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

[hatchettjack]

heat will be the killer!

 

[ghostface147]

Will it run Crysis?

 

[hot-gril]

heat will be the killer!

On the contrary, I expect real-world performance to be understated here. Intel Macs have always suffered from thermal throttling under sustained load that the benchmarks don't capture. Some MBPs' i9 versions are slower than their i7 counterparts at long-running tasks, but Geekbench runs quickly, or people run it in a cool room. AS has lower TDP.

However, in the case of the Air, we're going from active cooling to fanless. So yeah, might be an issue.

 

[servnhimusa]

We need benchmarks on software that people use. Not having the ability to use bootcamp now gives engineering students a reason to ditch their Macs. Unfortunately, software like Solidworks and National Instruments requires Windows 10.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Attention please. Calling all doubters, where art thou?

 

[Jonathan Leclerc]

A 3.2 GHz base clock on a 5 nm process, this is impressive performance for a laptop. And beating the top of the line 10th gen mobile core i9... Wow. I'm surprised with the Mac mini numbers, though; with active cooling, it shouldn't be lower. I'm sure better results will be coming in soon. Also it will be interesting to see what Apple come up with for the pro/performance versions of their CPUs. I haven’t felt this good about their CPU platform since the G3/G4-AltiVec era (or the very early G5). This time, though, they aren’t dependent on IBM-Motorola for delivering the goods (while being an after thought for said companies); MUCH better outlook this time around. However, can we please also have back the Apple that innovated on industrial design for the Mac hardware and not just for the iPhone/iPad? You know, the Apple of the G3/G4/G5 era…

 

[Edsel]

Hmmmm.....I'm betting Intel marketing division just got orders from higher up, along with an additional multi-million dollar budget supplement, to bury the M1 in magical Intel hyperbole advertising.

 

[easy4lif]

Can’t wait for the M3X inside a MacBook Pro in 2023.

 

[coolboy561995]

Holy cow, what a performance! And this is only the start! I might advise folks to hang back just a little to see what happens on graphics performance, though. Might be a little underwhelming compared to these blazing fast speeds

 

[dingclancy23]

Important but hard to compare. The CPU runs pretty standardized workflows. GPUs have way more varied capabilities. We'll get an answer like "this runs a certain Metal application faster than the RX580 will."

Also GPU is not a hard thing to extrapolate. Comparing to the discrete GPUs of the 16-inch, there is nothing special about what AMD is doing to their GPU since at the end of the day it really about designing the most number of transistors as possible on a surface area constrained by thermals of the enclosure. Apple has shown it can do it with its 5nm process.

Apple will still take the power saving route with M1. But my bet is these integrated GPUs will be better than the discrete graphics in the 16-inch MacBook Pro too. At the end of the day, that is still a 16 inch laptop.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

I'd rather wait for real world benchmarks, which Geekbench does not. The raw performance is impressive, but can itcarry over to the real world?

Only for Universal Apps with builds targeting the Apple M-series SoCs. We will need to wait a while for developers to catch up.

 

[AltecX]

I really feel like for me a Surface Pro type product with the M1(or similar) in it would be a PREFECT device for me I really wish Apple would just merge iPad/MacOS into a final product for a proper multitasking tablet already. Or that Qualcomm would finally get off their ass' and get a better chip for the Surface Pro X. I don't care about OS much, I care about, proper multi-tasking, power and battery life.

 

[Freida]

Dude, how is that related to this discussion?

I woke up this morning to find my 2 orders were canceled. On pre order day I did what any good fanboy does and purchased 2 IPhone 12 pro Max’s for my wife and I. When I contacted costumer service they informed me it was a error however it can’t be reversed. I was instructed to go in store but I’m currently forward deployed and they don’t have unlocked phones for sale here so I was told to re order the iPhones however the delivery date could not be altered. I asked to talk to a supervisor and they told me they will call me back in 4 days. So to sum it all up my orders were wrongfully canceled and now I have to wait an additional month to get my IPhone’s. For a multi billion dollar company you would think they would have better costumer service and would take care of the costumer rather than just say they will call you in 4 days until then just reorder the phones and wait the additional month.



Update- it’s been 4 days and no call back. I reach out to customer service for assistance and they tell me they can’t assist because they are performing server maintenance and can’t look up my order.

 

[theorist9]

Yeah, these are from their "Top Results" section. There's also one there for the AS MBP (see below). But note their "Top Results" values can be a bit wonky. Their more reliable ones are in the Benchmark Charts section (and none have been posted there yet); I believe these are averages of five runs. The Top Results are sometimes quite a bit higher than the scores for the identical processor in the Benchmark Charts.

For instance, the (more reliable) Processor Benchmarks in the Benchmark Charts section gives the 3.4 GHz Ryzen 9 5950X a single-core score of 1628; but the (less reliable) Top Results section has one at 2198.

But we should be seeing Benchmark Charts scores (as well as, more meaningfully, real-world testing results) soon.

 

[rp2011]

Well, let’s see what Nvidia does to counter this. They are buying ARM and i would imagine there will be a nice profitable void for Windows machines to counter Apple.

 

[neuropsychguy]

This makes the $999 Air a tremendous buy.

That’s what I’ve been saying. People were complaining about the cost of the computers as soon as they were announced without understanding what sort of performance the money gets you.

 

[pcd213]

I’m trying to imagine what the reviewers will point out as downsides/issues. Lack of complete software compatibility? I’m not sure. But, damn, this is such fantastic news for the Mac. And I can’t help but get excited for a redesigned 14” and 16” MBP. 2021 is going to be so special for Mac.

 

[firewood]

When is someone going to complain that the multi-core score of the M1 is almost 10% lower than that of the base model of Mac Pro? (which only cost 8.5X the price of the base model M1 Mini, without wheels.)

 

[garnerx]

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?

Probably nobody will really care, since this is a niche product. It's a Mac. I've been buying Apple stuff for 25 years, and when I started buying Macs they were advertised as being the fastest computers in the world, which is great for bragging rights. If they actually achieve that again then.. well done. Tiny market share, and will never really grow. It's all about how they merge iOS and MacOS, I guess, because Mac is a sideshow for Apple.

 

[MICHAELSD]

Crazy stuff! Let’s see them take gaming to a new level too! Chip in an Apple TV or a new console?? Take on the big 2?

Do it Tim!!

Apple has done a terrible job in that industry (the Mac gets practically no AAA games at launch, and iPhone still has a large collection of mostly casual games) but if they made the proper investments I think there’s a lot of potential for them to step in. I just don’t think they have the interest. Sony and Microsoft’s launches for this generation have been disappointing, even if the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X are incredibly powerful.

 

[poorcody]

It's going to be interesting to see how the PC/Wintel world reacts to this... Apple appears to have a big lead in performance/watt. Does Intel even have a way to catch-up using the x86 design? I wonder if PC manufactures are going to compelled to seriously explore alternative processors, and Windows on ARM is going to get a lot more attention...

 

[cmaier]

Looking forward to see how they supplement the GPU in the 16" and Mac Pro

They do have a separate GPU chip in the works. Not clear whether it will be an optional configuration or what, exactly, the plan is,

 

[tadzooks]

Sitting here on a newly purchased 2019 MBP 16" and wondering if I should return it and get the MBP 13" now

I am.. I just purchased the top end i9 5600m. I can save $1k and buy some cool accessories, it’s going back tomorrow lol

 

[tagy]

You can see results for the DTK running native geekbench version also if you are interested about 1150/4800. search for ADP3,2

 

[jz0309]

Well, let’s see what Nvidia does to counter this. They are buying ARM and i would imagine there will be a nice profitable void for Windows machines to counter Apple.

maybe, but how many years did it take apple to get to this point?