Macro running slower in a faster computer

Question

I have a new desktop and an old laptop. I run a Visio macro in both. It takes 30 seconds to run in the laptop, but 3 minutes and 3 seconds to run in the desktop. The desktop has 12 GB in RAM, and the laptop has 4 GB in RAM. All the user experience is a lot faster in the desktop than in the laptop, like rebooting, opening and working with documents and applications, etc., except running macros. I have tried macros in Excel, and they also run faster in the laptop.

Both computers have an i7 processor, Windows 64 bits, and Office 32 bits. The desktop has Windows 10, and the laptop has Windows 7. A friend of mine has a laptop with Windows 10 and the macro runs there as fast as in my laptop with Windows 7, so I think my issue is not because the operative system is different.

I have tried several diagnostic tools with my desktop and nothing seems to be wrong.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Here it is the technical specs for each computer:

Desktop

Laptop

Edit: I have added also the CPU-Z results for both computers, for CPU, Caches and Memory:

Desktop CPU-Z CPU Desktop CPU-Z Caches Desktop CPU-Z Memory Laptop CPU-Z CPU Laptop CPU-Z Caches Laptop CPU-Z Memory

Answer 1

After some tests, I can say that the reason behind the marked speed difference was AMSI (Antimalware Scan Interface) technology from Microsoft, included with Office 365. I uninstalled Visio from Office 365 from the desktop and installed Visio 2016 instead, which does not have the built-in AMSI technology, and the same macro which previously took 3 minutes and a half now runs in around 25 seconds, even 5 seconds less than in the laptop.

Answer 2

From the comparison between the CPU-Z results for these two computers, I can conclude that while the desktop is faster in several areas, it is slower in some others that are crucial for performance.

The main difference is in memory speed. The desktop has a latency of 15 clocks and cycle time of 36 clocks, while the matching numbers for the laptop were 9 and 24.

As regarding the CPU, there is another difference in the Level 2 cache, where it was 4-way for the desktop but 8-way for the laptop.

From Wikipedia CPU cache we get:

The general guideline is that doubling the associativity, from direct mapped to two-way, or from two-way to four-way, has about the same effect on raising the hit rate as doubling the cache size.

Although Wikipedia does not maintain this argument also for going from 4-way to 8-way, it is entirely possible that the laptop's L2 cache is more efficient here.

(I have also found in my experience that Dell computers are faster on memory access.)

As another remark, an All-in-One computer usually involves some hardware compromises which may impact on performance.

Answer 3

The "desktop" is not really what is known as a "real" desktop. Its CPU has a lower TDP than the laptop. AIO desktop machines are basically laptops in a different form factor and if they are badly designed could actually be a lot worse.

The screen and power supply on the AIO can actually cause a lot more heat to be generated in the same area as the CPU. At least with the laptop the screen is separate and the power brick is separate as well.

If the air vents are clogged then combined with poor thermal design or perished thermal materials the desktop could be thermally throttling. This would result in a lot worse performance than expected.