Apple M1 chip

[markrain]

Hi! I want to know your opinion. Is the M1 chip capable of outperforming the Intel processor? Or is it not finalized yet?

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/

[cuttingedgecs]

I think the answer is almost irrelevant. It's been a long time since anyone bought an Apple computer for performance reasons. They have an application stack that suits some people's workflow or usability preferences, and their computers are bought or not on that basis.

[mavroxur]

Like cuttingedge said. If you buy a computer for raw CPU performance you're not typically buying anything Apple. Especially now.


When comparing apples to apples (no pun intended), the M1 has already been shown to not be able to compete. It *feels* snappy and quick at basic tasks and office-like productivity, but that's it. Video encoding, effects, filters, etc. that run solely on CPU run like garbage in benchmarks that are coming out.

[ylp1194045441]

I disagree with the previous answers. The M1 in the MacBooks are definitely better than what they replaced- the i5-1030NG7 in the Air and i5-8259U in the Pro.

From countless benchmarks we’ve seen from reviewers, even in benchmarks that run in emulated Intel mode, the M1 consistently outperformed the Intel parts. Keep in mind, M1 doesn’t throttle in the MacBook Pro, regardless of what load you put onto it-sharp contrast to the Intel parts used previously. Reviewers pretty much unanimously agreed that it is a big leap from the Intel CPUs they replaced.

[henriok]

As an owner of a M1 Mac mini and admin of hundred Mac users, I've run a couple of benchmarks of my own.. The M1 Macs perform very well for the applications that do run (which is most), including applications that's not yet Arm native.

For applications that are, performance gains are significant often surpassing performance for the absolute highest performance Intel based Macs like the Mac Pro and iMac Pro.

Video encoding in handbrake (which runs native, also with hardware support for h264 and h265) is about twice as fast as my 2018 MacBook Pro with a 6c 2.8 GHz Core i7.

The M1 MacBook Air we've bought for testing sometimes run better than our fleet of iMac Pros with 10c Xeons. We're using applications like the Adobe CC suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Audition, Premiere and AfterEffects), Final Cut Pro and Compressor, Xcode, MS Office, Slack etc..

That said, even if performance of a M1 Air is on par to a 5 times as expensive iMac Pro, there are reasons not to replace the iMacs with Mac minis just yet.. support for peripherals (e.g. multiple monitors, 10 Gbps Ethernet) and the promise of a _much_ beefier Apple Silicon processor tailored for an iMac on the horizon.

If you want to replace any Mac laptop and don't mind the form factor, the M1 MacBook Air is an insta-buy.

[mavroxur]

[ylp1194045441]

[CPUShack]

What shall be interesting will be what if any vulnerabilities are found in the M1 chip now that it will be in a not such locked down environment.

Beating Intel at that may not be too hard haha

[mavroxur]

[henriok]

I did fire up Handbrake and recorded some render times on my two Macs. I didn't do any testing but ran my usual configuration. I'm sure I could tweak the settings to either get faster times or better quality. YMMV using other settings in Handbrake.

Test subject:
Wonder Woman 1984 - https://www.torrentbytes.net/details.php?id=2932654&hit=1
2160p/24fps/h265/AC3 - 19.8 GB
transcode to
MP4 1080p/24fps/CBR/6000 kbps, Stereo AAC/160 kbps (Core Audio)

Contenders:
MacBook Pro 15" 2018, Core i7 8850H, 6c@2.6 GHz (12 hardware threads and 4.3 GHz on Turbo Boost), 32 GB RAM
Mac mini (M1, 2020), M1, 4c@3.1 + 4c@1.8 GHz, 16 GB RAM

[mavroxur]

[pixelmanca]

I know that you guys were speaking specifically about the M1, but that's just the beginning of new Apple designed CPU's.

As soon as Apple designs a new CPU for their Mac Pro line, it will blow the doors off of anything that Intel or AMD etc. will come up with, just wait and see...

[mavroxur]