Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2021) runs laps around the competition in Geekbench

12 May 2021
The M1-powered tablet shows performance comparable to laptops with a 15W Intel or AMD processor.

Sort by:

  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • g0t
  • 13 May 2021

Anonymous, 12 May 2021Absolute bsReal world result have proven what you call BS

    • ?
    • Anonymous
    • g0t
    • 13 May 2021

    Anonymous, 12 May 2021Absolute bsReal-world results Trump any benchmarks

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • 7tm
      • 13 May 2021

      Anonymous, 12 May 2021x86 was preferred for being less storage intensive for appl... moreThanks. I get you. I doubt that 32/64 bit x86 offered much advantage over arm in storage usage given an similar independent OS. But as far as multicore blitzing performance back then, ARM could have done that, if they had invested in the extra security multiprocessing features. The fact is, it was likely you could fit a number of arms for every latest x86 top end. So, it had advantages, like the extra test instruction carried in each instruction it started on the market with. The big hit though is the fpu unit, and caches, just crunches through transistors. But, I had dealt with guys that put a leading low energy processors in less then ten thousand transistors, plus local memory, and can theoretically put millions of them on one die. Arm is SHIT, but it's better shit than most things, it is a top dog level processor. Not saying that it's terrible compared to regular processors, they are all shite. I was working on a proposal to do a full high spec grade chip that would use processors of hopefully less than 10,000 transistors clocked at hopefully up to 5ghz. But, brain damage made me forget much, like a lot of things, but still coming up with new technology designs to mutate into a new type of processor, a paradigm shift. Before the move to magnetic computing which I'm hoping I have a very economical proposal for that will work. But, that's tens of millions, and hundreds of millions. So, don't ask me to do it overnight, freaking years of analysis and innovation to balance everything out so far. The biggest companies invest fortunes trying to analyse these things, fur not too much result (except, I suspect that is why ARM designs have been leaping up lately). I'm only one person. As far as what is out there, I respect ARM. The old architecture just wasn't as hobbled as the competition, and they went into Thumb and newer architectures, which improved things a lot. They are dealing with 32 bit instructions. The guy with the leading low energy processor design (a few years ago now, but one of string of best low energy processors) had a 16 bit instructions set micro-controller design that could do up to maybe 5 instructions per instruction, that also was maybe more powerful. After talking about this, they have had for years a proposal for a 32 bit advanced performance processor awaiting funding. I have been thinking of sending people their way to make a low cost mobile chipset out if it. It would be pretty powerful compared to arm, and you then have to mate it to the other bits in the processor (by the way, all his low energy designs for years have been hand designed through a 3kb+ cad layout system he designed. He did this after not liking the commercial tools he used to design a workstation chip in the late 80's which was superior to the StrongArm x86 architecture, and probably ARM today and RiscV, once you ad the bells and whistles to it. But, the handcraft tools lets him get very close to reliably the tolerances if the chip process, where commercial tools have to design in large safety values. Being so compact without timing and synchronisation and pipelining, and predictive, there is little distance for signals to travel, and little transistors so it's Ultra low energy and could be made ultra fast. What I was looking at doing was implementing all the mod cons of an desktop/enterprise server os support onto that in a better fashion). I want to do the mobile chipset myself with my own design which would be better again, but as that's not happening due to funding, they can make a good attempt at it, but I think I can get foundary space, which is hard. So, ARM is far from how good it can be done, and GPU and maths even. Intel, also, has been planning on moving on from the x86, due to it's limitations. I don't know what they are doing now, but in the past it had come back to the x86. Now, imagine if Apple had successfully gone with the guy above. The workstation chip he was doing, was for a takeover proposal of a workstation company which had technology which went into Power PC processor development instead. The chip was redone as the leading java processor for years, in a lower performance version, as it was identified as having very good instructions for running C language code. If only Apple had gone ARM, or the other guy, PC's would have trouble.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • m2J
        • 13 May 2021

        vkonlsre to an i, 12 May 2021It's similar power consumption chip, and not a top of ... moreWell i tough it was the top of the line chip cause there are a lot of people whoo keep praising it like it's the best out there

          • W
          • Wayne.
          • 7sq
          • 12 May 2021

          Hemedans, 12 May 2021A14 already is paper champion, in real life sd 865 is bette... moreIt's called anticompetitive behaviour legislation, or anti-trust in the US, and international human rights law. Big money,big time, to get what you should get. This has been stirring since Sony interfered with users using legitimate Linux on the PlayStation years back. The Millennium digital rights stuff is what manufacturers try to use to enforce restrictions, but needs to be overthrown for laws that only restrict illegally immoral behaviours (like pirating, but not general observations of surface features of a design which can be used for education and programming for pro competitive market and users use of personal property. Has to do with various legal aspects which need to be this light.).

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • Cxn
            • 12 May 2021

            Wayne Morellini, 12 May 2021One benchmark does not all applications make. As expecte... morex86 was preferred for being less storage intensive for applications, no? So during that time Apple was able to offer computing that works within the storage limitations of the day.

              Anonymous, 12 May 2021Btw where is i9 from intel for comparison and Ryzen 7-9 for... moreThe M1 is a midrange CPU not the high end one so the comparison with i7 is fair.. wait for the M2 / M1X on their MacBook Pros for a look at what high end looks like

                • v
                • vkonlsre to an i
                • 7tn
                • 12 May 2021

                Anonymous, 12 May 2021Btw where is i9 from intel for comparison and Ryzen 7-9 for... moreIt's similar power consumption chip, and not a top of the line model yet. Presumably, the Mac Pro is going get that. I could go to an 8 bit micro-controller and pronounce that as a top of the line chip to compare to an i9, and that wouldn't be a fair comparison either.

                But whatever the case, how does a similar NVIDIA design compare? People keep forgetting them in top end Arm chipsets.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • Ibx
                  • 12 May 2021

                  Anonymous, 12 May 2021The m1 processor used in a restricted OS means nothing, als... moreEven if AMD was more powerful, the fact they are even able to compete with this processor and blow away the same programs that are used in an x86 system says they are winning....

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • 7tn
                    • 12 May 2021

                    ishreal, 12 May 2021The manufacturing node number isn't as important in th... moreWell, true enough Ishreal. I've heard about this before, which is why I asked the question, but am a bit unfamiliar with the current intricacies, because it's even more complex than the article makes out. So, Intel is still using 3D transistors and the other isn't? Would that get you an artificially higher density, while the actual technology is larger and lower performance in respect of actual transistor performance, apart from connection length? But, what about transistor volume rather than by area, is Intel ahead or behind? It doesn't matter too much, as the things run too hot at high performance to stack much.

                    Another issue is, that initial versions of various processes have low density compared to later refinements (have they refined yet, is this the refined version, as that information is old? I expect the density will be 30-40% larger than Intel in that case, going on past density increases). It takes time for them to figure out how to reliably squeeze more transistors into a process, in terms of performance. Intel has been at 10 for a long time, and 7 isn't even new. So, it would be interesting to see what the two density numbers are in these chips. As I understand, Intel is looking at using the manufacturer as well. But packing further away, the signals have to move further. These stupid chips are so heavily pipelined (does the new Arm change that?), and synchronised, that maybe density does not matter as much in speed. In such a case, the lower density chip is going have an advantage . Now, if Intel's technology was on the other 7nm process, we would have a real idea. However, maybe heat is the issue behind density, and Intel won't increase much at lower sizes either. It all gets complex like that. I'm not a chip process designer, but it really needs a small room of those people to iron out and publish what will happen, then tell us.

                    Electrical signals love a lot slower than light, and the length of interconnects will have issues and other speed sapping electrical characteristics. But, if you pack closer, the heat limits how fast you can operate too.


                    Now, if the two were on the same technology, that's when we could really compare wherever arm or x86, wins out in performance or energy. Which maybe my point.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • m2J
                      • 12 May 2021

                      Btw where is i9 from intel for comparison and Ryzen 7-9 for benchmarking ? M1 is top of the line most powerful but isnt against competition in the benchmark list that are top of the line most powerful. Now how is this not a fake up boost when competition have middle range as competition ?

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • m2J
                        • 12 May 2021

                        Kev, 12 May 2021Now that's POWERFUL, these M1 chips. I'm glad ... moreThis is not a Android phone chip competitor.

                        Then why it's in the benchmark list of the android and windows devices if it is not ?
                        If it's the one and only then why have other chips in the competition list in benchmark scores ? Other devices are there just so they be under the iPad Pro just to fake it's the best on the market

                          • K
                          • Kev
                          • 0Za
                          • 12 May 2021

                          Now that's POWERFUL, these M1 chips.

                          I'm glad that it's gonna live for a long time and stay on top.

                          However, I am shocked at how the haters are accusing Apple now for fraud of these benchmarks. This is not a Android phone chip competitor.

                            • R
                            • Russel
                            • Hku
                            • 12 May 2021

                            The i7 1185G7 is not really a 15 W chip. Most laptops configure it to run @ 28W.
                            And M1 consumes much less power during most tasks compared to intel or amd chips. And this gap is only going to get wider as mac os optimizations are improved upon every update.
                            Another thing to note is that the X86 chips are inside laptops which require and use active cooling.

                              • R
                              • Russel
                              • Hku
                              • 12 May 2021

                              I think they messed up with ipad pro with M1.
                              It just shows how much of computing power is wasted in a crippled OS.
                              Apple did a wonderful job with Mac OS optimization for ARM which Microsoft and even Google failed to do so.
                              They have shown us just how much of computing power is wasted by not optimizing the OS. Now they show the exact same chip working inside a tablet with an OS that's not capable of using that chip to even half it's potential.
                              Apart from making the macbook users feel that they're not so special anymore, M1 ipad pros offer not much, especially if you were looking forward to buying the smaller pro.
                              I hope we see someone optimizing some OS for ryzen processors. So much of potential is being wasted there...

                                • K
                                • Kvetch
                                • IJE
                                • 12 May 2021

                                Please bring the M1 processor and quad speakers to the next iPad Mini

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • m2J
                                  • 12 May 2021

                                  Anonymous, 12 May 2021I am pretty sure if it weren't Apple written before M1... moreHow does it make sense to you ? What haters hate ? M1 is specifically made for one brand only so it can be as good as it wants to be. It wont matter for the market if it wont sell it's chip to other brands and be competition to Snapdragon, Mediatek, Unisoc, Intel and AMD.

                                  As you wont get Windows or Android running that M1 then it's just useless to praise up like it's something out of this world

                                    Goes to show how pathetic the competition is,look at the fam cooled Snapdragon 888 can’t even keep up to A14 let alone the M1,LMAO!!!!!
                                    Amazing job by Apple,the Apple haters are having an awful time catching big L-s daily. :)

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • U@s
                                      • 12 May 2021

                                      Anonymous, 12 May 2021The m1 processor used in a restricted OS means nothing, als... moreOkay hater,

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • YQu
                                        • 12 May 2021

                                        For some people and for some situations an iPad can be a better way to do a job. It depends. In my case, since I got an iPad I use my pc by 90% less. If I was forced to chose one device I would definitely chose the iPad over any laptop. But there is not such force, I can have an iPad and a pc. However, the iPad is way more useful than a pc, for me.