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

> 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?

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?

Many apps optimized for the x64 platform won't run as well as the benchmarks.

I think this is an important one to keep in mind. I'm sure most native Mac apps will be compiled to ARM, but a lot of existing apps won't.

Plus there's the brouhaha about Electron apps.

I for one really wouldn't mind if Apple would build a native app to replace Electron apps, e.g. a chat app that works as a good client for (what I have open right now in Rambox) Discord, FB Messenger, Whatsapp and multiple Slack channels. Or their own Spotify client. Or a big update to XCode so it can use language servers for VS Code and it's viable to use for (what I do right now) Typescript, PHP and Go development.

They have more than enough money to invest in dozens of development teams or startups to push out new native apps.

One day I'll switch away from Chrome in favor of Safari as well. Maybe.

(I am taking recommendations for native alternatives to apps)

Electron seems to have support in recent beta releases.