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

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1080 points antipaul | 7 comments | 12 Nov 20 00:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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mcintyre1994 ◴[12 Nov 20 07:21 UTC] No.25067338[source]▶
> The M1 chip, which belongs to a MacBook Air with 8GB RAM, features a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433. According to the benchmark, the M1 has a 3.2GHz base frequency.

> The Mac mini with M1 chip that was benchmarked earned a single-core score of 1682 and a multi-core score of 7067.

> Update: There's also a benchmark for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 chip and 16GB RAM that has a single-core score of 1714 and a multi-core score of 6802. Like the MacBook Air , it has a 3.2GHz base frequency.

So single core we have: Air 1687, Mini 1682, Pro 1714

And multi core we have: Air 7433, Mini 7067, Pro 6802

I’m not sure what to make of these scores, but it seems wrong that the Mini and Pro significantly underperform the Air in multi core. I find it hard to imagine this benchmark is going to be representative of actual usage given the way the products are positioned, which makes it hard to know how seriously to take the comparisons to other products too.

> When compared to existing devices, the M1 chip in the MacBook Air outperforms all iOS devices. For comparison's sake, the iPhone 12 Pro earned a single-core score of 1584 and a multi-core score of 3898, while the highest ranked iOS device on Geekbench's charts, the A14 iPad Air, earned a single-core score of 1585 and a multi-core score of 4647.

This seems a bit odd too - the A14 iPad Air outperforms all iPad Pro devices?

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throwaway4good ◴[12 Nov 20 08:30 UTC] No.25067719[source]▶
The results seem a little weird but if remotely true then these machines are going to sell like cup cakes.

Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

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1. ascar ◴[12 Nov 20 08:57 UTC] No.25067866[source]▶
> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

There are enough people who do not want to deal with MacOS and Darwin regardless the hardware specs.

Also the way of least friction is usually to use whatever the rest of your team uses. There are even relevant differences in Docker for MacOS vs Docker for Linux that make cross platform difficult (in particular thinking about host.docker.internal, but there are certainly more). Working with C/C++ is another pain point for cross platform, which already starts with Apples own Clang and different lib naming conventions.

Going away from x86 makes this situation certainly not better.

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2. pjmlp ◴[12 Nov 20 10:03 UTC] No.25068283[source]▶
> Working with C/C++ is another pain point for cross platform, which already starts with Apples own Clang and different lib naming conventions.

A walk in the part to anyone that had to deal with coding with C or C++ across UNIX flavours.

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3. ghaff ◴[12 Nov 20 12:47 UTC] No.25069232[source]▶
I'm primarily a Mac user but laptops are cheap. If I were working on a team doing Linux development for x86 I'd certainly have a Linux laptop for that even if I preferred a MacBook for other purposes.
4. oneplane ◴[12 Nov 20 13:14 UTC] No.25069464[source]▶
Or anyone who had to deal with Microsoft's on version of everything.
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5. pjmlp ◴[12 Nov 20 13:23 UTC] No.25069547{3}[source]▶
Point one C or C++ compiler vendor that has a pure ISO compiler with zero extensions.

Toy projects don't count.

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6. ◴[12 Nov 20 13:34 UTC] No.25069638{4}[source]▶
7. bstar77 ◴[12 Nov 20 16:27 UTC] No.25071497[source]▶
I do web development and I'm not sure how my locally compiled libs will behave on x86 based servers. We often upload our local build artifacts to the DEV envs... I'm not sure this will work on a different arc.

That said, my wife returned the macbook air she bought 3 weeks ago in favor of this new one, so I'll be able to test on that machine before I dive in.