[Preliminary] Apple M1 Pro (10 core) vs Apple M1 Pro (8 core) – the difference is bigger than expected

The M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs from Apple will for sure create a rift in the mobile CPU market, as they want to dominate the space. This will not bode well for AMD and Intel as they are used to only fighting each other, so when a new player enters the scene, everything is up for grabs.

However, Apple is still as confusing as ever, offering both an 8-core and a 10-core version of the M1 Pro, while also having the 10-core M1 Max. It’s all a tad confusing and that’s without entering the GPU territory.

With that said, today we are comparing the 10-core M1 Pro against its 8-core variant.

However, keep in mind that we are using preliminary results, which will be updated as soon as we get our hands on the MacBook Pro 14 and 16.

You can learn more about both CPUs here: M1 Pro (10-core) / M1 Pro (8-core)

Specs table

M1 Pro (10-core)M1 Pro (8-core)
Process Node5nm5nm
Transistors33.7 billion33.7 billion
CPU Cores108
GPU Cores14 or 1614 or 16
Memory Bandwidth204.8 GBps204.8 GBps
Maximum Memory64GB64GB

CPU benchmarks

Here we see that both CPUs share identical Single-core scores, as they do use the same cores. Moving onto the Multi-core scores, the higher core count does make the difference, with the CPU having a lead of 20%.

Geekbench 5Single-coreMulti-Core
Apple M1 Pro (10-core)176811680 (+20%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-core)17689731

In the Cinebench R23 benchmark, we have the same thing happening where the Single-core scores are the same. As expected, the 10-core M1 Pro performs better in the Multi-core test, with the lead this time increasing to 41%.

Cinebench R23Single-coreMulti-Core
Apple M1 Pro (10-core)156212370 (+41%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-core)15628769

Conclusions

As expected the higher core count version of the M1 Pro delivers more performance. The amount is also quite significant, drawing some lines between them, thus making it easier for you to choose between them, depending on your workflow and needs.

All Apple M1 Pro (10-Core) configurations:


All Apple M1 Pro (8-Core) configurations:

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