Apple has finally unleashed the M1 System on a Chip (SoC). This is by far their most powerful chip and is the first chip they have created and designed especially for the Mac. A new report even suggests that the M1 could even beat the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 560, in the graphics department.
M1 is the first personal computer chip built with the 5nm technology. This is an important feat for the Cupertino giant as they no longer have to depend on a third-party chipmaker to run their products.
In a press release on November 10, Apple talked more about the M1 SoC. .The M1 features an 8-core CPU. It consists of 4 high-performance Firestorm cores and 4 high-efficiency Icestorm cores. It also comes with an octa-core GPU that can run nearly 25,000 threads simultaneously with 2.6 TFLOPS of throughput. If you’re wondering, how fast that is, here are the throughputs of other GPUs. Radeon RX 560 ties the M1 with 2.6 TFLOPS while GeForce is just a few numbers ahead of M1 with 2.9 TFLOPS.
In a GFXBench 5.0 benchmark test, we see that the M1 is capable of running Aztec Ruins Normal Tier at a mind-blowing 205.8 FPS and Aztec Ruins High Tier at 77.9 FPS. The results also show that M1 can run a Car Chase at 178.9 FPS, Manhattan 1440p at 131.1 FPS, Manhattan 3.1 at 407.9 FPS, T-Rex at 670 FPS, and more.
Apple M1 outperforms GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 560
An anonymous user presented the results in GFXBench 5.0. It is important to note that GFXBench 5.0 is designed for smartphone benchmarking and isn’t the perfect tool to compare graphics cards. Readers should view these results with caution. The user also tested the M1 under Apple’s Metal API. This makes it harder to find apples-to-apples non-Apple comparisons.
A submission for the GeForce1050 Ti indicates the big margin in the performances of the three graphics cards. The M1 defeats both the 75 W desktop graphics cards by a lot.
The results indicate that the Geforce GTX 1050 Ti can run Aztec Ruins Normal Tier at 159 FPS while Radeon RX 560 can run it at 146.2 FPS. As for the other scores, the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards run at 61.4 FPS and 82.5 FPS for Aztec Ruins High Tier, 143.8 FPS and 115.1 FPS for Car Chase, 127.4 FPS and 101.4 FPS for 1440p Manhattan, 218.3 FPS and 174.9 FPS for Manhattan 3.1, 288.3 FPS and 221.0 FPS for Manhattan, 508.1 FPS and 482.9 FPS for T-Rex, respectively.
Additionally, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 560 are quite old by today’s standards. It is still noteworthy that the M1 outpowered both the 75W graphics cards.
Three new Apple Macs are coming to the world fast. These are:
- The 13-inch MacBook Pro starting at $1,299
- The MacBook Air starting at $999
- The Mac Mini starting at $699
The new M1 SoC chip would power all these devices and could make casual gaming on Apple products something to look forward to.
