Apple M4 (10-CPU) vs Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1

Last updated:

CPU comparison with benchmarks


Apple M4 (10-CPU) CPU1 vs CPU2 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1

CPU comparison

Apple M4 (10-CPU) or Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results.

The Apple M4 (10-CPU) has 10 cores with 10 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.41 GHz. Up to 16 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Apple M4 (10-CPU) was released in Q2/2024.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.00 GHz. The CPU supports up to 16 GB of memory in 8 memory channels. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 was released in Q3/2019.
Apple M series (25) Family Qualcomm Snapdragon (104)
Apple M4 (2) CPU group Qualcomm Snapdragon SQ1/SQ2 (2)
4 Generation 1
M4 Architecture Kryo 495
Mobile Segment Mobile
Apple M3 Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple M4 (10-CPU) has 10 CPU cores and can calculate 10 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Apple M4 (10-CPU) is 0.70 GHz (4.41 GHz) while the Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 has 8 CPU cores and 8 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 is at 3.00 GHz.

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Characteristic Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
10 Cores 8
10 Threads 8
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
No Hyperthreading No
No Overclocking ? No
0.70 GHz (4.41 GHz)
4x P-Core
A-Core 3.00 GHz
4x Kryo 495 Gold
0.74 GHz (2.85 GHz)
6x E-Core
B-Core 1.80 GHz
4x Kryo 495 Silver

NPU AI performance

The performance values of the processor's AI unit. The isolated NPU performance is specified here, the total AI performance (NPU+CPU+iGPU) can be higher. Processors with support for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors.

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Characteristic Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
Apple Neural Engine AI hardware --
16 Neural cores @ 38 TOPS AI specifications --
-- NPU + CPU + iGPU --

Integrated graphics (iGPU)

The Apple M4 (10-CPU) or Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

Apple M4 (10 Core) GPU Qualcomm Adreno 685
GPU frequency 0.25 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) 0.65 GHz
-- GPU Generation 5
3 nm Technology 7 nm
2 Max. displays 2
160 Compute units 8
1280 Shader 1536
Yes Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
24 GB Max. GPU Memory 4 GB
-- DirectX Version 12.0

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

Apple M4 (10 Core) GPU Qualcomm Adreno 685
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h264 Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VP9 Decode
Decode Codec VP8 Decode / Encode
Decode Codec AV1 No
Decode Codec AVC Decode
Decode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The Apple M4 (10-CPU) can use up to 16 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 120.0 GB/s. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 supports up to 16 GB of memory in 8 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 34.1 GB/s.

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Characteristic Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
LPDDR5X-7500 Memory LPDDR4X-4266
16 GB Max. Memory 16 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 8 (Octa Channel)
120.0 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 34.1 GB/s
No ECC No
22.00 MB L2 Cache --
-- L3 Cache 2.00 MB
4.0 PCIe version --
-- PCIe lanes --
-- PCIe Bandwidth --

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Apple M4 (10-CPU) is 22 W, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 has a TDP of 7 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Characteristic Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
22 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 7 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
15 W TDP down --
100 °C Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The Apple M4 (10-CPU) is manufactured in 3 nm and has 22.00 MB cache. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 is manufactured in 7 nm and has a 2.00 MB cache.

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Characteristic Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
3 nm Technology 7 nm
Chiplet Chip design Chiplet
Armv9-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) Armv8-A (64 bit)
Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation, AVX2, SME ISA extensions --
-- Socket --
Apple Virtualization Framework Virtualization None
Yes AES-NI No
macOS, iPadOS Operating systems Android, Windows 10 (ARM)
Q2/2024 Release date Q3/2019
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


Rate these processors

Here you can rate the Apple M4 (10-CPU) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 4.8 stars (104 ratings). Rate now:
Here you can rate the Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 1.0 stars (1 ratings). Rate now:


Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
Apple M4 (10-CPU) (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 (29%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
Apple M4 (10-CPU) (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 (22%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 4.41 GHz
2491 (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
724 (29%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 0.70 GHz
12509 (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
2808 (22%)

Cinebench 2024 (Single-Core)

The Cinebench 2024 benchmark is based on the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxon's 3D program Cinema 4D. The benchmark runs are each 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 4.41 GHz
0 (0%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
45 (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core)

The Multi-Core test of the Cinebench 2024 benchmark uses all cpu cores to render using the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxons Cinema 4D. The benchmark run is 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 4.41 GHz
0 (0%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
200 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 4.41 GHz
3767 (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
0 (0%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 0.70 GHz
14621 (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
0 (0%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
Apple M4 (10 Core) @ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
Qualcomm Adreno 685 @ 0.65 GHz
2030 (100%)

AI performance (NPU)

The performance values of the processor's AI unit. The isolated NPU performance is given here, the total AI performance (NPU+CPU+iGPU) can be higher.

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. The performance is given in the number (trillions) of arithmetic operations per second (TOPS).
Apple M4 (10-CPU) Apple M4 (10-CPU)
10C 10T @ 0.70 GHz
38 (100%)
Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8C 8T @ 3.00 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Apple M4 (10-CPU) Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
Apple iPad Pro 11 (2024) [1-2 TB] Microsoft Surface X

Popular comparisons containing this CPUs

1. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Apple M1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Apple M1
2. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ2Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ2 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
3. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i5-1135G7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i5-1135G7
4. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i7-10875H Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i7-10875H
5. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i5-8250U Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i5-8250U
6. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i5-L16G7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i5-L16G7
7. Intel Core i5-1035G4Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 Intel Core i5-1035G4 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1
8. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i7-1065G7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i7-1065G7
9. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
10. Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1Intel Core i7-1165G7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Microsoft SQ1 vs Intel Core i7-1165G7


back to index