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Benchmarks show M1 runs Windows 10 faster than Surface Pro X

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What you need to know

  • An AWS engineer has run Windows 10 on Apple's M1 chip using virtualization software.
  • Benchmarks reveal that Apple's M1 chip blows the Surface Pro X out of the water when it comes to performance.

An AWS Engineer has run Windows 10 on Apple's M1 Chip using virtualization software, absolutely destroying the Surface Pro X's benchmarks in the process.

As we reported last week:

While it is currently not officially supported by Microsoft, a developer has successfully virtualized the ARM version of Windows on an Apple silicon-based Mac. As reported by The 8-Bit, Alexandar Graf posted on Twitter that he was able to accomplish the feat using the QEMU virtualizer.

Now, benchmarks posted on Thanksgiving weekend show that the benchmarks of the Apple M1 whilst running Windows, and the results are insane.

As reported by ZDNet:

A developer using the handle @imbushuo on Twitter has posted Geekbench versions 4 and 5 scores that compare Windows 10 on Arm on an M1 computer with the Microsoft-made Surface Pro X.Windows on an M1 got a single-core score of 1,288 and multi-core score of 5,685 whereas the Surface Pro X's scores were roughly 800 and 3,000 in those respective benchmarks. Per MSpoweruser, the Surface Pro X benchmark was made using the SQ2 Arm-based chip that was co-developed by Qualcomm and Microsoft for Microsoft's latest Surface Pro X computers.

As the report notes, whilst these results are probably not conclusive, early indications are that Apple's new M1 chips can run Windows on ARM better than Microsoft can, which would be quite something. The full results are included in @imbusho's tweet below:

Stephen Warwick
Stephen Warwick
News Editor

Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design. Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwarwick9