Today we're taking our benchmarking to places it's never been before with an in-depth look at an Apple Silicon product. How does the M1 Pro chip perform against the best x86-based CPUs from AMD and Intel?
Apple M1 Pro Review: Is it really faster than Intel/AMD?
- Thread starter Scorpus
- Start date
Apple is years ahead of Intel and AMD in terms of performance per watt that is for sure.
Apple SoCs completely destroys Android SoCs too, nothing new here. They have been doing that for years by now.
It will be fun to see if Intel can win Apple back. I doubt it, however Alder Lake and especially Raptor Lake will be a big step in the right direction.
With M1 Pro and Max it's going to be much harder tho.
I expect M2 on 3-4nm TSMC in 2022. Just like iPhone 14 series.
Apple SoCs completely destroys Android SoCs too, nothing new here. They have been doing that for years by now.
It will be fun to see if Intel can win Apple back. I doubt it, however Alder Lake and especially Raptor Lake will be a big step in the right direction.
With M1 Pro and Max it's going to be much harder tho.
I expect M2 on 3-4nm TSMC in 2022. Just like iPhone 14 series.
Diabolik707
Posts: 15 +10
So in a nutshell, it's a Dyatlov.
Not great, not terrible.
Not great, not terrible.
kiwigraeme
Posts: 1,995 +1,405
Nice rounded review - just shows that the Apple fans who were raving about how wonderful the M1 was - were being very selective.
A lot of money if not processing photos/videos and the new Intel ones do that well also.
Plus the power efficiency wasn't as amazing as I was lead to believe - considering running on a better fab, highly optimised code - that $2500 buys a lot of electricity or battery pack..
Most telling was Apple raving about nearly running all programs flawlessly - yet that is not the case - as stated here .
Windows/Linux are for general purpose computing - with a huge library of software .
As for encoding - interested to see new intel hardware .
That $2000 GPU you will buy for your Windows/Linux PC in a few years will probably have much much better encoders than now - with competition heating up -.
So you will be able to encode 100x faster and play games .
Nvidia must be working on a new encoder as no update for 3000 series .
Intel will also
Not sure about AMD .
TBF - M1 will be fine for youtubers and family videos, local city adverts etc .
Serious Apple creatives will need to spend on the mac pro -and 2500 will seem cheap for them
A lot of money if not processing photos/videos and the new Intel ones do that well also.
Plus the power efficiency wasn't as amazing as I was lead to believe - considering running on a better fab, highly optimised code - that $2500 buys a lot of electricity or battery pack..
Most telling was Apple raving about nearly running all programs flawlessly - yet that is not the case - as stated here .
Windows/Linux are for general purpose computing - with a huge library of software .
As for encoding - interested to see new intel hardware .
That $2000 GPU you will buy for your Windows/Linux PC in a few years will probably have much much better encoders than now - with competition heating up -.
So you will be able to encode 100x faster and play games .
Nvidia must be working on a new encoder as no update for 3000 series .
Intel will also
Not sure about AMD .
TBF - M1 will be fine for youtubers and family videos, local city adverts etc .
Serious Apple creatives will need to spend on the mac pro -and 2500 will seem cheap for them
Irata
Posts: 2,288 +4,002
Thanks for the review.
There is one small request - it would have been interesting to include the 15W U series APU in the power consumption charts since looking at many tests while being slower, they are quite competitive with the M1.
It would have been very interesting how much power they drew exactly to have a proper perf / w comparison.
There is one small request - it would have been interesting to include the 15W U series APU in the power consumption charts since looking at many tests while being slower, they are quite competitive with the M1.
It would have been very interesting how much power they drew exactly to have a proper perf / w comparison.
I feel the power efficiency is not something that x86 can catch up easily even with a die shrink from 7nm to 5nm. ARM chips are build ground up for efficiency since they are mostly destined for mobile devices with limited cooling. And this power efficiency means, not just do you get great battery life for a high end config laptop, the other benefit is that the system runs at full speed even on battery. On most gaming class laptops, the beefy spec needs a lot of power, and the moment you try running it only on battery, performance will tank to conserve battery. So if you need a powerful system to use on the go, you cannot leave home without the hefty power brick and also need to look for a power point.
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
"But if Apple wants to win Windows users over to Mac, setting pricing so high isn’t the way to do it"
Pretty sure they don't... they sell plenty as it is...
Where are all the AMD shills who went on and on about power efficiency as to why Alder Lake was so terrible?
The thing is... in a laptop, power efficiency actually MATTERS! And Apple destroys AMD and Intel there...
I don't really use Macs.... but I'd be tempted to buy one next generation - once all the software is out of "beta" and works natively without Rosetta...
Pretty sure they don't... they sell plenty as it is...
Where are all the AMD shills who went on and on about power efficiency as to why Alder Lake was so terrible?
The thing is... in a laptop, power efficiency actually MATTERS! And Apple destroys AMD and Intel there...
I don't really use Macs.... but I'd be tempted to buy one next generation - once all the software is out of "beta" and works natively without Rosetta...
Dimitriid
Posts: 2,447 +4,917
While true, like @Irata said it's a bit over-stated: efficient x86 laptops are not *terribly* far behind and while performance isn't ideal I don't think most professionals should consider owning a single device for all they do both when they need horsepower and when they need mobility. It's still after all, a single point of failure for your workflow if your fancy macbook gets stolen or damaged vs having an ultra light 15w class laptop while on the go and a moderate desktop at office/home for when more heavy crunch is needed.
Power efficiency is one of those things when more is almost always better but there is such a thing as "good enough" and while many laptops fail at this due to Nvidia (And AMD's) seriously laughable power efficiency numbers, integrated solutions do fill that "Good enough" niche for most people: long days (But not *full* day battery) and good enough performance on the road and yes on a pinch, an APU 5800u can enable some 720p gaming without issues and 1080p for lighter titles even so you're good to go for what you need unless you're on the curious position of being fully homeless but can afford a Macbook Pro.
But hey given the prices maybe the meaning of "laptop hobbo" might actually become reality soon.
Nintenboy01
Posts: 309 +215
It will be interesting to see how AMD and Intel's next architectures on the same/similar nodes compare to the M1. But of course Apple will be on 3nm by then for their next design so they'll likely still be more efficient and faster in certain tasks.
Irata
Posts: 2,288 +4,002
I agree that Apple does noticeably better here but you might have missed the Ryzen U numbers at 15W which do look pretty good.
Sadly, the U series are missing from some of the more interesting perf/W tables.
But yes, efficiency is definitely great, but the question is always price.
Would I like for Intel and AMD to offer a more efficient APU. Absolutely !
Would I still want it that meant paying several times the price for said efficient APU ?
Probably no.
As a non-professional user a Ryzen 5800u equipped thin and light for under €1000 already gives me a good mix of power, size and efficiency.
If I were a pro user who benefits from the cases where the M1 Pro really smokes the competition, I‘d absolutely go for that.
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
I've seen the Ryzen U numbers - and they are good... but Apple is still better...
I don't really care about power efficiency myself - I plug my laptop in (it's an old Alienware 18 that could last 30 minutes on battery at the best of times).
I just find it amusing that in the Alder Lake threads, there were tons of AMD fanboys going on and on about power efficiency - as if that mattered in a desktop!
Here, in the mobile space, where power efficiency actually matters... those same AMD shills have fallen silent...
Irata
Posts: 2,288 +4,002
Not speaking for ‚shills‘ but many care about efficiency / power consumption in equal price / product classes.
What Apple did with the M1 Pro is certainly impressive but looking at the die size (on 5nm) plus the memory used, I assume this chip is in a different price class altogether.
I‘d also bet many here simply do not care about Apple period.
I am not sure how well an M1 type chip would sell or even work in the X86 + Windows environment. Apple can get the M1‘s features and accelerators used to their max in their ecosystem as they have control. Doing the same in Windows will fail because of MS, but also because there are too many different configuration / combinations out there.
All the reviews on these M1 mac's and nobody ever talks about all the issues with Rosetta. My company had to pull the M1's because they dont work friendly with developer tools not to mention the security stacks that most companies use are completely incompabitble with M1's.
Good luck with JAMF and other apple supported products. Freeze issues, applications not working, etc.
I am aware of quite a few companies struggling with M1's in their environment and one had to pull all of them and search for a way to buy them outside of Apple so they dont have M1's.
The M1 chipset has been nothing short of disastrous in the professional world. I recognize most personal use people would not experience some of this but as Apple tries to push into the corporate environment this has caused massive headaches.
Good luck with JAMF and other apple supported products. Freeze issues, applications not working, etc.
I am aware of quite a few companies struggling with M1's in their environment and one had to pull all of them and search for a way to buy them outside of Apple so they dont have M1's.
The M1 chipset has been nothing short of disastrous in the professional world. I recognize most personal use people would not experience some of this but as Apple tries to push into the corporate environment this has caused massive headaches.
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
“comparing performance across the best laptop chips available today, all run under fair and equivalent conditions”. What laptops did you benchmark with? That is important because of cooling/throttling concerns. You only mention laptop chips are these in desktops?
“disgustingly expensive” definitely a term to expect in a fair and unbiased review
Handbrake for Apple Silicon is still beta, so still probably not optimized
“I tried but couldn’t get the MacBook Pro to compile the Windows version”. But did you try to compile the apple silicon version on windows? Should probably have left out this missive
7-Zip any intelligence on being optimized for Apple silicon, I could find nothing.
Gaming?, LOL. And now we compare some non-native games running under Rosetta 2. That was meaningless
“M1 Max is ludicrously expensive.” No offense but this is a really ill-informed statement. Upgrading to the 24 core M1 Max is only $200, and to the $32 core M1 Max is only $400 - hardly ludicrously expensive. I did a price compare of M1 based Macs to similarly configured Dell XPS laptops and the Macs blew them away on value even if you could get equivalent performance, generally you had to max spec the Dells, at ludicrously expensive prices, and they still fell behind and that is before the well publicized thermal throttling issues associated with the Dells.
“disgustingly expensive” definitely a term to expect in a fair and unbiased review
Handbrake for Apple Silicon is still beta, so still probably not optimized
“I tried but couldn’t get the MacBook Pro to compile the Windows version”. But did you try to compile the apple silicon version on windows? Should probably have left out this missive
7-Zip any intelligence on being optimized for Apple silicon, I could find nothing.
Gaming?, LOL. And now we compare some non-native games running under Rosetta 2. That was meaningless
“M1 Max is ludicrously expensive.” No offense but this is a really ill-informed statement. Upgrading to the 24 core M1 Max is only $200, and to the $32 core M1 Max is only $400 - hardly ludicrously expensive. I did a price compare of M1 based Macs to similarly configured Dell XPS laptops and the Macs blew them away on value even if you could get equivalent performance, generally you had to max spec the Dells, at ludicrously expensive prices, and they still fell behind and that is before the well publicized thermal throttling issues associated with the Dells.
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
You do know that Alder Lake are space heaters?
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
So people who have windows workflows, and Microsoft won't license windows on ARM for Macs. The only surprising point in your comment is that any company would install M1 without testing if they were compatible. The fact does remain that for a lot of software, they are great, but there are still windows workflows out there
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
so all of this ranting and no actual price comparison? The M1 Pro and M1 Max are great values when compared to Dell XPS for example, and unlike Dell's and surface Pros, no thermal throttling issues. Sory you took offense at some software not being optimized for Apple Silicon as being indicative of performance. I came to the opposite conclusion as you - great performance and great value, but I didn't just rant, I "built" some comparable machines on the Dell web site which proved to be more expensive and under-performing, even before the well-publicized thermal throttling.
Oh sure you can compare a high end graphics card to the base model M1, or for $400 (does that get you a good graphics card? NO) you can upgrade to the 32 core M1 Max, oh I forgot, that is ludicrously expensive - NOT.
Unless of course you are a gamer - nuf said
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
You went out of your way to reply to each and every post slamming this laptop (by the way, you can reply to multiple messages in ONE post...
But this has me thinking "two wrongs don't make a right, only 3 lefts do..."
Don't accuse other of baseless accusations then make one yourself.
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
I couldn't find the original poster. but that is an ill-informed statement. Sure you can find a windows craptop (plastic hinges, bad screen, slow SSD, bad thermals) for cheaper, but I challenge any of these windows groupies to find a comparably equipped, and built laptop with comparable performance for substantially lower prices. I compared to Dell XPS using Dell's web site and I got underperforming, thermally throttled PCs with slow SSDs, that were heavier, cost more and did not compete performance wise with the M1s. so who is priced so high?
Sure you can get high end beasts in the windows world, but you pay for it
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
The original post is from the article itself... that's why I quoted it with italics
Do you really think it's the same: calling all the people in some group wankers and saying that 95 degrees C is to hot when using 360mm liquid cooler?
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
The CONCEPT is the same... and that only applies to the i9 - the i7 and especially the i5 run just as cool as any AMD CPU... and even the i9 runs perfectly fine if cooled properly and doesn't throttle...
My point is that defending this laptop - and this laptop deserves defending - doesn't mean falsely bashing something else... that just weakens your original argument.
GregonMaui
Posts: 331 +121
So you are saying that the alder Lake chips don't draw a lot of power? but they do, so that is not baseless. Not seeing you point
Squid Surprise
Posts: 5,592 +5,225
Had you said THAT in your original post, we'd have no issues... but you didn't... you called Alder Lake a space heater... you do understand there's a difference, right?
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