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> For the laptops intended for more serious work you want a CPU with 15 W to 60 W TDP, I didn't know we were measuring performance in TDP. /s All benchmarks s

> For the laptops intended for more serious work you want a CPU with 15 W to 60 W TDP, I didn't know we were measuring performance in TDP. /s All benchmarks show Apple's 12W chip crushing Intel 45w chips (that boost up to 60w).

adrian_b 6y ago
In large laptops, i.e. gaming laptops or mobile workstations, the CPUs with 45 W nominal TDP are actually configured with TDPs up to 60 W or 65 W (the steady-state value). The boost power is higher in those cases, e.g. 72 W or even 90 W. This is true for example in my Dell Precision laptop, where the CPU is configured for 60 W steady-state TDP, because the laptop has good cooling, which can easily cope with that, unlike in thinner laptops. Your sarcasm is misplaced, because the TDP is the factor that determines the achievable multi-threaded performance of any computer. Given the domain of application for any computer, e.g. handheld, tablet, thin laptop, thick laptop, desktop and so on, you get certain dimensions, which, together with the available cooling technologies, determine the TDP. The TDP, together with the characteristics of the CMOS process used for making the CPU, determine the multi-threaded performance of the CPU, if the CPU designers are competent and do not make mistakes leading to lower performance than optimal. Therefore, while the high single-thread performance of Apple M1 is due mainly to its clever design with high average IPC, its multi-threaded performance is determined mostly by the newer 5-nm CMOS process. The higher efficiency of the 5-nm process would have allowed a higher performance within a laptop TDP, but Apple has chosen, for now, to reduce their costs by using only 4 big cores, instead of reaching the performance that would have possible for them when using more big cores. It is likely that next year Apple will introduce models that will be limited by TDP, not by chip size, like this year. Until then, Intel & AMD will be better for multi-threaded tasks and equal in single-threaded (but at much higher power per core).

adrian_b 6y ago

In large laptops, i.e. gaming laptops or mobile workstations, the CPUs with 45 W nominal TDP are actually configured with TDPs up to 60 W or 65 W (the steady-state value). The boost power is higher in those cases, e.g. 72 W or even 90 W. This is true for example in my Dell Precision laptop, where the CPU is configured for 60 W steady-state TDP, because the laptop has good cooling, which can easily cope with that, unlike in thinner laptops. Your sarcasm is misplaced, because the TDP is the factor that determines the achievable multi-threaded performance of any computer. Given the domain of application for any computer, e.g. handheld, tablet, thin laptop, thick laptop, desktop and so on, you get certain dimensions, which, together with the available cooling technologies, determine the TDP. The TDP, together with the characteristics of the CMOS process used for making the CPU, determine the multi-threaded performance of the CPU, if the CPU designers are competent and do not make mistakes leading to lower performance than optimal. Therefore, while the high single-thread performance of Apple M1 is due mainly to its clever design with high average IPC, its multi-threaded performance is determined mostly by the newer 5-nm CMOS process. The higher efficiency of the 5-nm process would have allowed a higher performance within a laptop TDP, but Apple has chosen, for now, to reduce their costs by using only 4 big cores, instead of reaching the performance that would have possible for them when using more big cores. It is likely that next year Apple will introduce models that will be limited by TDP, not by chip size, like this year. Until then, Intel & AMD will be better for multi-threaded tasks and equal in single-threaded (but at much higher power per core).