Quote Originally Posted by Arrhin View Post
I wouldn't necessarily credit all of that to the M1 ARM architecture, the GPU's in any Intel MacBook barely qualify for the term 'GPU'. If they can get their 12th gen power consumption under control then Xe might weigh in but that ship has sailed as far as Apple is concerned.
I mean, there's some truth to that; the Intel Iris Pro is a very (very very) sad excuse for a GPU, while the M1's eGPU has comparable performance to a Radeon RX 560 according to the various benchmark sites. But I actually got curious after that post and hooked the Intel MacBook Pro up to the eGPU that I have for TensorFlow work (which is a Radeon RX 560, coincidentally enough), then ran FFXIV... and honestly, the performance was not really that different.

Moreover, the Intel MacBook Pro couldn't run the eGPU without being connected to power and a monitor, while the M1 was able to run without needing to be plugged in; that's definitely a point on the M1's side in terms of performance along with portability.

(That said, running it under Boot Camp on the Intel MacBook Pro with that same eGPU connected, the performance was unsurprisingly better than either of the other two scenarios.)