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How am I supposed to interpret this? A MacBook Air surpasses my i7-8700k in single and (almost) multi core performance?
Yes, in fact, the A14 (iPhone 12) already surpassed most Intel chips: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/perf-trajectory_575p... Intel is now #3
Geekbench is designed to test CPU's in short bursts to not get them into thermal throttling (this is by design, it is supposed to be CPU test, not cooling test), so I would be wary of Air's results - at least until other benchmarks results are available. MacBook Pro's results on the other hand should be more representative as it has active cooling and can sustain heavy load for longer.
GB5 scores for the M1 Mini and M1 MBP are linked in TFA.
I'm just making sure everyone understands that it does not mean Air will have the same real life performance as Pro or Mini. If you compare top MacBook Air 2020 (Intel)[1] with lowest MacBook Pro 2020 (Intel)[2] their results are almost identical, but their real life performance was not even close - Air starts to throttle after just few minutes of work. At the moment there is no reason to believe that Apple's CPU will behave differently (after all, the fan is in Pro and Mini for a reason).
[1] https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4652268 [2] https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/4653210
All those thinking of buying the new MBA, are you not concerned about availability of applications? Not all x86 applications will have an ARM alternative, yet.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/abou...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in fact, the A14 (iPhone 12) already surpassed most Intel chips: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/perf-trajectory_575p... Intel is now #3
A modern mobile CPU with a TDP of 6 watts is beating a modern desktop CPU with a TDP of 125 watts? Is it just me or this seems too good to be true?
That's true, but some people need the larger screen and discrete GPU. I personally run bootcamp Windows all the time (for development as well as gaming with an eGPU) and I just run macOS for compiling my iOS apps. ARM Macs won't be able to use an eGPU it seems.
Hardware is able to use an eGPU, but Apple decided to not compile the Radeon drivers for arm64 macOS at least for now. Hopefully they'll reverse that decision. (or their GPUs in the higher end machines will have to be really good)
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Why did you pay a fortune for 32GB RAM, a larger screen, and a dGPU if you don't need it? You could have bought a 13" MBP and saved enough cash to get the new Air and now have 2 laptops.
1. How do you know he didn’t need it? 2. Even if he didn’t need it, why assume he didn’t want it? 3. Why are you assuming that money is an issue for him?
The more interesting thing is the power efficiency, which doesn't have that much impact on single thread performance because higher power CPUs don't actually use their entire power budget for a single thread. But that's an impressive multi-threaded score for that TDP. It gets stomped by actual desktop CPUs for the obvious reason, but it has better multi-threaded performance than anything with the same TDP. Though that's also partially because the low-TDP Zen 3 CPUs aren't out yet.
What I'd really like to see is some benchmarks that aren't geekbench.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, in fact, the A14 (iPhone 12) already surpassed most Intel chips: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/perf-trajectory_575p... Intel is now #3
A modern mobile CPU with a TDP of 6 watts is beating a modern desktop CPU with a TDP of 125 watts? Is it just me or this seems too good to be true?
I am really looking forward to where this goes. That said, I am definitely waiting for at least one generation to pass before I jump on the train. I’ve been through this before. It will be great, but Apple is a master at smoke & mirrors. Things will not go as smoothly as the sizzle reels make it seem.