Apple announced the release of its new in-house M1 chip. The world was on its feet, waiting to see if it could match Intel’s performance. Late last year, Apple began replacing industry-standard Intel chips with its custom-designed silicon.
After the new chip’s preliminary benchmark results came out, they painted a very positive picture for Apple’s upcoming CPU. With Mac having one of its best years of sales, the new M1 chipset’s release, and the advertised benchmark performance, they might witness a similar success in 2021, if not better.
But what are the preliminary benchmark results? Are they actually better than the Intel-powered MacBook Pro? Yes, they are better. Results show that even the cheapest M1 MacBook beat the best Intel-powered MacBook Pro from the previous generation. Here are more details about the new silicon’s performance. It could change Apple products from this point forward.
Intel and Apple M1 Benchmark Performance
Geekbench 5 scores show that Apple M1 can achieve a 1687 single-thread score. It also reaches about 7433 on the multi-thread test. Through comparison, the A14 used inside an iPhone had a score of 1598/3995. The multi-thread surge comes from the higher core count. Sustained higher clock speeds also help, thanks to the larger chassis. In the past, many of the iPhone CPU was heavily throttled because of the high power consumption. Now with the new chip, A14 can finally stretch its legs.
How Apple M1 stacks up against Intel and AMD
How does this score compare with the existing Intel and AMD CPUs on the market? Preliminary benchmark results show that the scores are fairly close. That makes Apple’s new in-house CPU a strong competitor. A word of warning! Be aware that synthetic tests do not reflect real-world performance. They might be useful for low-level feature analysis and could shed light on architectural differences. However, don’t rely on them as the primary way to evaluate hardware.
The high-end MacBook Pro 16-inch featured a Core i9-9980HK with a base 8C/16T. Its base clock is 2.4GHz. By measuring performance on this system using the Geekbench 5 for the CPU, the scores are as follows: 1149/7329. Apple also ships some Intel-s quad-core with i7-1068NG7 and this CPU scores 1352/4914 in GB5. As you can see, Apple’s new M1 CPU is leading in single-thread performance. Even against Intel’s Sunny Cove architecture from 2019, the M1 manages to lead against the highest performing CPU used in mobile.
Apple is trying the Core i9-9980HK in multi-thread performance. Below that point, M1’s Geekbench scores clearly dominate. With the new generation of Intel processors, it is just a matter of time. Soon we will see how much they improved against the Apple M1.
How Does AMD Compare to Apple M1?
AMD CPUs get better with each new chip. Many folks are curious to see how they compare with Apple’s silicon. GeekBench 5 highlighted better performance for Zen 3 than Zen 2. The Ryzen 7 3700X obtained a score of 1281/8220 in GB5. On the other hand, Ryzen 7 5800X scores 1673/11,246. That is a significant improvement. It came out above what AMD told us to expect from Zen 2 vs. Zen 3.
However, both these CPUs are for desktops. It is hard to estimate how AMD’s Zen 2 mobile cores will compare to their PC chips. Ryzen 4800U cores about 1130 in GB5 single-thread performance and about 6800 in multi-threaded. In summary, AMD’s new Zen 3 8-core matches the M1 in single-thread scores. It also exceeds the multi-threaded performance of M1. However, the outcomes are achieved at a desktop-level of power consumption, which might not be relevant in our case.
Data highlights that Zen 3 will compare to the Apple silicon much closer than Zen 2. It also suggests that AMD’s mobile performance is much lower than desktop power levels, which makes sense. Assume that Zen 3 mobile’s single-thread performance increases by 1.3x and 1.36. A hypothetical mobile CPU score could then be close to 1495/9248 in GB5. But this is a very optimistic assumption. The AMD mobile system could consume a lot more electricity than the Apple system.
Subtest Results for AMD, Intel, and Apple M1
When it comes to subtests, the Intel Core i9-9980HK loses almost every single-threaded sub-test to Apple M1, but not evenly. Some cases show that the gap is small such as M1 obtaining 1292 in-text compression, compared to 1177 for the 9980HK. Other tests such as face detection, Gaussian blur, ray tracing, and horizontal detection favor the M1 chip from Apple.
Subtest performance against AMD’s 4800U is distinct from intel, but they aren’t much different as far as the overall outcome goes. The Ryzen 7 4800U can hit a 1318 faces/second compared to Intel’s 750, but the M1 reported a score of 2209. The intel 9980HK scores 1218 in the N-body physics test compared with Ryzen’s 936, but the Apple M1 scores 1769. Interestingly enough, the Intel chipset leads in machine learning subtests with a score of 1332 compared to the M1 with a score of just 1169, which is still better than 965 from 4800U.
Single-Thread vs. Multi-Thread
Multi-thread tests show some different results compared to the single-thread figures. In single-thread, the M1 overtook both AMD and Intel CPUs in performance. However, in multi-threading, the competition is much tighter. For the AES-XTS compression test, the M1 wins by a significant amount; however, Intel is ahead when it comes to text compression with scores of about 8284 to 7162 compared with the M1 score of 5528.
In the compression test, the AMD CPU takes the lead with a score of 10,392, followed by Intel with 9524, and Apple is last with a score of 7,213. AMD wins overall in the PDF rendering test but this time by a small difference, and M1 wins the text rendering test over both competitors. Intel’s camera benchmark performance is slightly better than AMD or Apple, but it decisively wins the rigid body physics test against both M1 and AMD. However, Intel lacks in machine learning scaling, and in this category, Apple wins in multi-threading.
Based on these results, it is unclear which one is better. Remember that chip performance can be affected by thermals or by the split-core configuration used by Apple. Scaling factors are 6.0x for AMD Ryzen 7 4800U, 6.38x for Intel i9-9980HK, and 4.4x for Apple M1. Give the thermally constrained environment and the mix of high-performance and efficiency cores used in their system, it is no surprise that Apple scales so well.
Conclusion
With the new Apple M1 chipset’s release, many think it will eradicate the x86 market position next year. However, both Intel and AMD are more competitive when it comes to ST and MT and multiple workloads, which are very prevalent these days. These results indicate intense competition from Apple’s M1 chip and threaten to lead the market. Still, it won’t altogether remove its competition even if these results translate well in reality.
GeekBench 5 is not a real-world benchmark, and only the real-world tests will prove or disprove the benchmark results. However, these results do not point out any weak places in the architecture. The M1 appears to be highly competitive with x86 clock-for-clock and core-for-core, but it is still early to draw conclusions. Further testing will determine the degree to which these tests reflect reality.
Interested in the new Apple M1 Mac mini? Talk to us today!
Apple has announced its new M1 chip built and available in the Mac mini. Volico offers these new single Bare Metal Apple M1 servers in two configurations, coming soon to all of our Data Center locations. The 2020 Mac mini is one of the first Macs to be updated with an Apple-designed Arm-based chip rather than an Intel chip like prior Mac mini models. These chips are called “Apple Silicon,” and the chip used in the new Mac mini is the M1. reserve an Apple M1 bare metal server
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