Apple M3 lands on Geekbench: Marginal single-core gains over Snapdragon X Elite but lags by 22% in multi-core compared to Qualcomm's 80 W reference design

[James Chou]

The M3 only beats the Snapdragon X Elite in Single core in Geekbench 6.2 when running on Windows. When running the Linux version the scores are reversed and the M3 looses. This is probably a better comparison as MacOS and Linux are POSIX like operating systems.

[Non IT Expert]

Dunno why people are focusing on the CPU side. This is very impressive CPU wise, if not as revolutionary as the original M1 chip, even with the delays, no matter how you dice it. But then again not surprising considering the team it comes from, so we were kind of expecting this. I mean think about it, you're getting Zen 4 class performance or above but with apple level efficiency, without even having to resort to Big.little core design (that both Intel / Apple use, and AMD soon will too). That's insane!

Bigger concern for me is the GPU side. It seems roughly competitive with MTL/Strix but that's not saying much since both those have relatively small die area for the iGPU. Now that Strix Halo seems DOA (massive delays), there doesn't seem any options for those who were looking for console / M-max class perf alternative.

Also, people have mentioned that what will make or break this product is how good the x86 to arm translation is in upcoming win 12. This comment may age poorly but based on what I see so far, it doesn't seem Microsoft is actually concerned at all or even trying to make a major push / improvement in this regard (Cuz otherwise we would of heard it by now in leaks/rumors as an upcoming major breakthrough). They seem hellbent on pushing the AI narrative hype through all their services even if there really no end use case for it for the avg consumer, which is a shame.

Lastly, there is the pricing. Knowing Qcomm and their recent SoC price increases (SD8G2 / SD8G3), this won't be cheap. This will probably be in devices that are similar in price range to Apple (so like 2000-3000 range). As such I'll probably just get a switch 2 instead and wait for it to get hacked, then run win 12 on it. Yeh, it'll have far slower and less CPU cores. But it'll be only $400ish and have close to similar GPU perf.

Would be very interesting to see this chip in a device paired a Nvidia dGPU (or even integrated Tegra like the Geforce ION days), but not holding my breath for anything as don't believe these two companies are on the best of terms.

[RobertJasiek]

This is very impressive CPU wise, if not as revolutionary as the original M1 chip, even with the delays, no matter how you dice it. But then again not surprising considering the team it comes from, so we were kind of expecting this. I mean think about it, you're getting Zen 4 class performance or above but with apple level efficiency

Such has not been true before; we must await independent benchmarks (not: Geekbench) to see if it is true now. Also Apple cannot beat physics. In a small form factor, it is silent and not that fast - or fast and not that silent.

Bigger concern for me is the GPU side. [...] there doesn't seem any options for those who were looking for console / M-max class perf alternative.

The option is: x64 + dGPU.

Would be very interesting to see this chip in a device paired a Nvidia dGPU

M3 + Nvidia dGPU suppose volatile storage use can be sorted out? You are dreaming. :)