Exclusive insight: Apple M1 Single "Core" comparisons miss the mark (with reference points)
Exclusive insight: Apple M1 Single "Core" comparisons miss the mark (with reference points)
Exclusive insight: Understanding the real issues behind Apple M1 single-core comparisons and using relevant benchmarks.
Ah yes, Usman Pirzada. The person who is really salty his favorite company is now being beat by Apple so he post article after article, tweet after tweet, grasping at straws for why anything showing the M1 in good light is invalid. For those who do not want to give WCCFTech any clicks (since they don't deserve it), the claims the article makes is that since Intel and AMD have SMT, it is unfair to do single core tests against the M1 which do not have SMT. "It's unfair to run a benchmark which only executes on one thread on a CPU that could run two threads on a single core" is the argument. There, saved you a click. The problem with that argument is that if a program only has one thread, then it won't care that your CPU could execute two threads on a single core. All it cares about is per thread performance. If you change the wording from "per core performance" to "per thread performance" all of Usman's arguments fall flat on their face. But like I said, since his favorite company is threatened he has to grasp at straws and go Except you know... when people say single core score they generally mean single threaded score. Hell, Windows and other schedulers even sees each thread as an individual core. So single thread and single core performance are interchangeable words even though WCCFTech tries to make the argument that they are completely different and therefore people should stop saying Apple has the best single core performance. They "prove" this then by running a benchmark at two threads for the x86 chips, and one thread for the M1 tests. Yeah... Totally fair comparison... In some tests he didn't even care to run them, he just straight up took AMD and Intel scores, added 30% to the score and went "herp derp this is their true single core score, not what the benchmark actually shows". This comment summed it up really well: Stop reading WCCFTech. It really is a garbage website. The people over there have very little technical understanding of the things they cover, and most of their content is either rumors they saw on Twitter, or stuff like this where they deliberately try to stir up a controversy to get clicks both from people desperate to find some reason to say "Apple bad" (or whichever company they are covering) and from people who feel like they have to jump in and defend Apple (or whichever company they are covering).
The writer appears to overlook the fact that most benchmarks show results as single-threaded rather than focusing on individual core performance. Additionally, we should disregard the observation that the M1 continues to outperform most 4-core, 8-threaded x86 processors available today.
I had to verify this myself. No desktop or laptop CPU with four cores and eight threads comes close to outperforming the M1 in tests. I haven’t found any option under eight cores that surpasses it. Of course, real-world performance can vary—benchmarks don’t always match everyday use. Usually, the M1 handles tasks with six cores better, but there are exceptions for certain workloads.
It's about the single core itself. If a CPU can run four threads on one core, that's sufficient. It's similar to claiming M1 is biased because it uses ARM architecture versus x86.
The M1 chip performing well at around 3GHz provides a solid beginning and healthy rivalry, which is definitely beneficial in the long term. It's hard to fathom why some individuals react negatively, especially since we've seen three major companies compete for the first time in about three decades. While the M1 is Apple’s exclusive SoC/PoP, it still poses a real challenge compared to other options. Only a few processors, like Tiger Lake CPUs at 5GHz and certain AMD 5000 series chips, truly match its performance in single-threaded tasks. For now, these comparisons are tough because the 5000 series chips aren’t widely available. What matters most is whether users choose to run on Mac/macOS or if the software supports Apple’s ARM architecture.
Was das wirklich so? Wie du gesagt hast, die Aussage berührt genau den Kern des Problems. Die Diskussion dreht sich um die Bedeutung von „Single-Core“-Tests. Wir führen Programme wie Cinebench oder Geekbench mit einem einzigen Thread durch, um zu sehen, wie gut ein einzelner Thread auf einem bestimmten Prozessor läuft. Wenn ein Programm zwei Threads nutzen kann, sollte es auf beiden Plattformen parallel laufen. Die Kritik richtet sich gegen die Verwirrung, die hier entsteht. Die „Single-Core“-Ergebnisse zeigen eigentlich, wie ein einzelner Thread auf dem jeweiligen Chip arbeitet – und das ist genau das, worauf sich die Beobachter konzentrieren. Die Diskussion verwechselt oft Begriffe: „Single-Core-Score“ wird manchmal als „Single-Threaded-Score“ bezeichnet. Obwohl Usman technisch korrekt ist, versucht er, Verwirrung zu stiften und eine falsche Schlussfolgerung zu ziehen. Er scheint nicht ganz zu verstehen, warum diese Tests überhaupt existieren. Wenn ein Programm von der Möglichkeit profitiert, mehrere Threads zu nutzen (und damit von SMT), wird es auf den beiden Prozessoren gleichmäßig laufen. Die präsentierten Zahlen spiegeln keine echte Nutzung wider, sondern eher eine taktische Argumentation, um einen Vorteil gegenüber dem M1 vorzutäuschen.