Since Apple unveiled its M1 chip, users have been in awe of its performance power efficiency. It turns out that the M1 chip not only performs fantastic for macOS BigSur but it may also be a better choice for Windows 10 than Microsoft's own devices.
Apple released its ARM-based M1 chip on November 17th for the Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro 13" and they are already available for purchase.
As it always happens when a new device is released, users attempt to install software that was not meant to run on the device to see how well it performs.
This is illustrated when developer Alexander Graf used the QEMU virtualization software to install Windows 10 on ARM on an M1 Apple device, and the results are astounding.
Other users also began performing similar tests, with one person uploading their stats to GeekBench and showing that a virtualized Windows 10 on ARM on the M1 chip significantly outperforms Windows 10 on Microsoft's ARM-based Surface Pro X.
As you can see below, Windows 10 on the Apple M1 device scored 1,317 for single-core benchmarks and 5,685 for multi-core. On the other hand, the Surface Pro X only scored 751 for the single-core and 2,891 for multi-core.
These scores, especially considering it's Windows 10 running in a virtualized environment, should concern Microsoft who has been using ARM chips for Windows operating systems for some time.
If you own an Apple device with an M1 CPU, you can test Windows 10 under QEMU by following the steps in this video.
Comments
fadi-sheikh - 3 years ago
so ironic
Some-Other-Guy - 3 years ago
so pointless
doriel - 3 years ago
I know that sometimes VM can outperform physical machine (installing OS for example), but twice as many points? Is Apple waaaay ahead with its M1 chip hardware? Maybe so. Maybe we are comparing two different things - Maybe just 8 processors on the host is the raw power. Am I right?.
I did a little test by myself just from curiosity. I have no M1 chip unfortunatelly :( so I tried, if virtual Windows 10 is faster on Geekbench, than physical Windows 10 on the same machine :) It does not work that way with my IvyBridgre (x86 architecture).
Final score was (pm/vm) single core 574/374, multicore 1311/768
doriel - 3 years ago
My second thought is, that Surface device is just a piece of scrap already. Remember first Microsoft Surface having "repairability index" = 0?
Surface Pro X has "repairability index" = 6.
Good times comming? We all hope they are :)
xorg7 - 3 years ago
The news is Apple's M1 chip.
https://erik-engheim.medium.com/why-is-apples-m1-chip-so-fast-3262b158cba2
https://medium.com/swlh/what-does-risc-and-cisc-mean-in-2020-7b4d42c9a9de