Apple M1 Performance On Linux: Benchmarks Better Than Expected For Its Alpha State

For those wondering how this Apple Mac Mini with Asahi Linux stacks up against various AMD/Intel processors, I ran some benchmarks against some recent tests I did on various x86_64 CPUs under Ubuntu Linux. So here's a quick look for getting a general sense of where the Apple M1 performance currently compares to x86_64 Linux systems:

It deopends upon the benchmark, but even with the M1 boost states not yet working under Linux, this Mac Mini was performing decent. It was roughly competing with mid-range AMD/Intel CPUs which is not bad for the early state of the Linux port and this is just a basic Mac Mini with an M1 and not the higher-end M1 Pro/Ultra/Max SoCs.

For some of the tested workloads the difference can be from differing AArch64 software quality compared to x86_64.

In some areas there isn't AArch64 / NEON optimizations in the upstream software while on the x86_64 side more open-source developers already have their code AVX optimized, etc, so there are ecosystem differences at play.