These are the most powerful CPUs we can get in 14 inch laptops from AMD and Apple!
But which one is the best?
I’ve compared both to show you all the differences!
Apple’s M2 Max has 12 CPU cores and uses a hybrid architecture.
It has 8 Performance cores and 4 lower powered Efficiency cores, which totals in 12 threads.
AMD’s Ryzen 9 7940HS on the other hand has 8 cores and 16 threads, so fewer cores, but
more threads, and it’s also got less cache.
To do this testing I’ve got Apple’s MacBook Pro 14 with the M2 Max, which starts from
$3100 USD.
My MacBook is maxed out, so we’ve got the 38 core GPU upgrade for an extra $200.
The AMD chip was tested in Razer’s Blade 14, which starts from $2400 USD, but the one
I’ve tested here has the RTX 4070 GPU for an extra $300.
This means that both of these 14” laptops are completely maxed out, but the MacBook
costs $600 more.
But that said, you can actually find the 7940HS in cheaper laptops.
While obviously Apple’s M2 processors are only going to be found in Apple’s own lineup,
and they control all of their pricing.
The ASUS Zephyrus G14 is another 14” laptop with the same AMD processor, and it can be
found for less than half the price when on sale, granted with a lower GPU.
That’s a good deal, which is why we listed it on the gaminglaptop.deals website, check
that out with the link below to save money on your next gaming laptop!
Now to be fair, Apple’s cheaper M2 Pro chip is much the same as the M2 Max when it comes
to CPU cores and threads.
The M2 Pro has half the memory bandwidth, but it’s priced more in-line with the Blade
14.
Ultimately, you’re paying more money for the better GPU with the M2 Max.
But the goal here isn’t to compare fairly based on the price.
It’s to find out the best possible CPU performance from a 14” laptop, so let’s get into it!
Temperatures can’t really be fairly compared, as results depend on where sensors are in
the chip and how software reports them, but it would appear that Apple’s M2 Max runs
a little warmer than AMD.
Honestly, that’s not really surprising considering how much quieter the MacBook runs.
Let’s have a listen.
Not only was the MacBook quieter, but it’s also drawing much less power from the wall
in this same multicore workload.
The AMD laptop was using 65% more power.
More power generally means more heat, which contributes to the louder fans on the AMD
laptop.
The extra power required by the AMD CPU was resulting in more performance though.
Cinebench is a nice way to quickly get a rough idea of what to expect in terms of both single
and multi threaded performance - but don’t worry, we’ll cover more practical workloads
next.
The cheaper AMD laptop was scoring 11% higher in single core and 18% higher in multicore.
So Ryzen is winning in terms of raw performance, but when we factor in the power draw difference,
the MacBook ends up more power efficient.
The 7940HS was using 65% more power in order to score 18% higher than the M2 Max.
Not only that, but if we unplug the chargers, the MacBook performs the same as with the
charger connected, while the Razer Blade 14 with Ryzen processor loses a lot of performance.
Now to be fair, this will differ between laptops, because if I instead put the battery power
results in from the ASUS Zephyrus G14 with the same CPU, the dip isn’t as large.
The 7940HS can still win in single core performance when running on battery power, but Apple’s
M2 Max beats it in multicore.
While we’re on the subject of battery, the MacBook with M2 Max chip lasted 34% longer
compared to the AMD 7940HS in the G14, or 45% longer compared to the same AMD processor
in the Blade 14, which has a smaller battery.
Basically the MacBook dominates when it comes to performance on battery power, and battery
life.
V-Ray is another rendering workload, but it’s an example of an app that doesn’t yet have
native Apple silicon support.
AMD has a bigger 31% lead over Apple this time, but some of this difference is going
to be a result of the Rosetta 2 translation layer.
Other rendering apps with Apple Silicon support like the Corona renderer were still scoring
17% better with AMD.
Blender was a bit of a mixed bag, though.
Apple’s M2 Max was scoring better in the Monster and Junkshop tests, while AMD was
ahead in the Classroom test.
Content creator workloads like Adobe Premiere scored better with Apple’s M2 Max though.
The MacBook was scoring 12% higher in the Puget Systems benchmark, but unlike the previous
tests this one is also making use of the GPUs.
Adobe Photoshop tends to rely more on single core performance, but despite the fact that
AMD had the win in the Cinebench single core test, the M2 Max comes out ahead here too.
It’s even more impressive when we consider that the Puget Systems benchmark still requires
the Intel version of Photoshop, so the MacBook would be even better with the Apple Silicon
version.
The benchmark just doesn't support it yet, but even at a disadvantage apple takes the
win.
It’s a similar deal with DaVinci Resolve, which is why I instead just tested a video
export instead of the Puget Systems benchmark.
So this test does use the apple silicon version of resolve, and there was a crazy difference
here, with the M2 Max being 140% faster than the 7940HS, or completing the task in 58%
less time.
Resolve really leverages the GPU, so this may be more of an Nvidia vs Apple difference.
Exporting a video with Handbrake was faster on the M2 Max too, though the lead wasn’t
quite as big with the M2 Max 9% faster than AMD, but then in an x265 encoding test the
Ryzen processor was performing much better.
I confirmed this test wasn’t using Rosetta 2 on the Mac, but it’s the only time encoding
was better on AMD, and I don't think this test touches the GPUs.
Encoding a WAV file to FLAC was slightly faster on the M2 Max, but it’s a much smaller difference.
LLVM compilation was way faster with the M2 Max, completing in 54% less time compared
to the AMD laptop, or 119% faster.
With such big improvements in compiling, it’s no surprise why so many developers go for
Apple laptops.
MATLAB
AMD is looking better if we move over into cryptography.
The difference was smaller in OpenSSL, but still a win for the 7940HS.
AMD was better in terms of decompression too, however Apple was ahead when it came to compression
in the 7-Zip benchmark.
Unlike Cinebench earlier, where AMD was faster in both single and multi core, in Geekbench
the single core scores are almost the same, while the M2 Max was 21% higher in multicore.
Cinebench is just rendering though, whereas this tests a number of different workloads,
and they claim the latest version 6 uses more real-world tests than before.
Speaking of real-world tests, speedometer runs in the web browser and tests responsiveness.
The MacBook scored higher here, and I’ve got to say just browsing websites did feel
a bit snappier on the mac.
CrossMark tests a bunch of things from document, spreadsheet, photo and video editing, to web
browsing and responsiveness.
The M2 Max was scoring slightly better overall, but if we look into the subscores AMD was
actually slightly ahead in the responsiveness and productivity tests.
Apple just had a bigger lead in the creativity tasks which gave it the overall win, and again
this is likely more due to the GPU difference.
These are the differences in all of the applications just tested.
Each line shows how much faster or slower each app was on AMD.
If we average everything together, there’s no real difference between AMD and Apple,
but results really vary depending on the specific workload.
DaVinci Resolve and LLVM compilation heavily favored the M2 Max, while decompression, cryptography
and the x265 encoding favored the 7940HS.
The differences weren’t quite as large in most other workloads though.
Ultimately the best CPU for you depends on the tasks that you plan on using your 14 inch
laptop for, and to some degree on whether your preference is Windows or MacOS.
But I mean if a MacBook can run your workload twice as fast it’s definitely worth considering
giving up Windows even if you might prefer it.
I actually completely swapped over to this MacBook for an entire week before I ended
up crawling back over to Windows.
Now don’t get me wrong, the M2 Max performed great, and I was even starting to get used
to the operating system differences.
But there were just some minor parts to my personal workflow for creating these videos
that I couldn’t quite work out.
Like just making the graphs that I used in this video in Excel.
I just couldn’t get the background gradient looking quite right on the MacBook.
But that’s probably more of a Microsoft Excel thing rather than Apple vs Windows.
So just dumb stuff like that that probably won’t apply to most people.
But then if you’re a gamer, the Nvidia graphics in the Blade are going to be an advantage
over the M2.
Even if Macs can do some gaming these days thanks to the recent game porting toolkit.
But if you need best performance on battery and best battery life, then Apple’s M2 is
better.
It all comes down to what you use your laptop for and what you prefer.
But I’d argue if you’re going for a smaller 14 inch laptop like either of these, then
you probably want portability.
And portability is made possible by better battery life and having better performance
on battery is icing on the cake.
And the Apple MacBook with M2 was just objectively better there.
And that’s the reason why I ended up taking this laptop with me to LTX in Canada on a
15 hour flight recently.
Because I just knew that it was actually going to last the trip.
Now you can of course get much more powerful CPUs than what we’ve seen here in these
14 inch models.
But you’ll be looking at bigger laptops at the 15, 16, 17 or even 18 inch size.
AMD actually doubled their CPU core count in a laptop this year from 8 cores up to 16.
A massive difference!
But do you actually need that much CPU power in a laptop?
Check out this video next where I’ve compared the best laptop processors from AMD and Intel
in games and applications to find out.
I’ll see you in that one next!