After the widespread release of Windows laptops using the Snapdragon X Elite chip, content creators have started testing them in various formats. Recently, Max Tech, known for testing laptops and phones extensively, pitted the base model MacBook Air with the M1 chip, boasting an 8-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and 8GB of RAM, against the Surface Laptop 7 with the Snapdragon X Elite 12-core processor and 16GB of RAM.
Just looking at the specs alone, this comparison may seem unfair to the MacBook Air M1, which has been on the market for over 4 years. However, Max’s tests revealed that the fanless base model M1 MacBook Air outperformed the Snapdragon X Elite laptop in several benchmarks, even with the latter having a built-in fan. The areas in which the X Elite won were somewhat marginal, with details as follows:
– Geekbench 6 CPU: X Elite outperformed in both Single Core and Multicore tests
– Speedometer 3.0: M1 edged out X Elite with a score of 28.6 to 27.8 seconds
– Figma Web Design: X Elite previewed and rendered 500 designs faster than M1 by 11 seconds
– 3DMark Steel Nomad Light: X Elite achieved an average frame rate of 14.68fps, while M1 scored 13.3fps
– Blender 4.1: Rendering a BMW car with realistic shadows was faster on M1 due to GPU strength, but for pure CPU rendering, X Elite was faster by about 1 minute
– Cinebench 2024: Continuous CPU usage test for 10 minutes resulted in X Elite scoring 879 to M1’s 428
– Adobe Lightroom Classic: Previewing and exporting 50 RAW files with 42mp resolution was faster on X Elite by approximately 50 seconds, but M1 excelled in color grading, using AI object identification, and upscaling images
– DaVinci Resolve: Smooth video editing on both, but M1 processed Stabilization for 1 clip faster by 8 seconds; for all timeline stabilizations, M1 was faster by about 3 minutes
After testing for 3 hours and 15 minutes without charging, Max found that the MacBook Air had 37% battery left, while the Surface Laptop 7 had only 12% remaining.
TLDR: In a detailed comparison, the fanless base model M1 MacBook Air outperformed the Snapdragon X Elite in various benchmarks, despite the latter having more cores and a built-in fan.
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