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I have a macbook that's running windows 7, it's a 2015 macbook pro, it has an i5 4278U cpu, integrated graphics and 8gb of ddr3 RAM.

My desktop which is also running windows 7 has an i5 3570k, a GTX 980, 16GB of ddr3 ram and an SSD.

On all accounts my desktop can and should always be running way faster based on the CPU. https://versus.com/en/intel-core-i5-3570k-vs-intel-core-i5-4278u. The cache is superior.

I wrote a program recently for part of my course, it compares the time complexity of Radix and Quicksort algorithms, and performing timings tests on my laptop actually was around x2 faster than on my PC! that is so strange right?

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I'm not asking for help with my homework or anything, I'm just asking why this would even be happening in the first place?

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    You failed to specify the specification of your MacBook. The i5 3570k was released back in 2012, 3 years before your MacBook was released, it makes sense that your MacBook is significantly faster.
    – Ramhound
    Dec 1, 2017 at 13:07
  • the i5 3570k is actually still a decent CPU by 2017 standards. The processor in the macbook is an i5 4278U @ 2.60ghz whereas the i5 is at around 3.4ghz. versus.com/en/intel-core-i5-3570k-vs-intel-core-i5-4278u almost totally eclipsing the macbook's i5
    – Bastilius
    Dec 1, 2017 at 13:11
  • SSDs had a lot of time to improve, and depending on the task two 4GB sticks could be a lot faster than one single 16GB stick. You've not given precise enough details for anyone to tell you exactly why one is faster than the other.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Dec 1, 2017 at 13:20
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    yet another example that that clock speed is not everything...
    – Attie
    Dec 1, 2017 at 13:21
  • Not sure how reliable these benchmarks and this site is however CPUBoss has these two different benchmarks. Core i5 3570K and the Core i5 4278U and the 4278U has better benchmarks for single core performance.
    – Richard Chambers
    Dec 1, 2017 at 13:24

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Your single-threaded program can't take advantage of the fact that the i5-3570K has twice as many cores as the i5-4278U. So the laptop is working with only one core tied behind its back while the desktop is working with three cores tied behind its back. Newer CPUs tend to have faster single-threaded performance than older ones.

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