PC World - USA (2021-02)

54 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2021

REVIEWS TESTED: APPLE M1 CHIP

M1’s translation tax, V-Ray Next loses some

performance, but it’s still enough to just about

equal Intel’s four-core Tiger Lake part. AMD

and its eight-core Ryzen CPUs again gives all

others a good Nelson Muntz laugh.

V-Ray allows you to also run a render on

the GPU instead, which is increasingly

popular among advanced engines. Of the

chips with onboard graphics, the Ryzen 7’s

Radeon GPU cores put AMD in front, Apple’s

M1 falls in the middle, and Intel lags a bit

behind.

GPU rendering performance, obviously,

gets better with more powerful GPUs. The

GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q in the Triton

500 thus wipes the floor with everyone else,

while the GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q doesn’t

do too shabby either. This, frankly, is one of

the reasons we think the Asus G14 is still so

compelling. Its 0.5-lbs heavier than the

laptops with onboard graphics but that

GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q makes a yuge

difference in performance.

RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER

PERFORMANCE

We used just one game to look at the

graphics performance of the M1 compared to

Windows laptops. We ran Rise of the Tomb

Raider set to 1920x1080 on the Windows

laptops on high and compared it to the result

Macworld got on the MacBook Pro M 1

running at 1920x1200 on High.

While the integrated graphics in Intel

11th-gen laptop is in front of AMD and Apple’s

onboard GPUs, let’s just call it a tie and agree

all three would be capable of moderate

gaming at lower resolutions. Less intense

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Asus Zephyrus G148-core Ryzen 4800HS (Default AC)

Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 4800U (Default AC)

Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 4800U (Performance AC)

Apple MacBook Pro 138-core M1 (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Performance AC)

MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Performance AC)

Acer Predator Triton 5006-core Core i7-10750H (Default AC)

52

169

47

65

81

81

202

V-Ray Next 4.10.7

GPU performance

38

37

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

Asus Zephyrus G148-core Ryzen 4800HS (Default AC)

Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 4800U (Default AC)

Lenovo Slim 78-core Ryzen 4800U (Performance AC)

Apple MacBook Pro 138-core M1 (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 144-core Core i7-1185G7 (Performance AC)

MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Default AC)

MSI Prestige 146-core Core i7-10710U (Performance AC)

Acer Predator Triton 5006-core Core i7-10750H (Default AC)

9,80 0

10,932

7, 0 8 6

10,581

7,111

6,950

7, 4 2 2

5,559

8,577

V-Ray Next

CPU performance