Oliver Haslam·

Apple’s A12Z Running Emulated Software Outperforms Microsoft Surface Pro X Running Programs Natively

With Apple’s Developer Transition Kits starting to have landed on some desks, we have already seen developers apparently deciding to ignore Apple’s instructions, and run benchmarks on them. And while that isn’t good for Apple, it turns out it isn’t great for Microsoft or Qualcomm, either.

That’s because these benchmarks show that Apple’s A12Z chip – the one inside the Developer Transition Kit – can run emulated software more quickly than the Microsoft Surface Pro X can run it natively on ARM.

Let that just sink in for a second.

According to benchmarks run natively on the Surface Pro X, single-core scores come in at around 720 while multi-core scores sit at around 2,800. As for the emulated A12X score, that manages around 750 in single-core and up to 2,900 in multi-core results. It doesn’t look good for the Surface Pro X, does it?

It looks even worse for Qualcomm. Its SQ1 chip is what Microsoft based its custom ARM chip on and both companies come out of this little battle with a bloody nose. This after Qualcomm has repeatedly suffered in the mobile space with Apple’s A-series chips pushing the iPhone lineup ahead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon every year.

Maybe things aren’t likely to be too different in terms of computers, either. It is, however, worth noting that the Surface Pro X is a notebook while the Apple Developer Transition Kit is housed in a Mac mini. Whether the power constraints and cooling considerations play a part here is anyone’s guess. Maybe Qualcomm can tell us!

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