Intel Macs performance vs M1 Macs

[Danny1982]

Regarding your first question, the answer is in the form of "Universal Binary 2", universal binaries that have both 64-bit Intel code and Apple Silicon code. macOS will see which architecture it's on and load the code for the appropriate architecture. That's how you'll get optimal performance on Apple Silicon (M1) vs. Intel and vice versa.

Regarding your second question, the nitty gritty details can be found here: Apple T2 Security Chip: Security Overview

But the short of it is that the T2 is the start of Apple starting to consolidate Mac logic board components that were previously separate components into a single chip. The T2 didn't have CPU or GPU functions as those were still handled by the Intel CPU (and AMD GPUs on the higher end Macs like the 16" MacBook Pro, iMacs, iMac Pros, and Mac Pros), but the secure enclave, Image Signal processor, audio controller, SSD controller, SMC, and many other components got consolidated into the T2. All of those are now baked into the M1 as well. You just now have the CPU, GPU, RAM, Memory controller in there too along with the introduction of the Neural Engine to the Mac for machine learning. But it's the same idea; take components that either were in separate places on the Mac logic board and integrate them into a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) and have that govern more of the Mac's functionality.

Thanks @Yebubbleman I thought that you has forgot of my question ?. After your post, I documented me about T2 chip. I have find that is some kind of ARM processor that play a role also in video encoding function.
So, now it's clear why Apple Care Support reassured me saying "your Mac has a T2 chip" ...

 

[Yebubbleman]

Thanks @Yebubbleman I thought that you has forgot of my question ?. After your post, I documented me about T2 chip. I have find that is some kind of ARM processor that play a role also in video encoding function.
So, now it's clear why Apple Care Support reassured me saying "your Mac has a T2 chip" ...

The T2 chip is technically Apple Silicon also. It’s just not the CPU, GPU, Memory, Memory controller, and Neural Engine in the same way that the M1 is. And yeah, both the T2 and M1 handle video encoding on their respective Macs.

 

[Danny1982]

The T2 chip is technically Apple Silicon also. It’s just not the CPU, GPU, Memory, Memory controller, and Neural Engine in the same way that the M1 is. And yeah, both the T2 and M1 handle video encoding on their respective Macs.

Now it's also explained why the speed of SSD on my Intel 2020 Mac is very similar to the speed of M1 2020 Mac...

 

[Kung gu]

Message app crashes after sleep, closing and reopening does nothing, have to restart machine, email window wont appear, have to close and reopen app, dual monitors is awful, windows just randomly go wherever they want, strange buzzing noises on sound when using hubs, iphone takes forever to appear in finder, have to lower security by rebooting into recovery in order to install third party apps like paragon, safari sometimes displays a blank page. this is my list so far.

return it, if its broken for u!!

 

[Kung gu]

Rave review are from people who just open it and run a benchmark then stick a video on youtube to get money, try actually using it

I have very extensive videos about M1 macs from smaller independent reviewers and most of them do very in-depth tests and it shows that u don't care or didn't even bother to look at those videos.

 

[Kung gu]

I am having a very hard time believing your posts.

yep same here

 

[Yebubbleman]

Now it's also explained why the speed of SSD on my Intel 2020 Mac is very similar to the speed of M1 2020 Mac...

Right. Both the M1 and T2 house the SSD controller and Apple's SSD controllers, however inconvenient, don't suck. Though, the storage on M1 Macs is supposedly a fair bit faster than the storage on T2 Macs.

 

[MK500]

For the most part, both laptops feel the same to me. It's not like the M1 Air feels noticeably quicker in day-to-day use compared to the 2.0Ghz 13" MBP.

I completely disagree with the “same general feel” perspective. My new M1 Air feels a generation faster than my top of the line 6-core i7 Mac Mini, which was purchased this year, and should be faster than Bacci’s 2Ghz MBP. It’s not like the Mini is generally slow or anything, but here are some examples of where the M1 just blows it away:

1) All app launches are almost instant. Even 20 in a row. You really feel this when doing normal work. Opening files and apps just always happens immediately. So there is much less waiting.
2) Any application that is displaying graphics or video is just crazy smooth and fast. Even 4K. Just simple things like downloading a video from my phone and cropping it to send to a friend takes 1/4 or 1/10 the time.
3) If you ever want to play a casual game, forget it on Intel integrated graphics.
4) iOS productivity apps are FAST and I love using my investment and banking apps on my Mac where I used to have to use web versions. They feel more secure as well with touch-id.

I think anyone that uses one of these new Macs for a few days could never go back to an Intel Mac. The difference is vast for just normal things users do every day. The M1 Macs are more revolutionary than evolutionary.

And then there is battery life, temperature, and loud fans vs silent or no fan.

I respect Bacci’s opinion, but just disagree.

Intel frankly has been sitting around with very little innovation for the last 5 years while Apple has been constantly improving their A series chips year after year. This vast difference is the result of years of complacency on the part of Intel.

Even though we are talking about “feel”, it’s worth looking at the comparison video in this thread to gain a better understanding of the vast performance advantage of the M1: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-vs-5700xt-surprising-results.2271701

 

[Danny1982]

I respect Bacci’s opinion, but just disagree.

It's your point of view and it is correct that you expose it. I use a MBP 2020 i5 and I can say that app opening is instant too... Serious! Otherwise a can't say anything related to a video conversion...

 

[hugodrax]

Message app crashes after sleep, closing and reopening does nothing, have to restart machine, email window wont appear, have to close and reopen app, dual monitors is awful, windows just randomly go wherever they want, strange buzzing noises on sound when using hubs, iphone takes forever to appear in finder, have to lower security by rebooting into recovery in order to install third party apps like paragon, safari sometimes displays a blank page. this is my list so far.

sounds like you have defective hardware. My M1 machine has almost 8 days uptime no issues.

 

[Danny1982]

Message app crashes after sleep, closing and reopening does nothing, have to restart machine, email window wont appear, have to close and reopen app, dual monitors is awful, windows just randomly go wherever they want, strange buzzing noises on sound when using hubs, iphone takes forever to appear in finder, have to lower security by rebooting into recovery in order to install third party apps like paragon, safari sometimes displays a blank page. this is my list so far.

Hi Carrotcruncher! Have you solved your problems with your M1?

 

[Bacci]

I completely disagree with the “same general feel” perspective. My new M1 Air feels a generation faster than my top of the line 6-core i7 Mac Mini, which was purchased this year, and should be faster than Bacci’s 2Ghz MBP. It’s not like the Mini is generally slow or anything, but here are some examples of where the M1 just blows it away:

1) All app launches are almost instant. Even 20 in a row. You really feel this when doing normal work. Opening files and apps just always happens immediately. So there is much less waiting.
2) Any application that is displaying graphics or video is just crazy smooth and fast. Even 4K. Just simple things like downloading a video from my phone and cropping it to send to a friend takes 1/4 or 1/10 the time.
3) If you ever want to play a casual game, forget it on Intel integrated graphics.
4) iOS productivity apps are FAST and I love using my investment and banking apps on my Mac where I used to have to use web versions. They feel more secure as well with touch-id.

I think anyone that uses one of these new Macs for a few days could never go back to an Intel Mac. The difference is vast for just normal things users do every day. The M1 Macs are more revolutionary than evolutionary.

And then there is battery life, temperature, and loud fans vs silent or no fan.

I respect Bacci’s opinion, but just disagree.

Intel frankly has been sitting around with very little innovation for the last 5 years while Apple has been constantly improving their A series chips year after year. This vast difference is the result of years of complacency on the part of Intel.

Even though we are talking about “feel”, it’s worth looking at the comparison video in this thread to gain a better understanding of the vast performance advantage of the M1: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-vs-5700xt-surprising-results.2271701

Actually the 2020 i5 MBP is 10th Gen Intel and has 3733 MHz LPDDR4X, quicker for most day-to-day use than your 8th gen i7 Mini. But yeah for most people, the M1 is of course the only Mac one should buy today.
I'm a dev and have software that doesn't run yet on M1 or is cutting edge release, plus software that would cost $$$ to upgrade to a version that will run on an M1, but which still runs fine on Intel Big Sur. I love my daughter's M1 MB Air but M1 is not yet an option for me.

 

[MK500]

Actually the 2020 i5 MBP is 10th Gen Intel and has 3733 MHz LPDDR4X, quicker for most day-to-day use than your 8th gen i7 Mini. But yeah for most people, the M1 is of course the only Mac one should buy today.
I'm a dev and have software that doesn't run yet on M1 or is cutting edge release, plus software that would cost $$$ to upgrade to a version that will run on an M1, but which still runs fine on Intel Big Sur. I love my daughter's M1 MB Air but M1 is not yet an option for me.

I was also curious about this when I wrote "should be faster". Since you commented; I thought I would research it to assuage my curiosity

Your 10th gen Intel is a I5-1038NG7. It has 4 cores and 8 threads and maxes out at 3.8Ghz. This is great for a 2Ghz processor, but it's not quite as fast as my i7-8700B 8th gen 6 core, 12 thread that maxes out at 4.6Ghz.

The i5 also has only 6MB Cache vs the 12MB Cache on the i7 and the bus speed is twice as fast at 8 GT/s vs. 4 GT/s for the i5.

It is true your RAM may be faster LPDDR4-3733 vs. the DDR4-2666 in my older design i7, but that isn't enough to make it a faster processor. It's possible some apps might "feel faster" on the newer i5; but I'm betting the cache more than makes up for the slower RAM for most apps.

Admittedly the single core performance is impressively close; and closer than I expected. That's what 2 generations of efficiency gains will get you! Your single core can basically match mine at a much lower clock speed. But those extra 2 cores and wider bus make a pretty big difference.

Really annoying that Apple didn't update their 2020 Mac mini with a 10th gen chip at some point though. I bought mine this year.

Geekbench comparison:

CPU	Single Core	Multi Core
I5-1038NG7	1127	4261
i7-8700B	1167	5652

Reference Links:

Intel® Core™ i5-1038NG7 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i5-1038NG7 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i7-8700B Processor (12M Cache, up to 4.60 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i7-8700B Processor (12M Cache, up to 4.60 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

Intel Core i5-1038NG7 Benchmarks - Geekbench

Intel Core i7-8700B Benchmarks - Geekbench

 

[Bacci]

Not sure how other 10th gen vs 8th gen Intel Mac differences like higher memory speed, direct path from CPU to Thunderbolt, faster graphics, ... play out but yeah likely a wash.
Love our discussion about the unfortunate 2020 Mac purchases ?

 

[MK500]

Not sure how other 10th gen vs 8th gen Intel Mac differences like higher memory speed, direct path from CPU to Thunderbolt, faster graphics, ... play out but yeah likely a wash.
Love our discussion about the unfortunate 2020 Mac purchases ?

I'm crying a little on the inside ?

 

[Danny1982]

I'm crying a little on the inside ?

I'm close to you ?. I started to see the situation from another point of view. I also bought an Intel 10th this years (Sept 2020). Although a new M1 has launched, what is changed in works that I can be done till now? Nothing! So I decided to enjoy my new product without searching for benchmarks (there is always a new product with new incredible performance at all!!).

 

[LinkRS]

I was also curious about this when I wrote "should be faster". Since you commented; I thought I would research it to assuage my curiosity

Your 10th gen Intel is a I5-1038NG7. It has 4 cores and 8 threads and maxes out at 3.8Ghz. This is great for a 2Ghz processor, but it's not quite as fast as my i7-8700B 8th gen 6 core, 12 thread that maxes out at 4.6Ghz.

The i5 also has only 6MB Cache vs the 12MB Cache on the i7 and the bus speed is twice as fast at 8 GT/s vs. 4 GT/s for the i5.

It is true your RAM may be faster LPDDR4-3733 vs. the DDR4-2666 in my older design i7, but that isn't enough to make it a faster processor. It's possible some apps might "feel faster" on the newer i5; but I'm betting the cache more than makes up for the slower RAM for most apps.

Admittedly the single core performance is impressively close; and closer than I expected. That's what 2 generations of efficiency gains will get you! Your single core can basically match mine at a much lower clock speed. But those extra 2 cores and wider bus make a pretty big difference.

Really annoying that Apple didn't update their 2020 Mac mini with a 10th gen chip at some point though. I bought mine this year.

Geekbench comparison:

CPU	Single Core	Multi Core
I5-1038NG7	1127	4261
i7-8700B	1167	5652

Reference Links:

Intel® Core™ i5-1038NG7 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i5-1038NG7 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i7-8700B Processor (12M Cache, up to 4.60 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i7-8700B Processor (12M Cache, up to 4.60 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

Intel Core i5-1038NG7 Benchmarks - Geekbench

Intel Core i7-8700B Benchmarks - Geekbench

Howdy MK500,

The Max Turbo speed of Intel CPUs only matters when the computer that contains them is not thermally constrained. What matters more is the base clock-speed, and in your case your 8700B CPU has a base speed of 3.2 GHz, which is much faster than the base speed of the 1038NG7 which is 2.0 GHz. When the clockspeeds are the same, the architecture has more impact on performance, which is when the 1038NG7 could make a difference. Since they are not, the three aspects that will make the most difference for look and feel are SSD speed, amount of RAM, and speed of RAM. The newer Intel Mac may have a faster SSD, and certainly has faster RAM, but the perceived is not due to the "older" CPU in your system. So I said all of this to say, I agree with your thought that your CPU is not what is making your system "feel slower."

Rich S.

 

[JohnnyGo]

I feel like the heyday of chips in the 80s when one chip architecture was supplanted by the other every year it !

When 286/386/486 became Pentium and later in the 90s became Core Duo.

The performance of Intel chips is real. They are good chips.

But there’s no denying Apple Silicon is the future!

 

[acidfast7_redux]

But there’s no denying Apple Silicon is the future!

Not only Apple Silicon, but all ARM-based systems.

 

[dmccloud]

I feel like the heyday of chips in the 80s when one chip architecture was supplanted by the other every year it !

When 286/386/486 became Pentium and later in the 90s became Core Duo.

The performance of Intel chips is real. They are good chips.

But there’s no denying Apple Silicon is the future!

There is one big difference between the changes you listed above and what Apple has done three times at this point. All of those changes you listed above were still built upon the x86 ISA, so the underlying instruction set is unchanged. However, they did move from 16-bit to 32-bit and eventually 64-bit, so the instruction set has evolved over the years to address larger amounts of both memory and storage (among other things). Apple's approach (and the same approach they used with the 68k-PPC switch, the PPC-Intel switch, and now the Intel - Apple Silicon switch) is to completely change the very foundations the processors are built upon. While both prior transitions were to established processors with predefined architectural guidelines and logic/motherboard components, the M1 (and its successors) have only the ARM ISA as a predefined component. This freedom to innovate grants Apple carte blanche to customize their processors and systems as a result. Having their first Mac SoC come with 8 CPU cores, 8 (or 7) GPU cores, a 16-core Neural Engine, plus ML technology and unified memory is something that would have been impossible if Apple had continued the Intel partnership or even jumped to AMD, because Apple was only tied into the ISA, not a physical processor or SoC design.

 

[RigSatMe]

Hi all.

I read everywhere how the performance of the new M1 vs Intel was amazing (even vs I9 model!!).
So, obviously the support to a new architecture it is not developed in a year, so my question is: and if Apple was working on the optimization of the new architecture already before big sur at the expense of the optimization of the intel chips?

I think that examples like this (founded online): "Developer Paul Hudson shared this example of his M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM rip through an Xcode unzip in just 5 minutes, meanwhile his 8-Core Intel i9 16-inch MacBook Pro with 64GB RAM took over 13 minutes to do the same." can only be explained by the optimization of the features of the new chip.

What do you think about?

I do believe, Apple made some tricks, where apps are not fully optimized for Intel because Apple knew, it will bring on to the market M1, and M1 is the starting point of transition, so no point in devoting time for Intel chips.

 

[Danny1982]

I do believe, Apple made some tricks, where apps are not fully optimized for Intel because Apple knew, it will bring on to the market M1, and M1 is the starting point of transition, so no point in devoting time for Intel chips.

This is also my fear....

 

[Danny1982]

@Bacci have you tried and compared opening of all app between both M1 and Intel Macs? Looking at several videos it seems to me that the times are very similar to my intel.

 

[RigSatMe]

@Bacci have you tried and compared opening of all app between both M1 and Intel Macs? Looking at several videos it seems to me that the times are very similar to my intel.

Unfortunately, all early video reviews have been not properly carried out in terms of apps opening speed. Did it myself at the Apple store. Apps opening speed is way slower when open apps for the first time. For instance, Numbers bouncing several times before it opens (around 5 times in my experience at MBA M1). Definitely, once the app is cached, it opens right away, but the same happens on Intel. So it’s just marketing trick.

 

[dmccloud]

Unfortunately, all early video reviews have been not properly carried out in terms of apps opening speed. Did it myself at the Apple store. Apps opening speed is way slower when open apps for the first time. For instance, Numbers bouncing several times before it opens (around 5 times in my experience at MBA M1). Definitely, once the app is cached, it opens right away, but the same happens on Intel. So it’s just marketing trick.

Initial launches of Rosetta apps takes longer because Rosetta is finishing up the recompiling of the code. Once that has completed, subsequent launches of those apps are much faster. That is something that has been open knowledge since WWDC. There is no "marketing trick", and not "all early video reviews" were conducted improperly, because if they only tracked initial load times instead of normal (post installation and conversion) load times, everything would be skewed for non-native apps. Additionally, that performance penalty only applies to the initial launch of Intel apps, not native apps.