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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 | 3 comments | 12 Nov 20 00:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.502s | source
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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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kmlx ◴[12 Nov 20 08:55 UTC] No.25067856[source]▶
> Why would anyone (who is not forced) buy an Intel PC laptop when these are available and priced as competitive as they are?

as a power user I will not be touching anything apple ARM until all my hundreds of software apps are certified to work exactly the same as on x86_64. i will not rely on rosetta to take care of this. i need actual testing.

besides this, 8GB of RAM is how much a single instance of chrome uses. i run 3 chrome instances, 2 firefox and 2 safari. and this is just for web.

this could be a good time to jump the apple ship. it's pretty clear their focus is not their power users' focus.

as such i was looking into a lenovo thinkstation p340 tiny. you can configure it with 64gb ram and core i9 with 10 cores and 20 threads for less $$$ than what an underpowered 6 core mac mini is selling for.

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manmal ◴[12 Nov 20 12:26 UTC] No.25069063[source]▶
> it's pretty clear their focus is not their power users' focus

Depends on the definition of "power user". Music producers, video editors, and iOS developers will be served quite well.

> lenovo thinkstation p340 tiny. you can configure it with 64gb ram and core i9 with 10 cores and 20 threads for less $$$ than what an underpowered 6 core mac mini is selling for.

When making that calculation, one should also take power consumption into account. $ per cycle is very low now with the new CPU.

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frank2 ◴[12 Nov 20 13:03 UTC] No.25069380[source]▶
Taking power consumption into account makes sense when the machine is running on battery power, but all modern processors are power efficient enough for the cost of electricity to be negligible for a tiny desktop computer.
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1. oddevan ◴[12 Nov 20 15:39 UTC] No.25070983[source]▶
I agree for the most part; the exception would be if I were running the small machine as a server. I know this is outside of most use cases, but if I were buying a machine to have on all the time (Plex, email, whatever), I'd want to at least feel like it's not driving up my electric bill.
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2. StillBored ◴[12 Nov 20 15:50 UTC] No.25071101[source]▶
This is where idle power matters. I recently replaced a pretty low power atom in my nas with a i3-9100F. The peak power usage is probably a good 2x higher, but the idle power is just a couple watts, so I expect my average power draw to be much less since the power draw under plex/etc is about the same and the machine sits idle most of the time.
3. frank2 ◴[12 Nov 20 17:55 UTC] No.25072548[source]▶
My tiny desktop is on all the time (but idle most of the time) and that was the frame in which I wrote my comment.