4 ms·

Intel's 10nm is approximately equal to TSMC's 7nm (even having advantages in some areas). The A-chips at 7nm (the A13) were already significantly ahead of Intel

Intel's 10nm is approximately equal to TSMC's 7nm (even having advantages in some areas). The A-chips at 7nm (the A13) were already significantly ahead of Intel's offerings in efficiency and instructions per cycle. Intel went all in on a design that relegates performance to power gobbling turbo boost and here we are. Just generally too much is made about node size. It isn't a magic pixie dust that you can sprinkle on a chip. I certainly don't want to engage in chip advocacy wars, but it has been interesting seeing the goalposts moving. Last year it was just that Apple had some easily replicated, lazy big cache that was their key to performance, that's if you accept that it's actually high performance because Something Something Geekbench is a big lie and they're actual miserable performers. Now it's just node size. Super simple, trivial things that somehow discount what they're delivering.

ogre_codes 6y ago
> Last year it was just that Apple had some easily replicated It feels like if you listen to the peanut gallery, Apple CPU advantage is always easy to replicate. They said the same thing when Apple bumped the A series to 64 bits and at pretty much every step between. If Apple's formula was easy to copy or as obvious as everyone seems to claim, then we wouldn't be in the position where Apple has the best mobile CPU, the best wearable CPU, the best tablet CPU, and the best ultrabook CPU.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Apple always gets people riled up on here, it's one of the few areas on HN that discussions just get rather poor quickly. > If Apple's formula was easy to copy or as obvious as everyone seems to claim, then we wouldn't be in the position where Apple has the best mobile CPU, the best wearable CPU, the best tablet CPU, and the best ultrabook CPU. Exactly. It isn't easy to do. Apple is in a unique position to push their platform to the absolute limit because of their vertical integration. And while that sacrifices openness, most people buying laptops just don't care.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > And while that sacrifices openness, most people buying laptops just don't care. This is it in a nutshell. I used Linux as my web development platform because I could immerse myself in Unix on both the server and client (Something you still can't do well in Windows FWIW). When OS X moved to Intel, suddenly I could live and breath something very close to my server side Linux setup on my desktop and have a fuss-free OS. Open is nice, but performance & just being able to get my job done effectively is much more important.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Last year it was just that Apple had some easily replicated It feels like if you listen to the peanut gallery, Apple CPU advantage is always easy to replicate. They said the same thing when Apple bumped the A series to 64 bits and at pretty much every step between. If Apple's formula was easy to copy or as obvious as everyone seems to claim, then we wouldn't be in the position where Apple has the best mobile CPU, the best wearable CPU, the best tablet CPU, and the best ultrabook CPU.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Apple always gets people riled up on here, it's one of the few areas on HN that discussions just get rather poor quickly. > If Apple's formula was easy to copy or as obvious as everyone seems to claim, then we wouldn't be in the position where Apple has the best mobile CPU, the best wearable CPU, the best tablet CPU, and the best ultrabook CPU. Exactly. It isn't easy to do. Apple is in a unique position to push their platform to the absolute limit because of their vertical integration. And while that sacrifices openness, most people buying laptops just don't care.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > And while that sacrifices openness, most people buying laptops just don't care. This is it in a nutshell. I used Linux as my web development platform because I could immerse myself in Unix on both the server and client (Something you still can't do well in Windows FWIW). When OS X moved to Intel, suddenly I could live and breath something very close to my server side Linux setup on my desktop and have a fuss-free OS. Open is nice, but performance & just being able to get my job done effectively is much more important.