But, just looking at A14 performance and extrapolating its big/little 2/4 cores to M1's 4/4; In the shortest tldr possible; Yes.
M1 should have stronger single-core CPU performance than any Mac Apple currently sells, including the Mac Pro. I think Apple's statement that they've produced the "world's fastest CPU core" is overall a valid statement to make, just from the info we independent third-parties have, but only because AMD Zen 3 is so new. Essentially no third parties have Zen 3, Apple probably doesn't for comparison, but just going on the information we know about Zen 3 and M1, its very likely that Zen 3 will trade blows in single core perf with the Firestorm cores in A14/M1. Likely very workload dependent, and it'll be difficult to say who is faster; they're both real marvels of technology.
Multicore is harder to make any definitive conclusions about.
The real issue in comparison before we get M1 samples is that its a big/little 4/4. If we agree that Firestorm is god-powerful, then can say pretty accurately say that its faster than any other four-core CPU (there are no four-core Zen 3 CPUs yet). There's other tertiary factors of course, but I think its safe enough; so that covers the Intel MBP13. Apple has never had an issue cannibalizing their own sales, so I don't think they really care if Intel MBP13 sales drop.
But, the Intel MBP16 runs 6 & 8 core processors, and trying to theorycraft what performance the Icestorm cores in M1 will contribute gets difficult. My gut says that M1 w/ active cooling will outperform the six core i7 in every way, but will trade blows with the eight core i9. A major part of this is that the MBP16 still runs on 9th gen Intel chips. Another part is that cooling the i7/i9 has always been problematic, and those things hit a thermal limit under sustained load (then again, maybe the M1 will as well even with the fan, we'll see).
But, also to be clear: Apple is not putting the M1 in the MBP16. Most likely, they'll be revving it similar to how they do A14/A14x; think M1/M1x. This will probably come with more cores and a more powerful GPU, not to mention more memory, so I think the M1 and i9 comparisons, while interesting, are purely academic. They've got the thermal envelope to put more Firestorm cores inside this hypothetical M1x, and in that scenario, Intel has nothing that compares.
> But, the Intel MBP16 runs 6 & 8 core processors, and trying to theorycraft what performance the Icestorm cores in M1 will contribute gets difficult.
Anandtech's spec2006 benchmarks of the A14 [0] suggest the little cores are 1/3 of the performance of the big ones on integer, and 1/4 on floating point. (It was closer to 1/4 and 1/5 for the A13.) If that trend holds for the M1's cores, then that might help your estimates.
But, just looking at A14 performance and extrapolating its big/little 2/4 cores to M1's 4/4; In the shortest tldr possible; Yes.
M1 should have stronger single-core CPU performance than any Mac Apple currently sells, including the Mac Pro. I think Apple's statement that they've produced the "world's fastest CPU core" is overall a valid statement to make, just from the info we independent third-parties have, but only because AMD Zen 3 is so new. Essentially no third parties have Zen 3, Apple probably doesn't for comparison, but just going on the information we know about Zen 3 and M1, its very likely that Zen 3 will trade blows in single core perf with the Firestorm cores in A14/M1. Likely very workload dependent, and it'll be difficult to say who is faster; they're both real marvels of technology.
Multicore is harder to make any definitive conclusions about.
The real issue in comparison before we get M1 samples is that its a big/little 4/4. If we agree that Firestorm is god-powerful, then can say pretty accurately say that its faster than any other four-core CPU (there are no four-core Zen 3 CPUs yet). There's other tertiary factors of course, but I think its safe enough; so that covers the Intel MBP13. Apple has never had an issue cannibalizing their own sales, so I don't think they really care if Intel MBP13 sales drop.
But, the Intel MBP16 runs 6 & 8 core processors, and trying to theorycraft what performance the Icestorm cores in M1 will contribute gets difficult. My gut says that M1 w/ active cooling will outperform the six core i7 in every way, but will trade blows with the eight core i9. A major part of this is that the MBP16 still runs on 9th gen Intel chips. Another part is that cooling the i7/i9 has always been problematic, and those things hit a thermal limit under sustained load (then again, maybe the M1 will as well even with the fan, we'll see).
But, also to be clear: Apple is not putting the M1 in the MBP16. Most likely, they'll be revving it similar to how they do A14/A14x; think M1/M1x. This will probably come with more cores and a more powerful GPU, not to mention more memory, so I think the M1 and i9 comparisons, while interesting, are purely academic. They've got the thermal envelope to put more Firestorm cores inside this hypothetical M1x, and in that scenario, Intel has nothing that compares.