Intel beats Apple Silicon in efficiency: Dell laptop hits 6.21 Gflops/W

Benchmarks delivered a surprise: Intel's Core 5 320 chip inside the Dell XPS 13 proved more power-efficient than Apple's M-series processors. In the HPL Linpack test, the same benchmark used for the Top500 supercomputer ranking, the Dell produced 127.91 Gflops at 20.6W, or 6.21 Gflops per watt. For comparison, a MacBook with Apple Silicon managed 57.012 Gflops at 10.6W, translating to 5.38 Gflops/W.

Reviewer Jeff Geerling published the benchmark results on GitHub, backing up the data for both machines. The Dell's figure also beats the energy efficiency of Mac Studio models on M4 and M3, trailing only the Mac Mini on M4 with 7.57 Gflops/W.

In other areas, the MacBook still holds advantages: it has better integrated graphics and sound, plus no preinstalled Windows. The Dell wins points for being able to run Linux and having a backlit keyboard.

Notably, Intel's edge persists not just under heavy load but also at idle or during web browsing — the XPS sips power at the same rate as the MacBook. This supports long-standing speculation that ARM chips' efficiency gains stem less from the instruction set architecture and more from specific processor implementations.

Interestingly, maximizing efficiency doesn't require coding in assembly or C — the choice of programming language matters less than one might think.