Tested: How Apple’s M1 chip performs against Intel 11th-gen and AMD Ryzen 4000
Apple’s new M1 processor took the laptop world by storm, with many proclaiming it had ended the PC’s whole career.
Hyperbole and irrational fanboy flexing aside, Apple’s M1 is indeed a powerful chip. But to get a better feel against its contemporaries we sat down and retested a pile of current Windows 10 laptops to get an idea where the M1 MacBook Air 13 lands in the pecking order of laptops.
While we don’t have direct access to an MacBook Pro M1, our sister publication, Macworld does, so we cribbed from its glowing review of the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1. Macworld also graciously ran a couple of additional tests for our analysis. For two other results, we relied on published results from Puget Systems, a bespoke system builder that manufactures workstations and rolls its own productivity-focused benchmarks.
Our tests show the M1 MacBook Air 13 performing very well compared to equivalent PC laptops. You can jump straight to our conclusion for the final analysis, but if you want to dig deeper to see exactly where and how the M1 does well, read on…
THE LAPTOPS WE TESTED
Apple’s MacBook Pro M1 features its spiffy new M1 Arm-based SoC/CPU, a 512GB custom SSD, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 13.3-inch 2560x1600 screen, and lap weight of 3.1 lbs.
For our PC comparisons, we decided to pick from laptops that are similar in size and weight:
• MSI’s Prestige 14 Evo is equipped with a four-core, 11th-gen Core i7-1185G7 with Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and a 14-inch FHD screen. It weighs 2.7 lbs.
• MSI’s older Prestige 14 is equipped with a six-core, 10th-gen Core i7-10710U, GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics, 16GB of LPDDR3/2133 memory, a 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD, and a 14-inch 4K screen. It weighs 2.8 lbs.
• Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7 has an eight-core Ryzen 4800U with Radeon graphics, 16GB of LPDDR4X/4267 memory, a 512GB PCIe 3.0 SSD, a 14-inch FHD, and lap weight of 3.1 lbs.
• The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 includes an eight-core Ryzen 9 4800HS, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics, 16GB of DDR4/3200 memory, a 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD, a 14-inch FHD screen, and a weight of 3.6 lbs.
Before you object to having the Zephyrus G14 laptop here, pay close attention
