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Apple Silicon M1 chip in MacBook Air outperforms high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro

(www.macrumors.com)
1080 points antipaul | 3 comments | 12 Nov 20 00:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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terramex ◴[12 Nov 20 02:08 UTC] No.25065618[source]▶
Geekbench is designed to test CPU's in short bursts to not get them into thermal throttling (this is by design, it is supposed to be CPU test, not cooling test), so I would be wary of Air's results - at least until other benchmarks results are available. MacBook Pro's results on the other hand should be more representative as it has active cooling and can sustain heavy load for longer.
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1. minxomat ◴[12 Nov 20 02:14 UTC] No.25065649[source]▶
GB5 scores for the M1 Mini and M1 MBP are linked in TFA.
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2. terramex ◴[12 Nov 20 02:25 UTC] No.25065721[source]▶
I know, and they show the same numbers as Air's CPU.

I'm just making sure everyone understands that it does not mean Air will have the same real life performance as Pro or Mini. If you compare top MacBook Air 2020 (Intel)[1] with lowest MacBook Pro 2020 (Intel)[2] their results are almost identical, but their real life performance was not even close - Air starts to throttle after just few minutes of work. At the moment there is no reason to believe that Apple's CPU will behave differently (after all, the fan is in Pro and Mini for a reason).

[1] https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4652268 [2] https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4653210

3. altmind ◴[12 Nov 20 08:00 UTC] No.25067564[source]▶
GB5 scores are not comparable across different CPU arch. The scale is different.