfully, all that matters here is real-life everyday performance, which is the point of his post. It doesn’t matter how the platforms handle things differently…it only matters what the results are when you’re able to play the exact same sessions with the exact same latency settings, assuming both computers are set as efficiently as possible for the best performance. I was in the same boat as the OP when I switched to Mac M2 and was surprised by how little performance gain I got.