Apple’s big reveal of its first set of Apple Silicon chip-sporting machines came earlier this week. While the announcement was exciting, Apple’s vague comparisons leave real-world performance expectations up in the air – some new benchmarks go some way to clearing things up.
On Tuesday evening, Apple showcased a lot of impressive graphs that could ultimately represent some equally impressive leaps in performance for the MacBook. However, wider verification is certainly needed before completely taking Apple at its word. Thankfully, some benchmarks are now in.
Related: MacBook Pro with M1 vs MacBook Air with M1
As reported by MacRumors, the stats have shown up on the Geekbench site and show off benchmarking of the new MacBook Air with M1.
The new MacBook Air achieves a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433. To put these results in their rather remarkable context, that single-core score is higher than any other Mac that is available. While the multi-core score beats all the currently available MacBooks – that’s including the powerhouse MacBook Pro 16-inch.
However, it’s worth remembering that these are merely individual benchmarks and many factors are at play – including specific conditions and the focus on just CPU performance. The need for scepticism is highlighted in a new MacBook Pro with M1 benchmark that emerged later, showing a single-core score of 1714 and multi-score of 6802 respectively. In reality, performance more similar to the Air, if not slightly higher, would generally be expected – and that’s benchmarks for you.
Related: Intel vs Apple Silicon
Nevertheless, the initial impressions from these benchmarks are mightily impressive and leave their Intel-equivalents in the dust – particularly with the MacBook Air. The performance gains are joined by increased battery life and thermal efficiency – making the full new MacBook packages look extremely appealing.
Benchmarks still don’t provide the full picture so be sure to look out for our full reviews on all the new Macs with M1 chips over the coming weeks.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.