PC World - USA (2021-02)

FEBRUARY 2021 PCWorld 63

Macworld’s MacBook Air review, including
GeekBench 5, Cinebench R23, HandBrake,
and a representative game, Rise of the Tomb
Raider. We added a third Windows laptop for
reference: the HP Pavilion x360 Convertible
14 (go.pcworld.com/cn14), a decidedly
average $700 laptop with a fairly pedestrian
Core i5-1035G1 inside.
To be fair, Microsoft’s emulator is in
preview, and Microsoft promises
performance will improve over time. Also,
we’re comparing the first-gen SQ1 chip,
which maxes out at 3GHz, and not the current
SQ2—though the SQ2 offers a teensy
upgrade to a 3.1GHz boost clock. We tried
testing with the Windows performance slider
set to maximum, and the results were
unchanged. Windows on ARM lags so far
behind the MacBook on M1 that it’s hard to
believe further improvements will bring it
significantly closer.
Enough preamble—let’s look at how
soundly Apple’s MacBook with the M1 chip
trounces Windows on ARM’s best.

HOW MICROSOFT’S SQ1
COMPARES TO APPLE’S M 1
Geekbench offers both a CPU-specific test,
and a “compute” benchmark that ropes in the
GPU. The current version of Geekbench 5
couldn’t accommodate the SQ1 in the latter
test, so we show only the CPU test in single-
core and multi-core. We can see that the SQ1
pales in comparison to a Core chip and the

Apple MacBook M1.

Maxon’s Cinebench paints a rendered

two-dimensional image. Macworld jumped to

the most recent R23 benchmark, which uses a

more complex image than the R15 version

PCWorld has used. The new R23 release

Although the Microsoft SQ1 chip inside the

Surface Pro X can hang with the Core i5-1035G1

inside our budget HP Pavilion, there’s no way it

can compete with the Apple MacBook M1.

Apple MacBook Air M1Apple M1

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible14 dw0097nr Core i5-1035G1

Microsoft Surface Pro XMicrosoft SQ1 2,734

1,730

7, 4 5 4

2,864

Multi core Single core

Geekbench 5

CPU performance

731

1,107

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

In pure CPU performance as measured by

Cinebench, Apple’s M1 holds more than a fourfold

performance advantage over the Surface Pro X

and Microsoft’s SQ1.

Apple MacBook Air M1Apple M1

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible14 dw0097nr Core i5-1035G1

Microsoft Surface Pro XMicrosoft SQ1 1,6 0 4

1,49 6

6,838

2,683

Multi core Single core

Cinebench R23

CPU performance

371

1,0 97

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE