38 PCWorld MARCH 2021
REVIEWS APPLE M1 VS. RYZEN^5000
non-native version, the 8-core M1 was
actually slower than the 4-core Core
i7-1185G7 Tiger Lake CPU (MSI Prestige 14).
Freed of Rosetta translation, the 8-core M 1
can match the performance of a 6-core Core
i7-10750H in the larger, heavier, and better-
cooled Acer Predator Triton 500. It also
comes scarily close to Intel’s 8-core Core
i7-10870H in the even heavier Gigabyte
Aorus 17. So yeah —go, M1.
But wait—AMD is here to say hello to its
cousin from TSMC. Both the U- and
HS-series Ryzen 4000 chips (Lenovo
IdeaPad Slim 7 and Asus ROG Zephyrus
G14, respectively) outperform the M1, and
the Ryzen 5000 in the Asus ROG Flow X13
really steps away with 58 percent more
performance. Yes, its Ryzen 9 5980HS is a
higher-wattage chip, but as we said before:
Both are three-pound laptops you would
consider buying if you want to get
“professional” work done on the road.
We also run Cinebench R23 on all of the
laptops using a single thread. This helps
remove the disparity of core counts and SMT
and Hyper-Threading, as well as the size
disparity among the laptops. What we get is a
better feel for how each CPU would handle
relatively heavy tasking using a single
compute thread.
We’d again say they’re all in the same
ballpark, but this time there’s a clear
competition among Intel’s 11th-gen Tiger Lake
(MSI Prestige 14), Apple’s M1 (MacBook Pro),
In the single-threaded test, the MacBook Pro with
M1 keeps up better, but the AMD Ryzen 5000 and
Intel 11th-gen Core i7 prevail.
LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE
Asus Zephyrus G148-core Ryzen 9 4900HS (Default AC)
Asus ROG Flow X138-core Ryzen 9 5980HS (Turbo AC)
Asus ROG Flow X138-core Ryzen 9 5980HS (Default AC)
Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 7 4800U (Performance AC)
Apple MacBook Pro 138-core M1 (Default AC)
MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Performance AC)
MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Default AC)
Acer Predator Triton 5006-core Core i7-10750H (CoolBoost AC)
Gigabyte Aero 178-core Core i7-10870H (Boost AC)
601
495
489
589
590
407
460
427
486
Cinebench R20 1T
Single-threaded performance
In the Cinebench R20 multithreaded test, the Asus
ROG Flow X13 conquers all, and the MacBook Pro
M1 falls nearly to the back.
LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE
Asus Zephyrus G148-core Ryzen 9 4900HS (Default AC)
Asus ROG Flow X138-core Ryzen 9 5980HS (Turbo AC)
Asus ROG Flow X138-core Ryzen 9 5980HS (Default AC)
Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 7 4800U (Performance AC)
Apple MacBook Pro 138-core M1 (Default AC)
MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Performance AC)
MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Default AC)
Acer Predator Triton 5006-core Core i7-10750H (CoolBoost AC)
Gigabyte Aero 178-core Core i7-10870H (Boost AC)
4,881
4,266
3,883
4,221
2,463
2,097
2,863
4,031
Cinebench R20 nT
Multithreaded performance
1,6 0 0