Microsoft is determined not to let Apple alone dominate the ARM computer market. On Geekbench, a Surface Laptop 6 equipped with a Qualcomm chip overshadows to the latest generation MacBook Pro.
Could it finally be the time for Windows on ARM? After waiting years before launching a new generation of PC capable of competing with Apple’s latest Macs, it seems that Microsoft is finally ready to launch hostilities. A Surface Laptop 6 equipped with a Snapdragon X Elite chip has just appeared on Geekbench with encouraging results.
A Surface Laptop 6 that rocks
If the fact that Microsoft is preparing an ARM version of its home PC was an open secret, the tests carried out on Geekbench tell us a little more about what this machine could have in its belly. The new Surface Laptop 6 should therefore feature 16 GB of RAM and a processor clocked at 4.01 GHz. A riot of theoretical power confirmed by the results of Geekbench benchmarks.
According to tests consulted by Windows Latest, the machine would achieve a performance score of 2714 points on single-core operations and a score of 14,000 and some points for multi-core operations. For comparison, the MacBook Pro with M3 Pro chip achieved a score of 3084 on single-core operations and 14,017 on multi-core tests. To put it more simply, the Surface Laptop 6 with Snapdragon X Elite chip would, on paper, be as powerful as a MacBook M3 Pro.
It is important to point out that these scores alone do not say everything there is to know on the subject. Indeed, Apple’s strength (and the reason why the MacBook Pros are so good) is that the company offers deep integration between software and hardware. Having a chip capable of performing thousands of operations per second doesn’t mean much if the software doesn’t keep up.
Software capable of tracking?
Fortunately, Microsoft thinks it has the solution to this problem. Recently, the firm reportedly developed an emulator capable of running x86/x64 software on ARM with even more efficiency than what Apple can do with its MacBooks.
Windows could therefore rely on high-performance hardware and software capable of running all traditional Windows applications without any problem. Add to that the fact that developers are gradually starting to release native applications for Windows on ARM and you may finally have the alignment of the planets necessary for Windows to seriously compete with Apple.
Source : Windows Latest
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