Geekbench benchmarks provide evidence of an upper bound, which is useful for determining what is technically possible. Real-world benchmarks instead show what c

Geekbench benchmarks provide evidence of an upper bound, which is useful for determining what is technically possible. Real-world benchmarks instead show what can be realistically observed. The upper bound benchmarks are still useful, just in a different way. For example: these benchmarks show that under excessive load (as benchmarks do), the M1 is capable of out-performing Intel chips at something like 1/3 the energy usage. No matter how you slice it, that is an impressive achievement and shows what M1 could potentially do for the most perfectly optimized software. Realistically, of course, software will not attain this. But having the upper bound lets software writers know what to aim for and when it's not worth pushing for extra performance.