Are these new Macs fast?<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s hard to overstate just how astonishing the performance benchmarks for these new Macs are. In single-core\u00a0GeekBench 5 tests<\/a>, the M1-based Macs beat\u00a0every existing Mac<\/em>\u00a0by a lot: the most recent 27-inch iMac clocked in at a benchmark score of 1250, whereas the M1 Macs hovered around 1700. (The Mac Pro and iMac Pro are tweaked for faster multi-core performance instead, so they fare even worse on the GeekBench 5 single-core benchmarks.) For many everyday apps, single-core performance is what you\u2019ll notice.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/emug.usergroupresources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/image.jpg\")
<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nOf course, the top-of-the-line 28-core Mac Pro and its siblings outperform the 8-core M1-based Macs in the GeekBench 5 multi-core benchmarks, but if you focus on the new M1 Macs in the multi-core rankings below, you can see that they\u2019re just behind the fastest 27-inch iMacs and low-end Pro models. That\u2019s doubly impressive when you remember that the Mac Pro in the screenshot below costs $6000, compared to $700 for the Mac mini.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBenchmarks don\u2019t lie, but they also don\u2019t tell the whole story. These new Macs feel fast. Apps launch with only a bounce or two of the icon on the Dock. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro wake from sleep and unlock with an Apple Watch so quickly that they\u2019re ready to use by the time you\u2019ve finished opening the screen. We can\u2019t promise you\u2019ll never see the spinning beachball wait cursor, but we haven\u2019t so far. In some ways, using these new Macs feels more like using a fast iPad or iPhone, where everything happens nearly instantly.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFinally, note that only apps that have been rewritten to support the M1 chip receive the full speed boost. Older apps must be \u201ctranslated\u201d by Apple\u2019s Rosetta 2, which converts apps from Intel instructions to the Arm instructions needed by the M1. That happens at launch, after which macOS launches the translated app. The first launch might be slow, but subsequent launches are faster. Although emulation environments are generally quite slow, early tests show apps translated by Rosetta 2 as running at about 80% of native speed. The upshot of that is that even translated apps might run faster than the equivalent app running on an Intel-based Mac.\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November, Apple unveiled its new M1 chip and three new Macs that use it: the\u00a0MacBook Air,\u00a013-inch MacBook Pro, and\u00a0Mac mini. The M1-based MacBook Air replaces the previous Intel-based MacBook Air, but with the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac mini, Apple continues to sell some Intel-based models with beefier specs\u2014most notably a higher memory …<\/p>\n
<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nOf course, the top-of-the-line 28-core Mac Pro and its siblings outperform the 8-core M1-based Macs in the GeekBench 5 multi-core benchmarks, but if you focus on the new M1 Macs in the multi-core rankings below, you can see that they\u2019re just behind the fastest 27-inch iMacs and low-end Pro models. That\u2019s doubly impressive when you remember that the Mac Pro in the screenshot below costs $6000, compared to $700 for the Mac mini.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBenchmarks don\u2019t lie, but they also don\u2019t tell the whole story. These new Macs feel fast. Apps launch with only a bounce or two of the icon on the Dock. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro wake from sleep and unlock with an Apple Watch so quickly that they\u2019re ready to use by the time you\u2019ve finished opening the screen. We can\u2019t promise you\u2019ll never see the spinning beachball wait cursor, but we haven\u2019t so far. In some ways, using these new Macs feels more like using a fast iPad or iPhone, where everything happens nearly instantly.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFinally, note that only apps that have been rewritten to support the M1 chip receive the full speed boost. Older apps must be \u201ctranslated\u201d by Apple\u2019s Rosetta 2, which converts apps from Intel instructions to the Arm instructions needed by the M1. That happens at launch, after which macOS launches the translated app. The first launch might be slow, but subsequent launches are faster. Although emulation environments are generally quite slow, early tests show apps translated by Rosetta 2 as running at about 80% of native speed. The upshot of that is that even translated apps might run faster than the equivalent app running on an Intel-based Mac.\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November, Apple unveiled its new M1 chip and three new Macs that use it: the\u00a0MacBook Air,\u00a013-inch MacBook Pro, and\u00a0Mac mini. The M1-based MacBook Air replaces the previous Intel-based MacBook Air, but with the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac mini, Apple continues to sell some Intel-based models with beefier specs\u2014most notably a higher memory …<\/p>\n