PC World - USA (2021-03)

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