Using pgfplots allows you to quickly create very beautiful plots, that look like they belong to your paper, by automatically using the correct fonts and styles. It does this by using the latex compiler to make the figures. This approach is very powerful but has a major drawback: the latex compiler was not made to do this. As a result, latex tends to run out of memory very fast, and projects with a lot of pgfplots tend to take a long time to compile. »
Latex is a very powerful typesetting application. A powerful package to be used with this is pgfplots, which allows you to render your plots using the latex engine. Unfortunately the default latex settings assume you’re running latex on an ancient 20 MHz 486 with less ram than your average mobile phone. This is ok if you’re just asking it to process text, but if you’re using pgfplots it will run out of memory trying to draw your images. »
It’s always a dilemma: latex is great for formulas but well, not so much at making slideshows or posters. Powerpoint on the other hand is great at the latter, but sucks balls at the first. No matter which tool you use to create your powerpoint, a lot of frustration, broken coffee mugs and hairloss ensues. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just typeset formulas in powerpoint using latex? »