So, we did an internal test for our own education. We launched iMovie and used a demo video to test the 14" MacBook Pro's performance against the 13" MacBook Pro.
For comparison:
13" MacBook Pro M1/8/256
14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro/16/512
Exporting a 2.11GB iMovie project to a file using maximum settings on both systems.
We opened Activity Monitor and used the CPU and GPU history windows so we could watch the process. The 14" MacBook Pro was about 4x faster than the 13" and, interestingly, Activity Monitor showed some curious results. The 13" M1 maxed its CPU cores while the GPU bumped, but not maxed. The 14" CPU cores barely blipped, but the GPU went bonkers. It would appear that Apple is maximizing GPU acceleration with the M1 Pro.
Just FYI.
13" MB Pro export settings:
13" MB Pro processor history:
14" MB Pro export settings:
14" MB Pro processor history:
The Beasty:
From here you can also get a good idea of how Apple uses the notch area to move the menu bar up and out of the way. It looks good and works better. Very clever, IMHO.