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> The big reason why Apple Silicon is so damn fast is because they were able to shape the design at modeling time exclusively around Mac system level workloads
by skohan 6y ago
> The big reason why Apple Silicon is so damn fast is because they were able to shape the design at modeling time exclusively around Mac system level workloads
Is that really the case? My understanding was that M1 is fast because it's able to keep the chip saturated with instructions due to a large L1 cache and wide instruction decoders. Is anything about that specific to mac workloads?
- helsinkiandrew 6y ago> Is anything about that specific to mac workloads? The memory and instruction architecture may be more 'generic' but it and the neural engine, storage and media controllers, image processor etc will have been shaped and fine tuned by the requirements of the mac. It is probably the marginal gains of each subsystem being 5-10% better for purpose that gives it the edge.
- rhencke 6y agoIt's mostly just inertia. https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/perf-trajectory_575px.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/perf-trajectory_575p...
- eru 6y agoInteresting! Compare https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/13/does-reality-drive-straight-lines-on-graphs-or-do-straight-lines-on-graphs-drive-reality/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/13/does-reality-drive-str...