Intel reportedly releases new benchmarks suggesting that Apple's M1 chip isn't faster

Last year, Apple began its transition from Intel to its own ARM-based silicone for future Macs. During its launch event, Apple showed its 5nm ARM-based M1 silicone to outperform previous Intel chips. However, a recent PC World report suggests that Intel’s claims its 11th Gen processors can easily take on and outpace the ARM-based M1 chip.

The report stated, “Intel just clapped back with a carefully crafted takedown of the Arm-based chip.” Intel’s testing showed that the Intel Core i7-1185G7 could “match or greatly exceed the M1’s performance in a MacBook Pro in both native and non-native applications.”

In its benchmarks, Intel tested in the 11th Gen Core i7 and Apple MI in different tests for productivity, gaming, and content creation. While comparing Chrome, running native version on both Apple and Intel processors, the 11th Gen Intel CPU was “over 30 percent faster overall and almost 3x faster in the online photo enhancement subtest”. Running native Office 365 on both chips, showed the 11th Gen system “perform some functions like PDF export up to 2.3x faster”.

The gaming benchmark saw both the M1 and Core i7-1185G7 trade wins and losses. However, it also showed several games that didn’t run on the M1 chip, including GRID 2019, GEARS Tactics, Far Cry New Dawn, and more. Additionally, in content creation, the new AI-based tools from Topaz Labs performed “up to 6x faster on Intel 11th Gen processors”. The Intel chip also had an advantage in Adobe Premiere Pro and in emulated versions of Photoshop and Lightroom classic.

Intel’s “carefully crafted” benchmarks also showed that the M1-powered MacBook Pro didn’t have what it took to pass Intel’s Evo certification for laptops. It had a range of compatibility issues with multiple monitors, game controllers, and more. It didn’t run a lot of software and had documented software plug-in problems as well. However, PC World also noted that Intel used a different Core i7 SKU for each test, which is quite unusual.