AnandTech Calls Apple's Fastest CPU Core Claim for M1 'Extremely Plausible'

Apple on Tuesday unveiled a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, making up the first wave of Macs powered by Apple Silicon, and AnandTech has since published a deep dive into Apple's brand new M1 custom chip at the heart of the new machines.

m1 chip macbook air pro
The article begins by picking through the admittedly scant details that Apple's event offered about the ‌M1‌ chip's design, yet manages to extrapolate some interesting tidbits regarding the processor's packaging and architecture.

Beginning with the ‌M1‌'s unified memory architecture, AnandTech notes that the packaging style keeps the embedded memory off to the side of the compute die rather on top of it, ensuring the chips can be efficiently cooled, which suggests Apple is using a 128-bit DRAM bus similar to that found in previous A-X chips.

Apple says the ‌M1‌ features four high-performance "Firestorm" CPU cores and four efficiency "Icestorm" cores. Examining an actual die shot shown in Apple's ‌M1‌ unveiling, Anandtech explains that the chip appears to have a 12MB cache – up from the 8MB of L2 cache featured in the A14 – which makes sense given that it's now being used by four high-performance cores instead of two.

The article later goes on to compare the ‌M1‌ performance to existing Intel and AMD processors and takes the A14 as a benchmark guide, while noting that with its additional cache, "we expect the Firestorm cores used in the ‌M1‌ to be even faster," suggesting "Apple's claim of having the fastest CPU core in the world seems extremely plausible."

Running the A14 through a series of benchmarks against a Rizen 9 5950X and an Intel i7-1185G7, AnandTech calls the results "mind-boggling," noting that "the fact the A14 currently competes with the very best top-performance designs that the x86 vendors have on the market today is just an astonishing feat." Taking into account a graph of single-thread performance gains over the last five years, AnandTech suggests that Intel has increased its chips' performance by about 28%, while Apple has managed closer to 198% in the same period.

perf trajectory intel apple axx anandtech

Apple's performance trajectory and unquestioned execution over these years is what has made Apple Silicon a reality today. Anybody looking at the absurdness of that graph will realize that there simply was no other choice but for Apple to ditch Intel and x86 in favor of their own in-house microarchitecture – staying par for the course would have meant stagnation and worse consumer products.

The performance analyses conclude by noting Apple's enormous power efficiency advantage, which is why the new ‌M1‌ chip will be able to offer either vastly increased battery life, and/or vastly increased performance compared to the current Intel MacBook line-up. Apple has said it will take at least two years to transition its entire Mac lineup to ‌Apple Silicon‌. Going on its current performance trajectory, Apple's forthcoming desktop-class chip designs are likely to look "extremely impressive," AnandTech concludes.

The five-page deep dive contains far more details than we've summarized above, and is well worth a read. You can check out the complete article here.

Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Related Forums: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro

Top Rated Comments

_Refurbished_ Avatar
44 months ago
Can’t innovate anymore my ass!
Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iBluetooth Avatar
44 months ago
When has Apple made a power or speed claim that was not accurate. They underpromise and overdeliver
Score: 58 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djcerla Avatar
44 months ago
Aaaaaaah, finally back to old fashioned PC chips bashing!

>oldschool fanboy mode ON
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Serban55 Avatar
44 months ago
Again to see that m1 can play at highest settings 1080p baldurus gate 3..is mind blowing...and for the intel side you have to have i7 and Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX580.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coredev Avatar
44 months ago

A true disaster, that Apple leaves intel without ensuring cross-platform-compatibility.

This Rosetta 2 crap is just an insult of the common user.
But have you tried it and where disappointed? Or are you just venting your unfounded anger?
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
abhibeckert Avatar
44 months ago

It's faster than anything Intel (or AMD) they could have put in there with the same power restraints.
It's faster than Intel's 10900K i9 which runs at 5.3Ghz and draws 250 watts.

How is Intel operating in the "same power constraints"? Apple has the M1 in their entry level fan-less laptop.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

reset password request iphone

Warning: Apple Users Targeted in Phishing Attack Involving Rapid Password Reset Requests

Tuesday March 26, 2024 4:34 pm PDT by
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
iPhone Home Screen Gradient Blank Spaces 1

Sources: iOS 18 Lets Apps Be Placed Anywhere on Home Screen Grid

Sunday March 24, 2024 1:33 pm PDT by
iOS 18 will give iPhone users greater control over Home Screen app icon arrangement, according to sources familiar with the matter. While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce...
Generic iOS 18 Feature Purple

iOS 18: What to Expect From 'Biggest' Update in iPhone's History

Wednesday March 27, 2024 11:10 am PDT by
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 Event for June 10 to 14

Tuesday March 26, 2024 10:02 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
apple maps 3d feature

Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18

Tuesday March 26, 2024 3:10 pm PDT by
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
iPad Pro 2024 Landscape Camera Feature

New iPad Pro Again Rumored to Feature Landscape Front-Facing Camera

Monday March 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
The next-generation iPad Pro will feature a landscape-oriented front-facing camera for the first time, according to the Apple leaker known as "Instant Digital." Instant Digital reiterated the design change earlier today on Weibo with a simple accompanying 2D image. The post reveals that the entire TrueDepth camera array will move to the right side of the device, while the microphone will...
sonoma desktop wwdc

Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 With Fix for USB Hub Bug

Monday March 25, 2024 10:10 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, a minor update for the macOS Sonoma operating system that launched last September. macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 comes three weeks after macOS Sonoma 14.4. The ‌‌‌‌macOS Sonoma‌‌ 14.4‌.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Settings. There's also a macOS 13.6.6 release for those who...