18 ms·

M2 MacBook Air scores higher on Windows 11 GeekBench than pricier Dell laptop

171 points by eldaisfish 4y ago

akmittal 4y ago
Windows running in VM on M2 is faster than native Windows on x86. Such a shame for Intel, AMD and Qualcomm.
- macintux 4y ago
  Non-native Windows (double-checked the video to make sure it wasn’t Windows for Arm) at that. Quite impressive. (Apparently I’m wrong, leaving my original gaffe in place.)
  - arthurmorgan 4y ago
    Are you sure about that it is not Windows for ARM?
  - barkingcat 4y ago
    it is windows for arm.
- incahoots 4y ago
  I would say it speaks volumes of the crew at Parallels and how polished the software is.
  - whynotminot 4y ago
    I mean it's both. Wouldn't be possible without absolutely insane hardware. But also wouldn't be possible without good work from Parallels.
  - sitzkrieg 4y ago
    meanwhile vmware feels there is no need to support apple silicon hosts, feeling there is no demand lol
    - lode 4y ago
      VMware Fusion has a tech preview for Apple Silicon at https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=FUS-PUBTP-22H2 https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?do... Background at: https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2022/07/just-released-vmware-fusion-22h2-tech-preview.html https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2022/07/just-released-vm... (Disclaimer: I work at VMware - but not on Fusion)
      - cassianoleal 4y ago
        It's been a tech preview for a long time. I used to have a Fusion license before Apple Silicon but now I have Parallels because it works.
      - sitzkrieg 4y ago
        i appreciate it, now im baffled why our support ticket got such an answer, it was recentlyish
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Parallels only product is Parallels, it's the entire company. VMWare Fusion is an afterthought of a multi-billion dollar company.
      - trollied 4y ago
        > Parallels only product is Parallels, it's the entire company. Not true these days. "In December 2018, Parallels became part of the Corel Corporation and joins an impressive collection of industry-leading brands, including CorelDRAW®, WinZip® and MindManager®. Parallels has offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia."
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        bombcar 4y ago
        Wow talk about a blast from the past! Didn't know Corel still existed.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  It was an additional eye opener after I tried, unsuccessfully, to like Raspberri Pi. "Powerful 64-bit CPU"? After M1 I kept expecting it to be fast and to run non-ARM software :D Once you try M1/M2 Macs it's very hard to go back to pretty much any hardware.
  - karamanolev 4y ago
    Raspberry Pi has a distinctively different target audience. If you expect an RPi to run non-ARM code, then I'd say it's not made for you. I agree that M1/M2 Macs are good, but I implore everyone to not get sucked into and stuck into the Apple ecosystem. Nothing good can come out of tech dominance.
    - tomxor 4y ago
      > I agree that M1/M2 Macs are good, but I implore everyone to not get sucked into and stuck into the Apple ecosystem. So much this. Every time I hear something good about the M1/M2 it's interesting but it's like "aah, such a shame I can never use it without loosing my sanity due to all of the strings it has attached".
      - entropicdrifter 4y ago
        I bought an M1 Mac Mini on sale earlier this year when Microcenter had them under $600, now it just runs Asahi Linux. Eventually I'm going to move all of my self-hosted server stuff over to it, minus Jellyfin and whatever else needs hardware transcoding capability.
        tomxor 4y ago
        I'm happy for you, and that would also be pragmatic for me being a Linux user, but my annoying idealistic conscience refuses to fund Apple's activities.
        DrudgeCorporate 4y ago
- dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
  > Such a shame for Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. If the article is true (and that's a big if, given Max Tech's history of tech reporting), instead of blaming the above companies I'd just congratulate Apple and thank them for putting the bar higher. AMD recent processors are still great on the desktop, and an absolute blast on the server, with extremely attractive value for money ratio.
  - akmittal 4y ago
    > AMD recent processors are still great on the desktop, and an absolute blast on the server Yes they are truly great but point to consider is they are just competing against Intel. Don't get wrong I love what AMD has done recently with Ryzen but we need ARM based servers which has perf per watt competing with M1/M2
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      AMD is also stuck on TSMC's 7nm node while Apple hogs up all their 5nm capacity for M1/2 and A15. Intel has no real excuse since they use their own fabs and spun their wheels on 14nm for half a decade.
      - pulse7 4y ago
        You can not compare TSMC's "7nm" with Intels "14 nm". These numbers are just marketing...
        out_of_protocol 4y ago
        Can't we go with MT? (millions of transistors per square millimeter)
        nomel 4y ago
        Power and speed isn't just about transistor density. The construction of the transistors also has an impact. See FinFET and GAAFET.
- overgard 4y ago
  I wouldn't go too far.. I was shopping for a laptop a month ago and considering the M2 MacBook. The CPU performance is definitely impressive, but I ended up getting a Razer Blade 14 because it absolutely decimates the MacBook in GPU performance and gaming related stuff, unless you go top of the line MacBook Pro which would have been about $1200 more and couldn't run most games. If you don't need a great GPU I would definitely go with a MacBook, but if you need one you're just not going to beat an RTX 3080 and an AMD Ryzen.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    And for how long can you game on it unplugged? I feel like gaming on a laptop is a niche, and is never gonna be too practical.
    - hombre_fatal 4y ago
      Just depends what you care about. All the games I care about, from Baldur’s Gate to Crusader Kings to emulated games, are best enjoyed in my bed or couch on my laptop. My desktop feels more niche for my preferences since only a few games I care about require sitting at a desk in “FPS position”. I had more fun building the thing than using it.
    - overgard 4y ago
      For me it's actually about game development, so I'm running things like Unity and baking light maps and things like that, which I absolutely do on the go in coffee shops or whatnot. The battery life is actually pretty decent. Nowhere close to a macbook but I don't have to be plugged in all the time either. I'm not sure I'd call it niche. No I'm not playing counterstrike in a coffee shop, but it can be fun to bring it over to a friends house. I haven't bought a desktop since 2014, I like having the freedom to work from anywhere and not have to move files between computers all the time. When I have it at home I have it hooked into 3 monitors and a full size keyboard, and it runs pretty quiet, so it's not really any different from having a desktop in that regard. YMMV though. Most of what I do with a computer even besides games needs a very powerful GPU. If you're working with docker and webdev I'd just get a macbook. My only point is that apple doesn't have a pure monopoly on performance, as impressive as their new silicon is there's some things it's still not so good at.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  How is this a shame for AMD or Qualcomm, who aren't part of this comparison at all? > Windows running in VM on M2 is faster than native Windows on x86. Which x86? 12th gen Intel? 11th gen Intel? Ryzen 6000? These are all wildly different processors. This comment is absurd. It's also "Windows ARM version running in a VM on M2", not x86 windows which is the only thing you'd care about running in VM on MacOS if you were actually going to do this for some reason.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    It's not a coherent comment - the part about "shame" is meant to incur an emotional response and bypass logical reasoning systems of the human mind.
- SantiagoElf 4y ago
  I am about to run the GeekBench with my main laptop. https://valid.x86.fr/u8b004 https://valid.x86.fr/u8b004 I believe - it will OBLITERATE M2.
  - microtonal 4y ago
    No need: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=&q=AMD+Ryzen+9+5900HX https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=&q=AMD+Ryze... Also doesn't really obliterate the M2: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 Seems like multi-core scores are all over the map (probably depending on the cooling of the laptop), but not really impressive when comparing to a passively cooled CPU. Single-core scores are meh compared to the M2.
    - SantiagoElf 4y ago
      Yeah, not what I expected. Here is my result: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16820778 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16820778 Given that I didn't stop anything and was playing Dota 2 while running it ... Still, I believe at some point once newer iterations of X86-64 drop support for legacy instructions (they still have to support code running on 8080/8086 through 486) - we will have smaller, more efficient X86-64 chips. Actually, it is darn impressive that the latest Intel/AMD chips keep up with the brand new M1/M2 chips that have zero legacy instructions and the Intel/AMD chips carry 50 years of legacy :)
      - SantiagoElf 4y ago
        Noticed that I ran the previously GeekBench on balanced power plan. Here are the results on Performance Power Plan - https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16821908 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16821908 Summarized results - https://i.imgur.com/X5vKtFn.png https://i.imgur.com/X5vKtFn.png Overall, with the new results - AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX is 18% slower in Single Core, 4% faster in Multi Core. Not that bad ...
        4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nivertech 4y ago
1, I guess it's a standard x86 version of Windows, not some Windows for ARM port. But imagine how fast native Windows port for M2 would be?! 2. Is this only Windows/graphics specific, or Parallels on M2 can also run Ubuntu x86 OS (not Asahi Linux) and code faster than the latest x86 laptops?
- nicoburns 4y ago
  It's almost certainly Windows for ARM, which is available from Microsoft as a Windows Insider Preview. Parallels will also be able to run non-asahi ubuntu, and it likely will be pretty fast, but again it will be the ARM version.
- kkjjkgjjgg 4y ago
  Actually I think you have to use the Arm version of Windows with Parallels. But it has been a while that I tried it, may remember incorrectly.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  It is the ARM version of Windows. Parallels on Apple Silicon can't run x86 OSs. Only ARM ones. Not sure if Geekbench has a Windows ARM port though.
- barkingcat 4y ago
  It's windows for arm. linux for arm, etc etc Parallels on Apple Silicon cannot run x86 OS's. If you want to run x86, you can use qemu which works fine.
  - nivertech 4y ago
    thanks, for a moment I was disappointed that I just ordered a fully-loaded Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 since I need to run x86 Ubuntu > If you want to run x86, you can use qemu which works fine. Are there any benchmarks for x86 Ubuntu under QEMU on M1/M2? Will it be usable?
    - solardev 4y ago
zerkten 4y ago
This is not a surprise for anyone that has been using Windows under Parallels on an M1 Mac. What's important is for the real experience to be match the benchmark and it seems to fly for core office/productivity tasks. I setup a VM for work stuff that includes a bunch of admin policies and work-installed junk a few weeks ago to work while traveling. It didn't even break a sweat and Teams felt as responsive as my recent i7 desktop. At the same time I was able to run all my usual dev stuff on the Mac. It felt like it would handle classic Visual Studio as well, but I didn't want to bother with the install.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  The classic visual studio is handled well under parallels desktop, tough the M1 CPU cannot do magic and it’s still relatively slow to start.
  - MaxikCZ 4y ago
    > tough the M1 CPU cannot do magic TBF, I think the M1 CPUs crossed the magic barrier already
  - throwaway675309 4y ago
    Ehh... the answer is it kind of works well, but it really depends on what you're doing since you're running an x64 application (Visual Studio) on an ARM version of Windows running on a Mac M1 in parallels. .NET development and in particular stepping through debugging is particularly slow, though I guess we should be happy it works at all.
    - GeekyBear 4y ago
      Didn't Microsoft just finally announce an ARM native version of Visual Studio?
      - 3pm 4y ago
        And Arm64 version of .NET Framework (4.8.1). .NET Framework is considered legacy and 4.8 was supposed to be the final version. Not sure whether it means they foresee faster Windows-on-ARM adoption. Or slower .NET Framework to .NET Core transition. Or both.
marcodiego 4y ago
I'd like to see a phoronix comparison. Seems much richer.
keeganjw 4y ago
If feel like at this point, Windows is eventually going to switch to ARM it's just a matter of overcoming a lot inertia. ARM and RISC processors in general are now proven to be better than x86. If Microsoft invests in making Windows for ARM run well and provides a translation tool like Rosetta, it's game over for x86. That's no easy feat but at a fundamental level I don't really see a way for x86 to become actually competitive again against RISC processors.
- Octoth0rpe 4y ago
  > ARM and RISC processors in general are now proven to be better than x86. Certain ARM implementations (M1, M2) have proven better than certain implementations of x86 (basically all of them). The ARM implementations in question are not available for general purchase. It's only worth the effort to switch if a competitive processor becomes available. It doesn't look like the MS teamup with qualcomm that resulted in the sq1/sq2 procs are that. In the server space, that's different given that graviton/cavium have proven competitive.
  - soco 4y ago
    Cavium has been proven competitive then killed. Something didn't add up there, but at least we have the Ampere processors left.
- Rhedox 4y ago
  > and provides a translation tool like Rosetta They already have that.
- hnov 4y ago
  The original Surface from 2012 was the first mainstream ARM Windows device.
  - philistine 4y ago
    I had a friend studying law buy one of those. She quickly demurred and switched to a laptop, even her workload was too much for the device.
TrueGeek 4y ago
For everyone saying this must be the Windows Insider ARM based Windows version - the linked YouTube video shows him using (and paying for) the full Windows 11 x86. He even gives a referral code. It's at 48 seconds into the video.
- WithinReason 4y ago
  Took me a while to get the joke...
- wmf 4y ago
  He's using an x86 license key for ARM Windows.
Rhedox 4y ago
Are they seriously reporting Max Tech as news now? Those guys have absolutely no clue what they're talking about and just make bullshit click bait.
- EugeneOZ 4y ago
  Please provide at least a single piece of evidence when blaming. I don't know them, but if you're saying I should not trust them - please explain why (not just “they are wrong”).
frant-hartm 4y ago
... while unplugged ... Nothing new here, this is just better 5nm process advantage (which M2 undoubtedly has).
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. I really wish thermal throttling was the first major point of discussion for ALL laptop CPU's. One of my work laptops never reached full cpu speeds in the real world because it would get thermally throttled!
  - EugeneOZ 4y ago
    And in the case of M1/M2 Airs it's quite contrary - you need to load them really hard to cause throttling. With Apple Silicon MBP I’m not sure what level of load should be to cause throttling with full-speed fans.
  - gregmac 4y ago
    I had the same experience, and it's incredibly frustrating -- both when you don't know about thermal throttling and when you do. I'd do something that caused high load, and it would be briefly fast then suddenly everything would get sluggish. I naively thought this was normal ("under load") until some time I was doing the same workload on a similar-spec desktop CPU and it didn't happen. In trying to discovery why is when I first learned about thermal throttling.
    - asdff 4y ago
      At least with windows you can turn off turboboost and other such features that basically temporarily overclock the cpu beyond what the thermals are designed for evidently. I had a late model intel mac that was horrible for this. Games would become unplayable because you'd have 30 seconds of reasonable FPS followed by 5 seconds of terrible awful drops then right back to reasonable fps. My 2012 era mac was better in this sense because the thermal design allowed the CPU to go all out at room temp, no throttling at all and consistent fps from the game (albeit low because of integrated graphics, but consistent nonetheless which is at least playable).
treis 4y ago
This is probably not an accurate comparison. Here's the benchmarks for the two processors: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1280p-vs-apple-m2 https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1280p-vs... That has the M2 winning single core but losing multicore. I didn't watch the video because 8 minutes is ridiculous so I don't know what they're doing. But it's probably not apples to apples.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  I think they compared it to a i5 1240p or did the dell have different specs?
  - neogodless 4y ago
    The article links to the default (cheaper) configuration. The video simply says it's the $1,849 configuration of the Dell XPS 13 Plus (I didn't listen to all the audio, but that section was very light on details.) Playing with the configurator, I could get $1,859 by bumping up to the i7-1280P with Windows 11 Pro and a few other tweaks.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      You are right, seems to be compared to the i7.
- zuhsetaqi 4y ago
  First of all they’re comparing the intel cpu in an actual customer device. Second they do the test with both device unplugged
- robertoandred 4y ago
  > 8 minutes is ridiculous Adjustable playback speed is your friend
dhosek 4y ago
Ugh, there’s so little information in either the linked article or the original video or even the Parallels website, but apparently, Parallels does (not*, in fact, run Intel Windows on Apple Silicon according to this page: https://machow2.com/windows-on-m1-mac/ https://machow2.com/windows-on-m1-mac/ (and even that page had confusing wording that made me think the opposite for a while).
JonathanBeuys 4y ago
But can you use it outside? Looking at unboxing videos of Apple laptops gives me goosebumps, seeing all the reflections in the screen: https://youtu.be/eSlAJMsM6CM?t=321 https://youtu.be/eSlAJMsM6CM?t=321 The Dell XPS to which it is compared here is available as a matte version and is nicely suitable to work outside.
- b4je7d7wb 4y ago
  Can you use it in an office? My m1 is unusable at 80% of the comfortable angles, and not at all at the optimal one.
  - rjzzleep 4y ago
    My Lenovo has a matte screen and has an a lot less visible screen than my wifes glossy macbook air. Unfortunately glossy or matte no longer is an indicator on how readable a screen is.
    - JonathanBeuys 4y ago
      The glossy Air works better outside than the matte Lenovo? I find that hard to imagine. Which Lenovo is it?
  - akie 4y ago
    This is such a weird claim that doesn't stack up at all with my experience. Unusable at 80% of the comfortable angles? Come on now.
  - potatoman22 4y ago
    Lol can you describe some of these angles? It works fine on my desk and lap. I could see the keyboard being too small, but that's not unique to Macs.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  It's trivial and cheap to apply a matte screen protector if that's your preference. But you can't convert a matte screen to glossy. Also, matte doesn't necessarily translate to more legible outdoors either. Matte removes reflections by reducing contrast which has its own drawbacks.
ouid 4y ago
i thought we were all skipping windows 11?
- wmf 4y ago
  Unfortunately 11 for ARM has major improvements that aren't in 10.
duxup 4y ago
I switched from an XPS 13 to an M2 Air recently. The differences are striking. I have my XPS 13 browsing HN next to my M1 air. That's all the XPS is doing, firefox browsing HN. My M2 has multiple docker containers, a collection of office apps open, browsers, vs code... and so on. My XPS battery will barely last until 1pm if it isn't plugged in, and the fan kicks on for no apparent reason... It will last a little longer if I manually set it to "best battery life" but even that can be surprisingly ineffective for no apparent reason sometimes. My M2 Air will last nearly two full working days (I haven't pushed it that far but so far it appears it would make it), the battery life is crazy. I go into the office and I don't even think about plugging it in, I know it will do fine. I don't know what it is about macOS and using their M chips but the efficiency is amazing to me. I even had a docker container freak out on my Air recently. It pegged a CPU core to 100% for a good 45 minutes. Temp skyrocketed. But I was on another virtual desktop and I didn't notice a thing. The OS ran smooth, vscode, node and everything else was running smooth. It wasn't until I looked at the status bar that I saw the CPU and temp had skyrocketed. I found the container responsible, killed it, and temp dropped quickly. Even under non ideal situations the Air performed well. With my XPS the moment I put it down I think about where I can plug it in. If I pick up my XPS to quick order some Tacos and it wasn't plugged in from the start I feel like i"m in a race to get the order in "Come on, hold on, I need tacos!!!" With my Air I don't even think about plugging it in, that's a completely new experience for a laptop for me. I don't really understand the benchmarks and such that I've seen, but the every day user experience has been like night and day.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  > It pegged a CPU core to 100% for a good 45 minutes. Temp skyrocketed. But I was on another virtual desktop and I didn't notice a thing. I reckon this is more of a heterogeneous architecture thing than a MacOS/Apple one. When you run a processor-intensive task, Grand Central Dispatch will assign it a relative priority and then, on new M1 chips, delegate the process to a core cluster. While one heavy program runs, another can operate alongside it on the efficiency cores or even another P-core cluster. I've noticed this behavior as well on Alder Lake. There are several times I've booted up Bitwig with something like Elden Ring running in the background, and had no idea it was open while I worked on music.
tiahura 4y ago
Unfortunately, given how terrible MacOS Outlook is, running a Windows VM is almost a necessity.
- EugeneOZ 4y ago
  Do they have a web version? I honestly have no idea, I’m not trolling.
  - thijsvandien 4y ago
    If you're on Microsoft 365, there's outlook.office.com, though that probably doesn't compare to the Windows desktop version either.
  - tiahura 4y ago
    The issue is that the windows version is infinitely customizable via the gui, custom views, rules, conditional formatting, vba, etc. Almost all of this is lost on MacOS. It's odd. Word and Excel are almost 1:1, but Outlook is a dumpster fire.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    Of Outlook yes. I prefer it to the native version, even on Windows.
- stalfosknight 4y ago
  You don't need to use Outlook on macOS. You can just sign into Exchange in System Preferences > Internet Accounts.
  - dontlaugh 4y ago
    Unfortunately that doesn't work with some custom auth systems.
    - stalfosknight 4y ago
      That must be something extremely and unnecessarily custom. At my org we enforce MFA with Microsoft Authenticator and that works just fine with macOS' built-in Exchange support.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wslh 4y ago
I am seriously curious on how/if MSFT/Dell/Google/etc will answer.
- akmittal 4y ago
  I don't think MSFT/Dell/Google could have done anything. Perf difference is because of AMD/Intel
  - loudmax 4y ago
    Well TSMC's 5nm fab is also obviously a huge factor, but the performance difference is largely due to the ARM vs x86 ISA as well as all the optimizations that Apple has put into running MacOS well on their chips. Microsoft will certainly continue to put effort into developing the ARM version of Windows, and try to follow Apple's path in getting a version of Rosetta to run the legacy Windows applications. I'm certain that Dell already has ARM-based laptops and servers in development. Until the Windows version of Rosetta works as well as Apple's, there will likely continue to be a demand for x86 machines, but pretty much every PC vendor can see the transition coming. I'm hoping Framework comes out with something soon. Not sure that this does much for Google. Their datacenters already run custom CPUs, and web applications should be agnostic to the CPU powering the web browser. Android phones are already running ARM.
    - wslh 4y ago
      A more precise question is how long it will take for others to catch up: 2 years? I remember when the iPhone 1 came (2007) it took ~4 years for Samsung to came up with the Galaxy S II which was a great competitor. I am aware this is comparing apples with oranges but thinking about business time.
      - intrasight 4y ago
        > 2 years? Let's assume that Apple is 2 years ahead now, and that their rate of innovation is 20% higher than any competitor. The answer is therefore that the competitors will never catch up. This is why I am long APPL.
setgree 4y ago
I’ve noticed a big decline in performance recently on my 2020 MacBook Air (pre-M1) — a lot more fan activity and some apps completely freezing (iMessages and Slack in particular, but also StarCraft a few times). I’ve been wondering if Apple’s latest software updates are optimized for the new machines at the expense of the old ones? Not sure how Apple could optimize for both architectures simultaneously, and if they faced a tradeoff, I’m pretty sure what they’d do…
- fbanon 4y ago
  More like third-party software (Slack, Figma, VSCode, anything web-based) is getting even more bloated as their engineers' machines get upgraded to M1 Pros.
bigtex 4y ago
Windows in Parallels runs well except with every update IIS Express is broken so I have to uninstall and reinstall the version downloaded from Microsoft's website.
haunter 4y ago
How does Parallels Windows 11 run Elden Ring or Red Dead Redemption 2 for example? To me that would be a better comparison.
jccalhoun 4y ago
I read and watch a decent number of PC hardware sites/channels and they don't seem to use geekbench. The only time I hear people mention geekbench is in relation to apple. Is there a reason why pc hardware sites don't seem to use geekbench?
- neogodless 4y ago
  GeekBench is intended as a cross-platform benchmark. > Designed from the ground-up for cross-platform comparisons, Geekbench 5 allows you to compare system performance across devices, operating systems, and processor architectures. Geekbench 5 supports Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux. But it seems like there are a lot of other options. https://www.phoronix.com/review/macos12-windows-linux https://www.phoronix.com/review/macos12-windows-linux PC hardware sites are probably less concerned with "cross-platform" benchmarks. As long as the system hardware and operating system are the same, varying only the component you're testing, you can test with any benchmark that runs on the system.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  It is always better to benchmark with actual programs than it is with benchmark utilities. Geekbench's claims as a cross-platform test are also not really validated. For example, let's check out the M1 Mini review that Anandtech did, specifically these two pages: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... According to Geekbench, the M1 handily beats the 5950X in single-threaded work. However, according to Cinebench 1T and spec2017, the 5950X is faster at single-threaded. Who is "correct"? The answer is a much more simple "look at the benchmark results that matter for your workloads." A good review will cover benchmarks of a variety of workloads as a result so you can figure out which matters to you. Which is never geekbench, since nobodies workload is ever geekbench. So a good review will tend to not include geekbench rather than include it, unless they just don't have better ways to compare whatever they're testing.
  - diamondlovesyou 4y ago
thedudeabides5 4y ago
But can it run excel with windows hot keys...
oblak 4y ago
Isn't this expected given that Dell is using Intel instead of AMD? AMD's current offerings are pretty competitive with Apple. Unfortunately, they are hard to find. Yes, the real good stuff is almost unobtainium
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  Not that hard to find. Dell Inspiron and Alienware have AMD options. Lenovo's main X13 line has AMD variants. And of course all the Asus, MSI, Acers, etc.. of the world have AMD offerings. So does HP.
  - oblak 4y ago
    I've been looking for the new 6800u based Z13 but it's nowhere to be found. Guess my wife would have to keep her old machine for a while longer
- fomine3 4y ago
  Intel Alder Lake is decent for vs latest Ryzen, but next Ryzen is coming soon.
  - oblak 4y ago
    Depends which next Ryzen you mean. 6000 series has been out for almost 6 months. CPU is the same, gpu is much better. The 7000 are expected to be much better - zen 4 + rdna 3. Yummy
JohnTHaller 4y ago
Other publications show the i7 1280p in the XPS 13 Plus getting more like 10,000 in Geekbench 5 multicore, well ahead of the M2's 7,360 score. https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/dell-xps-13-plus-review https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/dell-xps-13-...
- merb 4y ago
  did they really run a geekbench or do they just use the reference number? with the heat display, I'm not sure if it can sustain the numbers...
  - JohnTHaller 4y ago
    They have all the results of their benchmarks graphed in the article. It looks like Max Tech didn't know how to use the various performance modes in the XPS 13 Plus.

171 points by eldaisfish 4y ago

akmittal 4y ago

Windows running in VM on M2 is faster than native Windows on x86. Such a shame for Intel, AMD and Qualcomm.

macintux 4y ago
Non-native Windows (double-checked the video to make sure it wasn’t Windows for Arm) at that. Quite impressive. (Apparently I’m wrong, leaving my original gaffe in place.)
- arthurmorgan 4y ago
  Are you sure about that it is not Windows for ARM?
- barkingcat 4y ago
  it is windows for arm.
incahoots 4y ago
I would say it speaks volumes of the crew at Parallels and how polished the software is.
- whynotminot 4y ago
  I mean it's both. Wouldn't be possible without absolutely insane hardware. But also wouldn't be possible without good work from Parallels.
- sitzkrieg 4y ago
  meanwhile vmware feels there is no need to support apple silicon hosts, feeling there is no demand lol
  - lode 4y ago
    VMware Fusion has a tech preview for Apple Silicon at https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=FUS-PUBTP-22H2 https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?do... Background at: https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2022/07/just-released-vmware-fusion-22h2-tech-preview.html https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2022/07/just-released-vm... (Disclaimer: I work at VMware - but not on Fusion)
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      It's been a tech preview for a long time. I used to have a Fusion license before Apple Silicon but now I have Parallels because it works.
    - sitzkrieg 4y ago
      i appreciate it, now im baffled why our support ticket got such an answer, it was recentlyish
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Parallels only product is Parallels, it's the entire company. VMWare Fusion is an afterthought of a multi-billion dollar company.
    - trollied 4y ago
      > Parallels only product is Parallels, it's the entire company. Not true these days. "In December 2018, Parallels became part of the Corel Corporation and joins an impressive collection of industry-leading brands, including CorelDRAW®, WinZip® and MindManager®. Parallels has offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia."
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Wow talk about a blast from the past! Didn't know Corel still existed.
dmitriid 4y ago
It was an additional eye opener after I tried, unsuccessfully, to like Raspberri Pi. "Powerful 64-bit CPU"? After M1 I kept expecting it to be fast and to run non-ARM software :D Once you try M1/M2 Macs it's very hard to go back to pretty much any hardware.
- karamanolev 4y ago
  Raspberry Pi has a distinctively different target audience. If you expect an RPi to run non-ARM code, then I'd say it's not made for you. I agree that M1/M2 Macs are good, but I implore everyone to not get sucked into and stuck into the Apple ecosystem. Nothing good can come out of tech dominance.
  - tomxor 4y ago
    > I agree that M1/M2 Macs are good, but I implore everyone to not get sucked into and stuck into the Apple ecosystem. So much this. Every time I hear something good about the M1/M2 it's interesting but it's like "aah, such a shame I can never use it without loosing my sanity due to all of the strings it has attached".
    - entropicdrifter 4y ago
      I bought an M1 Mac Mini on sale earlier this year when Microcenter had them under $600, now it just runs Asahi Linux. Eventually I'm going to move all of my self-hosted server stuff over to it, minus Jellyfin and whatever else needs hardware transcoding capability.
      - tomxor 4y ago
        I'm happy for you, and that would also be pragmatic for me being a Linux user, but my annoying idealistic conscience refuses to fund Apple's activities.
        DrudgeCorporate 4y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
> Such a shame for Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. If the article is true (and that's a big if, given Max Tech's history of tech reporting), instead of blaming the above companies I'd just congratulate Apple and thank them for putting the bar higher. AMD recent processors are still great on the desktop, and an absolute blast on the server, with extremely attractive value for money ratio.
- akmittal 4y ago
  > AMD recent processors are still great on the desktop, and an absolute blast on the server Yes they are truly great but point to consider is they are just competing against Intel. Don't get wrong I love what AMD has done recently with Ryzen but we need ARM based servers which has perf per watt competing with M1/M2
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    AMD is also stuck on TSMC's 7nm node while Apple hogs up all their 5nm capacity for M1/2 and A15. Intel has no real excuse since they use their own fabs and spun their wheels on 14nm for half a decade.
    - pulse7 4y ago
      You can not compare TSMC's "7nm" with Intels "14 nm". These numbers are just marketing...
      - out_of_protocol 4y ago
        Can't we go with MT? (millions of transistors per square millimeter)
        nomel 4y ago
        Power and speed isn't just about transistor density. The construction of the transistors also has an impact. See FinFET and GAAFET.
overgard 4y ago
I wouldn't go too far.. I was shopping for a laptop a month ago and considering the M2 MacBook. The CPU performance is definitely impressive, but I ended up getting a Razer Blade 14 because it absolutely decimates the MacBook in GPU performance and gaming related stuff, unless you go top of the line MacBook Pro which would have been about $1200 more and couldn't run most games. If you don't need a great GPU I would definitely go with a MacBook, but if you need one you're just not going to beat an RTX 3080 and an AMD Ryzen.
- kaba0 4y ago
  And for how long can you game on it unplugged? I feel like gaming on a laptop is a niche, and is never gonna be too practical.
  - hombre_fatal 4y ago
    Just depends what you care about. All the games I care about, from Baldur’s Gate to Crusader Kings to emulated games, are best enjoyed in my bed or couch on my laptop. My desktop feels more niche for my preferences since only a few games I care about require sitting at a desk in “FPS position”. I had more fun building the thing than using it.
  - overgard 4y ago
    For me it's actually about game development, so I'm running things like Unity and baking light maps and things like that, which I absolutely do on the go in coffee shops or whatnot. The battery life is actually pretty decent. Nowhere close to a macbook but I don't have to be plugged in all the time either. I'm not sure I'd call it niche. No I'm not playing counterstrike in a coffee shop, but it can be fun to bring it over to a friends house. I haven't bought a desktop since 2014, I like having the freedom to work from anywhere and not have to move files between computers all the time. When I have it at home I have it hooked into 3 monitors and a full size keyboard, and it runs pretty quiet, so it's not really any different from having a desktop in that regard. YMMV though. Most of what I do with a computer even besides games needs a very powerful GPU. If you're working with docker and webdev I'd just get a macbook. My only point is that apple doesn't have a pure monopoly on performance, as impressive as their new silicon is there's some things it's still not so good at.
kllrnohj 4y ago
How is this a shame for AMD or Qualcomm, who aren't part of this comparison at all? > Windows running in VM on M2 is faster than native Windows on x86. Which x86? 12th gen Intel? 11th gen Intel? Ryzen 6000? These are all wildly different processors. This comment is absurd. It's also "Windows ARM version running in a VM on M2", not x86 windows which is the only thing you'd care about running in VM on MacOS if you were actually going to do this for some reason.
- throw10920 4y ago
  It's not a coherent comment - the part about "shame" is meant to incur an emotional response and bypass logical reasoning systems of the human mind.
SantiagoElf 4y ago
I am about to run the GeekBench with my main laptop. https://valid.x86.fr/u8b004 https://valid.x86.fr/u8b004 I believe - it will OBLITERATE M2.
- microtonal 4y ago
  No need: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=&q=AMD+Ryzen+9+5900HX https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?utf8=&q=AMD+Ryze... Also doesn't really obliterate the M2: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 Seems like multi-core scores are all over the map (probably depending on the cooling of the laptop), but not really impressive when comparing to a passively cooled CPU. Single-core scores are meh compared to the M2.
  - SantiagoElf 4y ago
    Yeah, not what I expected. Here is my result: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16820778 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16820778 Given that I didn't stop anything and was playing Dota 2 while running it ... Still, I believe at some point once newer iterations of X86-64 drop support for legacy instructions (they still have to support code running on 8080/8086 through 486) - we will have smaller, more efficient X86-64 chips. Actually, it is darn impressive that the latest Intel/AMD chips keep up with the brand new M1/M2 chips that have zero legacy instructions and the Intel/AMD chips carry 50 years of legacy :)
    - SantiagoElf 4y ago
      Noticed that I ran the previously GeekBench on balanced power plan. Here are the results on Performance Power Plan - https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16821908 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16821908 Summarized results - https://i.imgur.com/X5vKtFn.png https://i.imgur.com/X5vKtFn.png Overall, with the new results - AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX is 18% slower in Single Core, 4% faster in Multi Core. Not that bad ...
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nivertech 4y ago

1, I guess it's a standard x86 version of Windows, not some Windows for ARM port. But imagine how fast native Windows port for M2 would be?! 2. Is this only Windows/graphics specific, or Parallels on M2 can also run Ubuntu x86 OS (not Asahi Linux) and code faster than the latest x86 laptops?

nicoburns 4y ago
It's almost certainly Windows for ARM, which is available from Microsoft as a Windows Insider Preview. Parallels will also be able to run non-asahi ubuntu, and it likely will be pretty fast, but again it will be the ARM version.
kkjjkgjjgg 4y ago
Actually I think you have to use the Arm version of Windows with Parallels. But it has been a while that I tried it, may remember incorrectly.
goosedragons 4y ago
It is the ARM version of Windows. Parallels on Apple Silicon can't run x86 OSs. Only ARM ones. Not sure if Geekbench has a Windows ARM port though.
barkingcat 4y ago
It's windows for arm. linux for arm, etc etc Parallels on Apple Silicon cannot run x86 OS's. If you want to run x86, you can use qemu which works fine.
- nivertech 4y ago
  thanks, for a moment I was disappointed that I just ordered a fully-loaded Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 since I need to run x86 Ubuntu > If you want to run x86, you can use qemu which works fine. Are there any benchmarks for x86 Ubuntu under QEMU on M1/M2? Will it be usable?
  - solardev 4y ago

zerkten 4y ago

This is not a surprise for anyone that has been using Windows under Parallels on an M1 Mac. What's important is for the real experience to be match the benchmark and it seems to fly for core office/productivity tasks. I setup a VM for work stuff that includes a bunch of admin policies and work-installed junk a few weeks ago to work while traveling. It didn't even break a sweat and Teams felt as responsive as my recent i7 desktop. At the same time I was able to run all my usual dev stuff on the Mac. It felt like it would handle classic Visual Studio as well, but I didn't want to bother with the install.

speedgoose 4y ago
The classic visual studio is handled well under parallels desktop, tough the M1 CPU cannot do magic and it’s still relatively slow to start.
- MaxikCZ 4y ago
  > tough the M1 CPU cannot do magic TBF, I think the M1 CPUs crossed the magic barrier already
- throwaway675309 4y ago
  Ehh... the answer is it kind of works well, but it really depends on what you're doing since you're running an x64 application (Visual Studio) on an ARM version of Windows running on a Mac M1 in parallels. .NET development and in particular stepping through debugging is particularly slow, though I guess we should be happy it works at all.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    Didn't Microsoft just finally announce an ARM native version of Visual Studio?
    - 3pm 4y ago
      And Arm64 version of .NET Framework (4.8.1). .NET Framework is considered legacy and 4.8 was supposed to be the final version. Not sure whether it means they foresee faster Windows-on-ARM adoption. Or slower .NET Framework to .NET Core transition. Or both.

marcodiego 4y ago

I'd like to see a phoronix comparison. Seems much richer.

keeganjw 4y ago

If feel like at this point, Windows is eventually going to switch to ARM it's just a matter of overcoming a lot inertia. ARM and RISC processors in general are now proven to be better than x86. If Microsoft invests in making Windows for ARM run well and provides a translation tool like Rosetta, it's game over for x86. That's no easy feat but at a fundamental level I don't really see a way for x86 to become actually competitive again against RISC processors.

Octoth0rpe 4y ago
> ARM and RISC processors in general are now proven to be better than x86. Certain ARM implementations (M1, M2) have proven better than certain implementations of x86 (basically all of them). The ARM implementations in question are not available for general purchase. It's only worth the effort to switch if a competitive processor becomes available. It doesn't look like the MS teamup with qualcomm that resulted in the sq1/sq2 procs are that. In the server space, that's different given that graviton/cavium have proven competitive.
- soco 4y ago
  Cavium has been proven competitive then killed. Something didn't add up there, but at least we have the Ampere processors left.
Rhedox 4y ago
> and provides a translation tool like Rosetta They already have that.
hnov 4y ago
The original Surface from 2012 was the first mainstream ARM Windows device.
- philistine 4y ago
  I had a friend studying law buy one of those. She quickly demurred and switched to a laptop, even her workload was too much for the device.

TrueGeek 4y ago

For everyone saying this must be the Windows Insider ARM based Windows version - the linked YouTube video shows him using (and paying for) the full Windows 11 x86. He even gives a referral code. It's at 48 seconds into the video.

WithinReason 4y ago
Took me a while to get the joke...
wmf 4y ago
He's using an x86 license key for ARM Windows.

Rhedox 4y ago

Are they seriously reporting Max Tech as news now? Those guys have absolutely no clue what they're talking about and just make bullshit click bait.

EugeneOZ 4y ago
Please provide at least a single piece of evidence when blaming. I don't know them, but if you're saying I should not trust them - please explain why (not just “they are wrong”).

frant-hartm 4y ago

... while unplugged ... Nothing new here, this is just better 5nm process advantage (which M2 undoubtedly has).

stuckinhell 4y ago
“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. I really wish thermal throttling was the first major point of discussion for ALL laptop CPU's. One of my work laptops never reached full cpu speeds in the real world because it would get thermally throttled!
- EugeneOZ 4y ago
  And in the case of M1/M2 Airs it's quite contrary - you need to load them really hard to cause throttling. With Apple Silicon MBP I’m not sure what level of load should be to cause throttling with full-speed fans.
- gregmac 4y ago
  I had the same experience, and it's incredibly frustrating -- both when you don't know about thermal throttling and when you do. I'd do something that caused high load, and it would be briefly fast then suddenly everything would get sluggish. I naively thought this was normal ("under load") until some time I was doing the same workload on a similar-spec desktop CPU and it didn't happen. In trying to discovery why is when I first learned about thermal throttling.
  - asdff 4y ago
    At least with windows you can turn off turboboost and other such features that basically temporarily overclock the cpu beyond what the thermals are designed for evidently. I had a late model intel mac that was horrible for this. Games would become unplayable because you'd have 30 seconds of reasonable FPS followed by 5 seconds of terrible awful drops then right back to reasonable fps. My 2012 era mac was better in this sense because the thermal design allowed the CPU to go all out at room temp, no throttling at all and consistent fps from the game (albeit low because of integrated graphics, but consistent nonetheless which is at least playable).

treis 4y ago

This is probably not an accurate comparison. Here's the benchmarks for the two processors: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1280p-vs-apple-m2 https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1280p-vs... That has the M2 winning single core but losing multicore. I didn't watch the video because 8 minutes is ridiculous so I don't know what they're doing. But it's probably not apples to apples.

raxxorraxor 4y ago
I think they compared it to a i5 1240p or did the dell have different specs?
- neogodless 4y ago
  The article links to the default (cheaper) configuration. The video simply says it's the $1,849 configuration of the Dell XPS 13 Plus (I didn't listen to all the audio, but that section was very light on details.) Playing with the configurator, I could get $1,859 by bumping up to the i7-1280P with Windows 11 Pro and a few other tweaks.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    You are right, seems to be compared to the i7.
zuhsetaqi 4y ago
First of all they’re comparing the intel cpu in an actual customer device. Second they do the test with both device unplugged
robertoandred 4y ago
> 8 minutes is ridiculous Adjustable playback speed is your friend

dhosek 4y ago

Ugh, there’s so little information in either the linked article or the original video or even the Parallels website, but apparently, Parallels does (not*, in fact, run Intel Windows on Apple Silicon according to this page: https://machow2.com/windows-on-m1-mac/ https://machow2.com/windows-on-m1-mac/ (and even that page had confusing wording that made me think the opposite for a while).

JonathanBeuys 4y ago

But can you use it outside? Looking at unboxing videos of Apple laptops gives me goosebumps, seeing all the reflections in the screen: https://youtu.be/eSlAJMsM6CM?t=321 https://youtu.be/eSlAJMsM6CM?t=321 The Dell XPS to which it is compared here is available as a matte version and is nicely suitable to work outside.

b4je7d7wb 4y ago
Can you use it in an office? My m1 is unusable at 80% of the comfortable angles, and not at all at the optimal one.
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  My Lenovo has a matte screen and has an a lot less visible screen than my wifes glossy macbook air. Unfortunately glossy or matte no longer is an indicator on how readable a screen is.
  - JonathanBeuys 4y ago
    The glossy Air works better outside than the matte Lenovo? I find that hard to imagine. Which Lenovo is it?
- akie 4y ago
  This is such a weird claim that doesn't stack up at all with my experience. Unusable at 80% of the comfortable angles? Come on now.
- potatoman22 4y ago
  Lol can you describe some of these angles? It works fine on my desk and lap. I could see the keyboard being too small, but that's not unique to Macs.
crazygringo 4y ago
It's trivial and cheap to apply a matte screen protector if that's your preference. But you can't convert a matte screen to glossy. Also, matte doesn't necessarily translate to more legible outdoors either. Matte removes reflections by reducing contrast which has its own drawbacks.

ouid 4y ago

i thought we were all skipping windows 11?

wmf 4y ago
Unfortunately 11 for ARM has major improvements that aren't in 10.

duxup 4y ago

I switched from an XPS 13 to an M2 Air recently. The differences are striking. I have my XPS 13 browsing HN next to my M1 air. That's all the XPS is doing, firefox browsing HN. My M2 has multiple docker containers, a collection of office apps open, browsers, vs code... and so on. My XPS battery will barely last until 1pm if it isn't plugged in, and the fan kicks on for no apparent reason... It will last a little longer if I manually set it to "best battery life" but even that can be surprisingly ineffective for no apparent reason sometimes. My M2 Air will last nearly two full working days (I haven't pushed it that far but so far it appears it would make it), the battery life is crazy. I go into the office and I don't even think about plugging it in, I know it will do fine. I don't know what it is about macOS and using their M chips but the efficiency is amazing to me. I even had a docker container freak out on my Air recently. It pegged a CPU core to 100% for a good 45 minutes. Temp skyrocketed. But I was on another virtual desktop and I didn't notice a thing. The OS ran smooth, vscode, node and everything else was running smooth. It wasn't until I looked at the status bar that I saw the CPU and temp had skyrocketed. I found the container responsible, killed it, and temp dropped quickly. Even under non ideal situations the Air performed well. With my XPS the moment I put it down I think about where I can plug it in. If I pick up my XPS to quick order some Tacos and it wasn't plugged in from the start I feel like i"m in a race to get the order in "Come on, hold on, I need tacos!!!" With my Air I don't even think about plugging it in, that's a completely new experience for a laptop for me. I don't really understand the benchmarks and such that I've seen, but the every day user experience has been like night and day.

smoldesu 4y ago
> It pegged a CPU core to 100% for a good 45 minutes. Temp skyrocketed. But I was on another virtual desktop and I didn't notice a thing. I reckon this is more of a heterogeneous architecture thing than a MacOS/Apple one. When you run a processor-intensive task, Grand Central Dispatch will assign it a relative priority and then, on new M1 chips, delegate the process to a core cluster. While one heavy program runs, another can operate alongside it on the efficiency cores or even another P-core cluster. I've noticed this behavior as well on Alder Lake. There are several times I've booted up Bitwig with something like Elden Ring running in the background, and had no idea it was open while I worked on music.

tiahura 4y ago

Unfortunately, given how terrible MacOS Outlook is, running a Windows VM is almost a necessity.

EugeneOZ 4y ago
Do they have a web version? I honestly have no idea, I’m not trolling.
- thijsvandien 4y ago
  If you're on Microsoft 365, there's outlook.office.com, though that probably doesn't compare to the Windows desktop version either.
- tiahura 4y ago
  The issue is that the windows version is infinitely customizable via the gui, custom views, rules, conditional formatting, vba, etc. Almost all of this is lost on MacOS. It's odd. Word and Excel are almost 1:1, but Outlook is a dumpster fire.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  Of Outlook yes. I prefer it to the native version, even on Windows.
stalfosknight 4y ago
You don't need to use Outlook on macOS. You can just sign into Exchange in System Preferences > Internet Accounts.
- dontlaugh 4y ago
  Unfortunately that doesn't work with some custom auth systems.
  - stalfosknight 4y ago
    That must be something extremely and unnecessarily custom. At my org we enforce MFA with Microsoft Authenticator and that works just fine with macOS' built-in Exchange support.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wslh 4y ago

I am seriously curious on how/if MSFT/Dell/Google/etc will answer.

akmittal 4y ago
I don't think MSFT/Dell/Google could have done anything. Perf difference is because of AMD/Intel
- loudmax 4y ago
  Well TSMC's 5nm fab is also obviously a huge factor, but the performance difference is largely due to the ARM vs x86 ISA as well as all the optimizations that Apple has put into running MacOS well on their chips. Microsoft will certainly continue to put effort into developing the ARM version of Windows, and try to follow Apple's path in getting a version of Rosetta to run the legacy Windows applications. I'm certain that Dell already has ARM-based laptops and servers in development. Until the Windows version of Rosetta works as well as Apple's, there will likely continue to be a demand for x86 machines, but pretty much every PC vendor can see the transition coming. I'm hoping Framework comes out with something soon. Not sure that this does much for Google. Their datacenters already run custom CPUs, and web applications should be agnostic to the CPU powering the web browser. Android phones are already running ARM.
  - wslh 4y ago
    A more precise question is how long it will take for others to catch up: 2 years? I remember when the iPhone 1 came (2007) it took ~4 years for Samsung to came up with the Galaxy S II which was a great competitor. I am aware this is comparing apples with oranges but thinking about business time.
    - intrasight 4y ago
      > 2 years? Let's assume that Apple is 2 years ahead now, and that their rate of innovation is 20% higher than any competitor. The answer is therefore that the competitors will never catch up. This is why I am long APPL.

setgree 4y ago

I’ve noticed a big decline in performance recently on my 2020 MacBook Air (pre-M1) — a lot more fan activity and some apps completely freezing (iMessages and Slack in particular, but also StarCraft a few times). I’ve been wondering if Apple’s latest software updates are optimized for the new machines at the expense of the old ones? Not sure how Apple could optimize for both architectures simultaneously, and if they faced a tradeoff, I’m pretty sure what they’d do…

fbanon 4y ago
More like third-party software (Slack, Figma, VSCode, anything web-based) is getting even more bloated as their engineers' machines get upgraded to M1 Pros.

bigtex 4y ago

Windows in Parallels runs well except with every update IIS Express is broken so I have to uninstall and reinstall the version downloaded from Microsoft's website.

haunter 4y ago

How does Parallels Windows 11 run Elden Ring or Red Dead Redemption 2 for example? To me that would be a better comparison.

jccalhoun 4y ago

I read and watch a decent number of PC hardware sites/channels and they don't seem to use geekbench. The only time I hear people mention geekbench is in relation to apple. Is there a reason why pc hardware sites don't seem to use geekbench?

neogodless 4y ago
GeekBench is intended as a cross-platform benchmark. > Designed from the ground-up for cross-platform comparisons, Geekbench 5 allows you to compare system performance across devices, operating systems, and processor architectures. Geekbench 5 supports Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux. But it seems like there are a lot of other options. https://www.phoronix.com/review/macos12-windows-linux https://www.phoronix.com/review/macos12-windows-linux PC hardware sites are probably less concerned with "cross-platform" benchmarks. As long as the system hardware and operating system are the same, varying only the component you're testing, you can test with any benchmark that runs on the system.
kllrnohj 4y ago
It is always better to benchmark with actual programs than it is with benchmark utilities. Geekbench's claims as a cross-platform test are also not really validated. For example, let's check out the M1 Mini review that Anandtech did, specifically these two pages: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... According to Geekbench, the M1 handily beats the 5950X in single-threaded work. However, according to Cinebench 1T and spec2017, the 5950X is faster at single-threaded. Who is "correct"? The answer is a much more simple "look at the benchmark results that matter for your workloads." A good review will cover benchmarks of a variety of workloads as a result so you can figure out which matters to you. Which is never geekbench, since nobodies workload is ever geekbench. So a good review will tend to not include geekbench rather than include it, unless they just don't have better ways to compare whatever they're testing.
- diamondlovesyou 4y ago

thedudeabides5 4y ago

But can it run excel with windows hot keys...

oblak 4y ago

Isn't this expected given that Dell is using Intel instead of AMD? AMD's current offerings are pretty competitive with Apple. Unfortunately, they are hard to find. Yes, the real good stuff is almost unobtainium

kllrnohj 4y ago
Not that hard to find. Dell Inspiron and Alienware have AMD options. Lenovo's main X13 line has AMD variants. And of course all the Asus, MSI, Acers, etc.. of the world have AMD offerings. So does HP.
- oblak 4y ago
  I've been looking for the new 6800u based Z13 but it's nowhere to be found. Guess my wife would have to keep her old machine for a while longer
fomine3 4y ago
Intel Alder Lake is decent for vs latest Ryzen, but next Ryzen is coming soon.
- oblak 4y ago
  Depends which next Ryzen you mean. 6000 series has been out for almost 6 months. CPU is the same, gpu is much better. The 7000 are expected to be much better - zen 4 + rdna 3. Yummy

JohnTHaller 4y ago

Other publications show the i7 1280p in the XPS 13 Plus getting more like 10,000 in Geekbench 5 multicore, well ahead of the M2's 7,360 score. https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/dell-xps-13-plus-review https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/dell-xps-13-...

merb 4y ago
did they really run a geekbench or do they just use the reference number? with the heat display, I'm not sure if it can sustain the numbers...
- JohnTHaller 4y ago
  They have all the results of their benchmarks graphed in the article. It looks like Max Tech didn't know how to use the various performance modes in the XPS 13 Plus.