Apple M1 chip performs admirably against AMD's Ryzen 5000 workstation with RTX3080

By Mayank Sharma
published

Performance penalties notwithstanding, the M1 chip fares well in initial tests

Apple M1
(Image credit: Apple)

Despite obvious handicaps, Apple’s M1-based MacBooks (opens in new tab) delivered a laudable performance in a head-to-head against the latest performance workhorses (opens in new tab) from AMD.

The tests were performed by custom high-end desktop assemblers Puget Systems (opens in new tab) who wanted to test the performance penalties of Apple’s decision to move away from Intel processors to ARM-based ones.

Puget pitted two of their AMD PCs equipped with Ryzen 5800X (opens in new tab) and Ryzen 5950X (opens in new tab) against the MacBook Air and Pro, and were themselves impressed by the Apple M1 (opens in new tab)’s performance given the obvious impediments of the new architecture that prevent it from unleashing their true potential.

Apples to oranges

Puget only builds PCs and doesn’t have any in the same price range as the new MacBooks. They explain that the machines they’ve used in the test “scored roughly the same as the new MacBooks” in previous benchmarks, despite costing about twice the M1-based laptops.

Unsurprisingly, in virtually all the benchmarks, the new MacBooks were only about half as fast as the better stocked desktops. However as Puget notes, “for a mobile platform that is roughly half the cost, the new MacBooks hold up pretty well.”

benchmark between M1-based MacBooks and AMD equipped desktops

(Image credit: Puget Systems)

What makes the results even more interesting is the fact that the tests were conducted using Adobe software that was running through a translation layer on the Macs. That’s because Adobe hasn’t yet ported their Creative Cloud suite to the ARM architecture. 

If anything these benchmarks confirm that the new Apple M1 machines are no slouch. As Puget notes, it’ll be really interesting to see how the new MacBooks perform once Adobe improves support for the M1.

Source: Puget Systems (opens in new tab)

Mayank Sharma
Mayank Sharma

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.

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