Architecture doesn't matter for general speed across all tasks. People have been saying this for a while, and you now see this play out in real life, where single core performance is pretty much equivalent across top of the line processors.
The benefit of going to ARM is reduced power use for tasks that are predictable. Apple silicon is basically chips optimized for general use case of Macbooks (typing text, web browsing, video content). For things like gaming or other intensive tasks that require a lot more branching, the efficiency drops. It still edges out a little bit because the compilers do end up optimizing parts of the programs a bit, but then again, because of Rices theorem, this is never a guarantee across all things and compatibility can be an issue.
As far as OS go, Windows is the best all in one if you have a good desktop. You get WSL2 which works well for all dev stuff, you get better monitor support, and you get access to software that is only available for Windows.
For laptop, its hard to beat a lightweight linux distro with i3wm once you get used to it.
The benefit of going to ARM is reduced power use for tasks that are predictable. Apple silicon is basically chips optimized for general use case of Macbooks (typing text, web browsing, video content). For things like gaming or other intensive tasks that require a lot more branching, the efficiency drops. It still edges out a little bit because the compilers do end up optimizing parts of the programs a bit, but then again, because of Rices theorem, this is never a guarantee across all things and compatibility can be an issue.
As far as OS go, Windows is the best all in one if you have a good desktop. You get WSL2 which works well for all dev stuff, you get better monitor support, and you get access to software that is only available for Windows.
For laptop, its hard to beat a lightweight linux distro with i3wm once you get used to it.