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Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro

I have a maxed out 2014 MBP, and a maxed out 2012 mac mini with a SSD.

Both are still chugging along fine, but it is taking every fiber of my being not to throw a new mini, and MBP in the cart.

Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs, Must wait for a year to let them iron out the bugs.
 
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Do you guys think that there are any chances for the M1 (or M2) to actually support eGPUs in the future?
 
This is the one factor that has me hesitant. The CPU performance is looking good, but the GPU from what I have read so far is meh. I know folks mention optimization and such but currently I have the i7 Mac Mini, 32 GB RAM with a Vega 56 eGPU. M1 processor of course beats that CPU, but the M1 GPU has 2.6 teraflops, the Vega 56 has 10.5 teraflops. Maybe I will just have to wait for the next version of the M chips for better graphical performance specs. I think Apple has moved on from eGPU. SoC is where they are all in.
 
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This means nothing - as they are abstract tests.

There is a reason they haven't switched the professional 16" laptops yet.

Definitely not going to switch until a 2nd generation M processor and seeing some reviews first on an actually hands-on usage of these new processors. I need it to run Photoshop, Premiere smoothly and without errors and problems.
 
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Hey lads, calm down. In these tests, everything is summed up, which means that M1 chips with 'neuroblock' and other instructions have a common result due to these instructions, unlike others CPU. :p

You are being manipulated, relax. :D
 
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Mc0 said:
Debbie Downers where you at???
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Not taking anything away from apple, their chips are good, however, I don't think it's about being a "Debbie Downer". Apple has the luxury building chips that cut the past off at the knees. (much to the chagrin of many)
- 32 bit? Don't need it.
- 16 bit? Don't need it.

My intel desktop can still run older software, like windows xp. Intel is carrying through architecture from the 1980s. Additionally with fanless designs, we'll see how throttling goes under load.
 
ispushkin said:
Hey lads, calm down. In these tests, everything is summed up, which means that M1 chips with 'neuroblock' and other instructions have a common result due to these instructions, unlike others CPU. :p
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Doesn't matter, does it? When M1 allows to utilise GPU and Neural Engine without explicitly being programmed for it, then that's a good thing. If another system hardware and/or software can't do it, not Apples problem, is it?
 
Skullbussa said:
Sorry, don't have time to read 32 pages, but did nobody stop to ask this question:

If this chip is truly faster and more efficient in day-to-day usage, why is Apple not selling it at a premium, above and beyond what the Intel equivalents cost? Surely a more efficient and powerful Mac is more valuable?

It is very unlike Apple to sell a product for less than what they could. In fact, their investors would/should scream bloody murder.
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As long as Apple hits their expected gross profit margins of roughly 38%, which is a very important metric, investors will be very happy.

Offering superior performance/value for reasonable costs will expand Apple's market and revenue - also a good thing.
 
Skullbussa said:
Sorry, don't have time to read 32 pages, but did nobody stop to ask this question:

If this chip is truly faster and more efficient in day-to-day usage, why is Apple not selling it at a premium, above and beyond what the Intel equivalents cost? Surely a more efficient and powerful Mac is more valuable?
Click to expand...
If you had read the 32 pages of prior comments, you'd come across posts where people suggest that Apple should now lower prices, since they don't have to pay Intel anymore.
Apple has mostly tried to stay at a certain price point for their various lines of products, and it seems the transition to their own "Silicon" will not change that.
 
dukeblue219 said:
So, what's the likely catch? I'm willing to believe this processor is exceptionally powerful per watt, and give Apple credit where credit is clearly due, but there must be a tradeoff somewhere. Intel, AMD, even IBM or Qualcomm, know a lot about CPU design and have been fighting over the best engineers for decades.

It strikes me as unlikely that Apple has simply beaten all of them in all use cases, with less power, on their first desktop class CPU. It's not that I'm calling BS, just that engineering doesn't usually work that way; there's usually a tradeoff made somewhere.
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The best engineers don’t want to work at Intel. They haven’t wanted to work there for at least 20 years.
 
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jmgregory1 said:
Wow, just imagine what the higher end products are going to deliver. As others are saying, Intel and AMD are going to be scrambling to find a way to get just close to this kind of performance per watt - in the next 12-18 months, which by that time Apple will be at the next level again. I wonder if the PC crowd really understands what Apple has been able to deliver, or if they’ll just be in denial?
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Hugely the latter is my impression, going by comments on Twitter and Youtube.

People pointing to the 16GB Memory limit (in a MacBook Air...) or bezels etc. They're just not understanding how significant this is. Headlines like "Macs are iPads now lol" could not possibly be missing the point more. Given what we know about iPhones vs Android flagships, 16GB RAM may be worth a lot more than in a typical x86 system. You can't just import old school like for like GHz and GBs comparisons, there's so much more going on.

Apple's weakest laptop chip beats out all of Intel's high end desktop chips in single core, and is almost on par with an 8-Core Xeon in multi threaded. And this is a chip that's passively cooled in one instance.

x86 has not been challenged like this since the early days of PowerPC over 25 years ago. As far as CPU milestones go this is pretty much historic stuff.
 
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tevion5 said:
Hugely the latter is my impression, going by comments on Twitter and Youtube.

People pointing to the 16GB Memory limit (in a MacBook Air...) or bezels etc. They're just not understanding how significant this is. Headlines like "Macs are iPads now lol" could not possibly be missing the point more. Given what we know about iPhones vs Android flagships, 16GB RAM may be worth a lot more than in a typical x86 system. You can't just import old school like for like GHz and GBs comparisons, there's so much more going on.

Apple's weakest laptop chip beats out all of Intel's high end desktop chips in single core, and is almost on par with an 8-Core Xeon in multi threaded. And this is a chip that's passively cooled in one instance.

x86 has not been challenged like this since the early days of PowerPC over 25 years ago. As far as CPU milestones go this is pretty much historic stuff.
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Not much the x86 folks can do. AMD and intel have arm licenses. They could make arm chips. But no matter how well they do the design, and even if they use TSMC as their fab, they will still be at a disadvantage because they have to design for the least common denominator - they have to many customers with too many different needs, and they don’t control the whole stack (OS, compilers, etc)
 
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iamthedudeman said:
Qualcomm has closed the gap on Apple with its Snapdragon 875. Expect a Qualcomm desktop processor in in 2021 as one is already in the works based off the Snapdragon soc. HP will likely be first, or Microsoft. I expect Qualcomm to over take Intel and AMD over the next five years as all PCs and Macs move to ARM silicon.
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If early Geekbench test results of the QualComm 875 are any indication of the production 875, I would say that the 875 has closed the gap on the A13 not the A14. If the performance gains are the same for the A15, I would say QualComm has a lot of work ahead of them to catch Apple. I suspect this will be the same story for the QualComm desktop CPU vs the Apple M1 CPU especially given what Apple has accomplished with the M1 power in a low power package. And this is only Apple's first iteration of a desktop CPU. If Apple can achieve (and there is no indication that it won’t be the case) the same performance gains for the M series that they have for the A series, Apple's A series and M series CPUs will be outclassing everything else out there. I expect that this will be the case for Apple's GPUs as well. Their first desktop integrated GPU performs on par with the GTX 1060. That is phenomenal.

www.thephonetalks.com

Snapdragon 875 Geekbench Score - Still Not Powerful Enough

Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 Geekbench score leaks. Here's the Snapdragon 875 vs SD 865 vs Apple A13 Geekbench 4 score comparison.
www.thephonetalks.com www.thephonetalks.com
forums.macrumors.com

M1 8-core gpu is equal to gtx 1060 6gb!!

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/compute/1802234 https://browser.geekbench.com/metal-benchmarks gtx 1060 6gb metal: 18441 m1 gpu: 18656 This is pretty good for a entry level chip!
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
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Essaux said:
This means nothing - as they are abstract tests.

There is a reason they haven't switched the professional 16" laptops yet.

Definitely not going to switch until a 2nd generation M processor and seeing some reviews first on an actually hands-on usage of these new processors. I need it to run Photoshop, Premiere smoothly and without errors and problems.
Click to expand...

Even more so you need the software updated to run on it.
 
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cardfan said:
Even more so you need the software updated to run on it.
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It will be interesting to see a comparison of the current Adobe software (Rosetta 2 conversion) vs the updated Adobe software running on the new M1 Apple laptops.
 

Comparison to AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT Benchmarks​

CPU Benchmark Scores​

1302 Single-Core Score
7074 Multi-Core Score

The M1 is on its way to glory!!! This is a great sign and great start!

The high end processor to beat

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Benchmarks​

CPU Benchmark Scores​

1205 Single-Core Score
25025 Multi-Core Score

How long will it take the M1 to get there? My guess is less than 2 years.
 
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