Apple M1 vs Intel Core i7-10850H vs Apple M1 Pro

Apple M1

The Apple M1 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2020 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac Mini. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. The big cores offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 12 MB shared L2 cache. According to Apple the performance of these cores should be better than anything on the market (in late 2020). The four efficiency cores are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with 600 - 2064 MHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with 600 - 3204 MHz.

The M1 is available in two TDP variants, a passive cooled 10 Watt variant for the MacBook Air and an active cooled faster variant for the MacBook Pro 13 and Mac Mini. Those should offer a better-sustained performance according to Apple.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 offers 8 cores (7 cores in the entry MacBook Air) and a peak performance of 2.6 teraflops. Apple claims that it is faster than any other iGPU at the time of announcement.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 11 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.

The Apple M1 includes 16 billion transistors (up from the 10 billion of the A12Z Bionic and therefore double the amount of a Tiger Lake-U chip like the i7-1185G7) and is manufactured in 5nm at TSMC.

Intel Core i7-10850H

The Intel Core i7-10850H is a high-end processor for laptops with six cores based on the Comet Lake architecture (CML-H, 4th generation of Skylake). The processor clocks at between 2.7 and 5.1 GHz (with Thermal Velocity Boost and Turbo Boost 3.0). Using only Turbo Boost 3.0 (when the temperatures don't allow the the Thermal Velocity Boost) a single core can reach 4.9 GHz. All six cores can reach 4.4 GHz. The processor is still manufactured on the old 14nm (14nm++) process. 

The Comet Lake architecture is similar to Coffee Lake and offers the same features and is produced on the same 14nm process. Other than the improved clock rates, the memory controller now also supports faster DDR4-2933 RAM. More information on Comet Lake and all the models and articles on it can be found here.

The Core i7-10850H supports the management features vPro, TXT and SIPP.

Performance

The average 10850H in our database proves to be a somewhat disappointing CPU, only matching the Core i5-10500H and the Ryzen 5 5500U in multi-thread performance. While the Core i7 will have no issue running any app or any game you can install in 2021, there are better options out there both in terms of sheer power and in terms of power efficiency.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer a similar performance as the UHD 630 in the Core i7-9750H. As a low-end solution it will only run current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.

Power consumption

This Core i7 series chip has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 45 W, a value that laptop makers are free to reduce somewhat (with 35 W being the minimum Intel-recommended value) resulting in lower clock speeds and lower performance. Either way, the CPU is way too power-hungry to be the heart of a passively cooled mini-PC, laptop, tablet.

The i7-10850H is manufactured on one of the old 14 nm Intel processes leading to subpar, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Apple M1 Pro

The Apple M1 Pro is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2021 MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models. It offers  all 10 cores available in the chip divided in eight performance cores (P-cores with 600 - 3220 MHz) and two power-efficiency cores (E-cores with 600 - 2064 MHz). There is no Turbo Boost for single cores or short burst periods. The cores are similar to the cores in the Apple M1. The entry level model offers only 8 cores.

The big cores (codename Firestorm) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 24 MB shared L2 cache (up from 12 MB in the M1). The four efficiency cores (codename Icestorm) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 24 MB SLC (System Level Cache). The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with 600 - 2064 MHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with 600 - 3228 MHz.

The unified memory (16 or 32 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 256 bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 Pro offers all 16 cores.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine, a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including ProRes).

The M1 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC and integrates 33.7 billion transistors. The peak power consumption of the chip was advertised around 30W for CPU intensive tasks. In the Prime95 benchmark the chip uses in our tests (with a MBP16) 33.6W package power and 31W for the CPU part. In idle the SoC only reports 1W package power.