Chrome for M1 Macs Runs Up to 80% Faster Than Rosetta 2 Version

[MacRumors]

Google earlier this week released a version of Chrome designed specifically for Apple's M1 Macs, and those with a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Mac mini will want to download the Apple Silicon specific version of Chrome because it's going to run faster than the x86 version working through Rosetta 2.

Following the release of the M1 version of Chrome, Ars Technica did a series of benchmarks using Speedometer 2.0, JetStream2, and Motion Mark 1.1, and in all cases, the M1 Chrome was much faster than the x86 version.

In a Speedometer 2.0 test, M1 Chrome scored 210, while standard Chrome scored 116, and in a Jetstream 2 test, M1 Chrome scored 156.9 and standard Chrome scored 93.1. In the Motion Mark 1.1 test, M1 Chrome scored 726.4, while standard Chrome scored 435.7.

Across all tests, the native M1 version of Chrome performed between 66 and 81 percent better than the version of Chrome running through Rosetta 2. Safari was the fastest browser of all, of course, having been designed by Apple, and it came out on top across all of the tests.

According to Ars Technica, the Speedometer test best mimics real life usage and that's where the greatest advantage between the two browser versions was seen. Jetstream 2 best mimics web applications such as spreadsheets, and MotionMark 1.1 measures complex graphic animation techniques.

The M1 version of Chrome can be downloaded on M1 Macs on the Chrome website by selecting the "Mac with Apple Chip" option after clicking download.

Article Link: Chrome for M1 Macs Runs Up to 80% Faster Than Rosetta 2 Version

 

[smithrh]

It's a trap!

 

[Serban55]

This mac M chips are a true revolution in tech industry, after the iphone

 

[dannys1]

#TeamSafari

(Or Brave is something is broken in Safari)

 

[arn]

So this primarily shows how much speed improvement native code will get you. Doesn’t say anything about M1 vs intel. It’s more native vs Rosetta.

 

[EatinPonies]

What about a real-world benchmark against an iPad Pro (or A14 Air) or something? Safari vs Safari even. I'm just wondering if M1 is basically doing the same thing that the A14 architecture is doing...

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Wow, that’s a big difference.

 

[xxray]

Yay, Google can track my data faster than ever before!

 

[arn]

What about a real-world benchmark against an iPad Pro (or A14 Air) or something? Safari vs Safari even. I'm just wondering if M1 is basically doing the same thing that the A14 architecture is doing...

You can compare Geekbench scores

Mac mini (Late 2020) Benchmarks - Geekbench

iPhone 12 Pro Benchmarks - Geekbench

 

[hot-gril]

#TeamSafari

(Or Brave is something is broken in Safari)

Or if I want to open an Apple News link without it opening in the News app. That's irritating.

But yeah, Safari has always been the most efficient and my default. Biggest gripe is not being able to update without updating the OS, and since my machines are on Mojave still, quite a few things don't work in Safari now.

Edit: That's outdated. Nowadays you can update Safari separately. News links are still annoying, though.

 

[foobarbaz]

This is probably because Chrome does Just In Time compilation of JavaScript, which Rosetta obviously can't translate ahead of time. So it's expected that browsers and Electron apps suffer more in Rosetta than native ones.

 

[MacBird]

Even with my iPhone 12 Pro Max, I get 192 in Speedometer 2.0 using Safari, not bad.

 

[rhyzome]

Why did we ever adopt Intel in the first place?

 

[darcyf]

Will it still be a pig on ram and battery though? I have to use chrome for my office work, otherwise it’d never see the light of day on my Mac.

 

[LawJolla]

Or if I want to open an Apple News link without it opening in the News app. That's irritating.

But yeah, Safari has always been the most efficient and my default. Biggest gripe is not being able to update without updating the OS, and since my machines are on Mojave still, quite a few things don't work in Safari now.

120%. Safari's biggest short coming is the OS update.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

So this primarily shows how much speed improvement native code will get you. Doesn’t say anything about M1 vs intel. It’s more native vs Rosetta.

That's exactly what I thought when I read the title. Why not compare it to the speed on native Intel Mac instead?
Comparing it to Reseta 2 is a waste of time.

 

[Bug-Creator]

So this primarily shows how much speed improvement native code will get you. Doesn’t say anything about M1 vs intel. It’s more native vs Rosetta.

I'd say it's the other way round.

Given that Rosetta2 does not translate at run time and is known to be relative good at replacing x86 code with the same functionality in ARM/-Silicon as shown by Geekbench just going native would give you only 20-40%.

So what did happen here is that the binary is optimized for the M1 and the only question is wether that was done by hand or just compiler-magic (I'd put my money on the later).

As such improvements will be all over the place depending how good a fit the task at hand is for features offered by the CPU(SoC).

Something that just does lots of branchy single thread integer code might still be faster on Intel, while ML code that used to run on the CPU will be magnitudes faster running on the dedicated ML-cores.

 

[bn-7bc]

Why did we ever adopt Intel in the first place?

Because appke dud nit have the m1 chipmat the time, and IBM was moving to slow for apple, larly Intel has been having problems with keeping to their roadmap and apAppke has had such sucess with its in house phobe/ tablet chips that they decide to do a desktop chip fir them selves ( vell kaptop for rhe moment) and they seam to have managed it quite well

 

[gridlocked]

Love to see MacRumors reach out to Mozilla and see if they have a ballpark on M1 native Firefox.

 

[adamw]

Wonderful news! Faster running is the goal. Goes to show you that their old version of Chrome likely wasn't very optimized for Macs.

 

[adamw]

Love to see MacRumors reach out to Mozilla and see if they have a ballpark on M1 native Firefox.

Yes, I would love to see what speedup the native M1 chip version of Firefox will run.

 

[saronian]

For comparison:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019)
2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
Radeon Pro Vega 20 4 GB

Safari 14.0.1 = 133
Safari Technology Preview Release 116 = 155
Chrome V87 = 119
Firefox V83 = 108

iPhone 12 Pro

Safari = 193

iPad Pro 12.9" Gen 3 = 145

 

[Del Martes]

What are the advantages of Chrome over Safari? I heard that it drained batteries fast. That is why I deleted it from my machine.

 

[jarman92]

Or if I want to open an Apple News link without it opening in the News app. That's irritating.

But yeah, Safari has always been the most efficient and my default. Biggest gripe is not being able to update without updating the OS, and since my machines are on Mojave still, quite a few things don't work in Safari now.

There’s an app that prevents links from opening in News:

Introducing StopTheNews

 

[ScreenSavers]

Or if I want to open an Apple News link without it opening in the News app. That's irritating.

But yeah, Safari has always been the most efficient and my default. Biggest gripe is not being able to update without updating the OS, and since my machines are on Mojave still, quite a few things don't work in Safari now.

The latest safari 14 runs on Mojave.