How Apple’s M1 chip performs against Intel 11th-gen and AMD Ryzen 4000
M1 PROCESSOR
Apple’s new M1 processor took the laptop world by storm, with many proclaiming it had ended the PC’S whole career.
Hyperbole and irrational fan boy flexing aside, Apple’s M1 is indeed a powerful chip. But to get a better feel against its contemporaries we sat down and retested a pile of current
Windows 10 laptops to get an idea where the 13in Macbook Air (M1) lands in the pecking order of laptops.
THE LAPTOPS WE TESTED
Apple’s 13in Macbook Pro (M1) features its brand-new M1 Arm-based SOC/CPU, a 512GB custom SSD, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 13.3in 2,560x1,600 screen and lap weight of 1.4kg.
For our PC comparisons, we decided to pick from laptops that are similar in size and weight: • MSI’S Prestige 14 Evo is equipped with a four-core, 11th-gen Core i71185g7 with Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 512GB PCIE Gen 4 SSD and a 14in FHD screen. It weighs 1.29kg.
• MSI’S older Prestige 14 is equipped with a six-core, 10th-gen Core i710710u, Geforce GTX 1650 Max-q graphics, 16GB of LPDDR3/2133 memory, a 1TB PCIE 3.0 SSD and a 14in 4K screen. It weighs 1.14kg.
• Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7 has an eightcore Ryzen 4800U with Radeon graphics, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 512GB PCIE 3.0 SSD, a 14in FHD and lap weight of 1.4kg.
• The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 includes an eight-core Ryzen 9 4800HS, Geforce RTX 2060 Max-q graphics, 16GB of DDR4/3200 memory, a 1TB PCIE 3.0 SSD, a 14in FHD screen and a weight of 1.53kg.
Before you object to having the Zephyrus G14 laptop here, pay close attention to the weight and size of the laptop. At 1.53kg, it’s actually very close to the weight of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 and the 13in Apple Macbook
Pro (M1), which are both 1.4kg. We think there are indeed some people who might consider the Zephyrus G14 to get the extra power its Geforce RTX 2060 Max-q provides. Yes, the 180-watt power brick adds even more weight to the G14, but it may just be worth it to those folks.
We think discrete graphics are one of the overlooked features of the older MSI Prestige 14 too – a laptop that weighs less than the Lenovo
Slim 7 and Macbook Pro (M1), but features a Geforce GTX 1650 Max-q GPU inside. There are indeed several compromises in the older Prestige 14 to get that GPU, but weight is typically the great equalizer.
That’s why the final laptop we included is really there for a raw performance comparison, since no one would consider it remotely in the class of the laptops above: • The Acer Predator Triton 500 with a six-core 10th-gen Core i7-10750h CPU, Geforce RTX 2080 Super graphics, 32GB of DDR4/3200 memory, a 1TB PCIE 3.0 SSD, and a 15.6in 300Hz FHD screen. It weighs 1.98kg.
We wanted this laptop particularly for its Core i7-10750h CPU, which is very similar to Intel’s 8th-gen and 9th-gen ‘H’ class CPUS found larger laptops such as Apple’s 16in Macbook Pro. Most of the laptops here feature lower-power CPUS, so we wanted to see just how well the M1 and other chips in smaller laptops compared against a chip that sucks down many more watts.
Of all of the chips here, Apple’s M1 uses TSMC’S most advanced 5nm process, with the two Ryzen laptops using TSMC’S 7nm. Intel’s 11th-gen ‘Tiger Lake’ Core i7-1185g7 is on Intel’s newest 10nm process, while the Core i7-10710u is like the Core i7-10750h and built on Intel’s – how can we say this politely? – wise 14nm process.
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS
Cinebench R20
We’ll kick off our results with Maxon’s older Cinebench R20. It’s a 3D modelling benchmark built on the company’s in-house engine used in its commercial Cinema4d product. Cinebench R20 had versions for x86 on Windows and x86 on macos. Maxon’s newer Cinema R23 offers native support for Apple’s M1 chip, but the older R20 version must use Apple’s Rosetta 2, a technology
that handles just-in-time translation of x86 instructions to Arm from non-native code.
Having to pay a real-time translation penalty typically blows chunks so we expected the M1 to cough up furballs, but it’s wellknown now that Apple’s unlimited funding and hard work has paid off handsomely. Yes, you can look at the black bar in the chart (1.) and see that the red Ryzen 4000 chip stomps the M1 into the ground. And yes, the quadcore Core i71185g7 is faster too, despite the Mac have eight physical cores, but remember the translation penalty the Macbook is paying and how much it saps performance. This is an impressive showing by Apple.
Cinebench allows you to measure a single-threaded performance as well (2.). For the x86 side, where Ryzen previously beat Core, it’s now flipped as we see Intel’s new 11th-gen Core i7-1185g7 leading the way. The Apple Macbook Pro (M1)? It’s really not bad again when you consider that Apple is paying a hefty translation penalty. Some believe it to be as high as 30 per cent, which coincidentally is matches the fee Apple takes from App Store purchases, sparking its war with Epic. We don’t know if the
two are related, but we’d guess the M1 picks up a lot more mileage with native code.
Cinebench R23
Maxon released a new version of Cinebench R23 with native M1 support, but there are some other key changes which should be mentioned as well. With Cinebench R20, the benchmark would run render a single scene and produce a score based on its completion. With Cinebench R23, the render scene is the same, but Maxon has interestingly changed it to render the same scene over and over for 10 minutes. The benchmark will even run beyond 10 minutes if the scene is still rendering when the timer hits zero.
On a six-core Intel H-class chip, Cinebench R15 takes 34 seconds to complete while Cinebench R20 takes about 108 seconds. With Cinebench R23 it now takes a minimum of 600 seconds to run under the new method. On a desktop or workstation with far more cooling it’s not an issue, but on laptops an all-core test that runs for at least 10 minutes can be far harsher – especially on CPUS that either make more heat, or laptops with more limited cooling. It’s actually called a ‘throttle test’ which is a different method than before for Cinebench.
None of this bothers Apple’s M1 much though. Based on TSMC’S most advanced 5nm process, it’s a stone cold killer, with no fan noise at all during the run. That can’t be said of the x86 laptops, which all vary from fairly quiet to a little rackety.
The performance is impressive though (3.), with the eight-core M1 Mac now ahead of the four-core 11thgeneration Tiger Lake as well as the older six-core Core i7-10710u. But if you give Intel’s older six-core more thermal head room it’s almost dead even with the silent M1. An eight-core
variant of an Intel H-chip would be even faster obviously.
AMD, however, just shrugs at all this and yawns as its eight-core Ryzen 4000 chips easily beat all comers when set to their performance modes.
Single-threaded performance probably matters more for what most people do and the M1 doesn’t disappoint there either (4.). Neither does Intel’s Core i7-1185g7, to be fair. Its single-threaded prowess has pushed aside Ryzen 4000 and you see that here where both the M1 and the Core i7-1185g7 are basically tied in Cinebench R23. There’s some conjecture that “we’re just not testing x86 right” as Usman Pirzada argues at Wccftech. However, Joel Hruska at Extremetech
(who worked on the results with Usman) argues the ball is really back in Intel and AMD’S court for how to address the limitations.
The main take away is the singlethreaded performance on the M1 as well as Intel’s Tiger Lake is nothing to dismiss.
But as we said, there is indeed a cost to be had for when you run every CPU core that hard on a laptop. Cinebench R23 allows you to actually turn off the ‘Throttle Test’, so we did
that to record scores of Cinebench R23’s multi-core benchmark in a more traditional single render scene (5.). Laptops that can benefit from only running full tilt for three minutes versus more than 10 minutes get a decent 6 to 8 per cent boost. The Ryzen 4000 laptops actually open up their performance gap against The M1 and Intel chips even further when the run time is reduced.
This just goes to show you the boosty nature of laptops improves from lowering the thermal load, putting in more fans to dissipate that thermal load, or simply making your CPU more efficient.
You can see that in the next chart (6.), where we took our Cinebench R23 single-run result and compared it to the result of Cinebench R23 in its default throttle test. The laptops that face more of a thermal limit all show 6 to 8 per cent improvement when the load is cut by two-thirds, except for two: the Apple Macbook Pro (M1) and the Acer Predator Triton 500.
In the Predator Triton 500’s case, its larger chassis, additional heat pipes and additional venting means the CPU is just never generating enough heat to hit that thermal wall, even with a high-wattage Intel chip inside. Its six cores of 14nm oldness still can’t outpace the other chips, but the thermals clearly have no issues. That shouldn’t surprise, as the Triton 500’s cooling was designed to keep the Geforce RTX 2080 Super Max-q running smooth as well, so running a pure CPU load means the cooling headroom is far higher.
The Macbook Pro (M1) is equally impressive for a different reason. Despite being a thin and light laptop, it just doesn’t seem to generate enough heat to hurt it. You can run Cinebench R23 for 3 minutes or 10 minutes – it just doesn’t care. That’s something that should be appreciated.