Detailed look at M1-based 13" MacBook Pro's performance shows huge gains over Intel chips as well as battery life that far exceeds previous Macs
TechCrunchMatthew Panzarino
Context & Ripple Effects
Two days after Apple put the first M1 machines on sale — including the fanless $999 MacBook Air — this hands-on testing of the 13-inch MacBook Pro converts launch-day claims into measured results: large gains over Intel silicon and battery life beyond any previous Mac. It lands where AnandTech's A14 single-thread analysis predicted, that Apple's mobile chip lineage would make M1 a formidable rival to x86 incumbents.
First-order effects
Buyers of the 13-inch MacBook Pro get up to roughly 2.8x faster CPU, 5x faster GPU, 11x faster ML, and up to 20 hours of battery at the same $1,299 entry price, making the Intel models in Apple's own lineup the immediate losers.
Intel loses its most visible showcase customer segment: every M1 Mac sold is a high-profile laptop shipping without an Intel chip inside.
Second-order effects
Windows PC makers built on Intel and AMD parts are forced to compete against a machine whose headline spec is battery life, not clock speed — pressuring them to chase efficiency rather than raw frequency in their own roadmaps.
Intel's remaining Mac business shrinks toward zero, sharpening its dependence on data-center and enterprise demand even as it raises billions in equity to fund a turnaround.
Third-order effects
If the cadence holds — Apple followed within two years with the M2 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro — custom Arm-based laptop silicon becomes the performance benchmark the x86 industry is measured against, structurally shifting laptop design toward integrated memory and efficiency-first architectures.
The trend: Personal computing is transitioning from merchant x86 processors to vertically integrated custom silicon, with Apple's M-series setting the pace that Intel and PC makers must answer.
It's hard to believe, a hot running fan blasting i9 loses by a factor 2 in a real world Rust compile from a passively cooled M1 macbook air. This has consequences.
My M1 MacBook Pro arrived today. Chances are you have various questions, but I think a whole lot is summed up in this 50-second video. (Alt text, because Twitter still doesn't make this easy: Xcode 12.3 beta unzips in 5 minutes on an M1, vs 13 minutes 22 seconds on an Intel i9) h…
'I don't think AMD and Intel are Apple's competitors. We should be looking at Qualcomm as the next significant laptop chip supplier.' https://twitter.com/...
Hey look, I reviewed Apple's new M1 powered MacBook Pro. It's killer. Super powerful, very snappy etc etc. But the most impressive thing is that it does it all with insane battery life. https://techcrunch.com/...
Truly incredible chart here compiling Cinebench R23 scores I've gathered so far. M1 outperforms most laptops and even a desktop Core i5 9600K (95W!) processor. What Apple has done here is truly remarkable. Video explaining this chart will be coming soon! https://twitter.com/...
Apple's new chip really looks incredible. Since even the MPA 13 with Apple silicon already outperforms the MPB 16 with Intel, I'm not sure what they're going to do when they move to ARM on the MPB 16 to justify the price difference though, but I'm looking forward to finding out. …
“You don't worry about the CPU specs; instead, you think about the job. ... how many streams of 4k or 8k video can you process simultaneously while performing... effects? That is the question video professionals want an answer to. No spec on the chip is going to answer that...” h…
TIL about ‘powermetrics’, and how it can show realtime power usage & CPU scaling of all the cores in your Mac, including the GPU and Apple Neural Engine. It's wild to see just how low it goes when you're not doing much. My A12Z idles at like 600MHz
I can't remember the last time reviews for an Apple product were so universally positive, especially considering these are machines that look the same as the previous-gen. Apple simply excelled themselves with the ARM transition.
The Geekbench results turned up by $AAPL's M1 are nothing short of remarkable, particularly for single-thread tests. https://techcrunch.com/... https://www.anandtech.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Terrific, terrific review and thread from @panzer with tons of details on M1 and what it means for the future of the Mac. Just chef's kisses all the way down. https://twitter.com/...
Again, nostalgic vibes with Mac benchmarks and excitement. Feel like the excitement / benchmark enthusiasm will continue over the next year or two of Mac Apple Silicon releases.
All that is left now is for apple to make a x4-or-so-scale GPU version for their pro line, add a 32gb ram option and it's a no brainer for, well, everyone really.
“The M1 chip can't be viewed in isolation. It is a silicon-level manifestation of what is happening across computing, especially in the software layer.” Great perspective on computing experience changes & why Apple Silicon matters from @om https://om.co/...
This essay from @om is the best deep-dive into what Apple is doing w/the M1 I've read yet. (And makes me even more excited that my Macbook Air arrives today.) “We live in a world that is wired and moves at a network scale.” https://om.co/... via @om
So really, this is looking like it might be the biggest possible leap in laptops I have seen in years. Laptop battery life has been good for years, unless you are doing the wrong type of activities. Software Development is one of them. https://twitter.com/...
Wow. @panzer has a massive data-rich post on why M1 is the future of desktop/laptop processors. M1 beat out Mac Pro with dual Xeons in some tests!!! >> Yeah, Apple's M1 MacBook Pro is powerful, but it's the battery life that will blow you away https://techcrunch.com/...
Apple makes this stuff look effortless, but you need only look at other platforms to see just how incredibly difficult it is to change your OS so dramatically and convince your developers to come along with you. Apple's power to affect evolution on its platforms is unparalleled
Reading the first reviews of the M1 chip laptops and I cannot figure out when was the last time I read so many raving reviews for a tech product. AirPod Pros had good reviews, Pixel phone cameras once had great reviews. This is something else entirely. https://twitter.com/...
As a consumer, I'm hugely excited by the competition; if I were at Intel or AMD, I'd be *terrified* of performance-per-watt from these benchmarks: https://www.anandtech.com/...
Re: browser performance on iOS, we'd always guessed but never had access to port our engine to confirm; however: “...we can come to the conclusion that the performance advantage is due to Apple's CPU designs.”: https://www.anandtech.com/...