4 ms·

They're specifically talking about the mobile part here. But it's not hard to believe that it will outrun the M1 Max in multithreaded benchmarks, and likely ev

They're specifically talking about the mobile part here. But it's not hard to believe that it will outrun the M1 Max in multithreaded benchmarks, and likely even single-threaded benchmarks. Intel's latest desktop parts are already faster than an M1 Max by a not-insignificant amount, and this is just a lower-power version. Intel's Alder Lake desktop parts are already surprisingly power efficient (ignoring the heavily clocked i9-12900K flagship, which was designed to basically ignore power consumption) The real wildcard is where the power consumption comes in. Intel has some slides showing it being competitive with or even surpassing the M1 Max. I know a lot a lot of people will scoff at such a claim, but I don't actually have a hard time believing it. I think the M1 is still going to win when it comes to idle consumption, though. I'm going to guess that net battery life is still going to favor the M1 by a decent margin, at least for mixed workloads where the CPU is idle a lot.

n7pdx 5y ago
Right, it is actually possible Intel found the one set of multi-threaded tests where they can lower the voltage/frequency to match the M1 Pro/Max power consumption and just edge ahead on performance due to sheer thread count. Apple decided their high-end laptop needed x number of cores, Intel can always grab a desktop part with x+n cores, shove it into a laptop, and claim a victory. Makes for a good marketing slide. Does not say a whole lot about the whole package, or every other workload besides this one that laptops might run. Say for example, single thread power efficiency, or anything that needs a GPU and won't drain the battery in 30 minutes.
jeffbee 5y ago
I have an M1, M1 Pro, and Core i7-12700K on my desk. The Intel part is the fastest on single and multi-threaded workloads I care about, and it does not come with the rosetta nonsense that makes it difficult to manage your compilers and libs on macOS. It does come with a different kind of nonsense, namely that Linux doesn't know what to do with the efficiency cores of the Intel part, so you have to either disable them or manually manage process and IRQ placement. Oh, and I can put however much memory and SSDs into the PC as I can afford, unlike the Macs. Currently using the M1 mini as a display head with VSCode connected to the PC over Thunderbolt, as a backend. Seems like the best of worlds. M1 Pro is probably going to get sold.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  The M1 is probably the first time a lot of people have had to deal with cross compiling so the tooling kind of sucks right now but I imagine in a few years it will be seamless.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    There's been a heck of a lot of friction though. It turns out that there are lots of open source builds that believe darwin but not x86 implies powerpc, and there are lots of python programs that believe they are entitled to build and install .so libraries, overwriting one arch with the other. Also fortran continues to be a mess.
- mamcx 5y ago
  > that makes it difficult to manage your compilers and libs on macOS A failure of the C/C++ toolchain, mostly.
chippiewill 5y ago
I agree, it's definitely not unbelievable that Intel can beat Apple under load. Especially as many workloads will be optimised for x86 (for now). Idle definitely seems to be Intel's Achilles heel, although I guess the e-cores will help once good OS support is there as Intel mobile chips seem to be pretty decent at saving power once they go into the lower c-states. I think a lot of the Apple efficiency gains also come from the all-in SoC design (i.e. memory etc. all in the same chip). I guess Intel is trying to make the same play here but I'm sceptical they'll have as much success in the near term simply because they're reliant on OEMs to pretty much redesign their products around that so it could be several years before all the manufacturers cycle their product lines around. Not to mention many PC fans _like_ the fact they can upgrade the RAM in their laptops SODIMM slots.
- wmf 5y ago
  they're reliant on OEMs to pretty much redesign their products around SoC design U-class 13" and 14" laptops have been SoC-based for years.
Gigachad 5y ago
I'm glad power efficiency is really getting a spotlight recently I tested a new AMD build with a ryzen 5 and a few hard drives and it was drawing 70w idle with a headless linux distro running. Some of this can be blamed on the case fans and hard drives, but even without that it doesn't come anywhere close to what a mac mini would draw.
- fomine3 5y ago
  AMD platform is notorious for idle power usage. Also you may have dGPU.
015a 5y ago
Yeah; with all these comparisons, many people in the HN bubble forget how much work (and play) still happens on desktops (not to mention in servers). Power efficiency matters, but raw power still matters too. The 12900k (desktop) pushes an obscene 8p+8e 16c/24t design. Compare this to M1 Max's 8p+2e 10c/10t. M1's per-core perf lead, if it even exists, won't overcome that. And yeah, its an obscene miss if one overlooks that the 12900k can draw 250 watts, versus M1 Max's ~50w (?). But Apple sells desktops too; they're loved by the Pros Apple spent years neglecting. There are rumors that Apple is prepping a "M1 Duo" or "M1 Quad" variant of M1 Max for an upcoming Mac Pro. But the wild part is two-fold: First, a "Duo" variant (16p+4e 20c/20t) still may not match the 12900k, and while a "Quad" variant would surpass it (32p+8e 40c/40t), we'd be talking about 12900k levels of power draw anyway. And arguably a chip like that shouldn't be compared to i9; it should be compared to the Xeons its replacing in the Mac Pro. Apple's M1 is an obscene chip; but I'm fearful of expectations going forward. Pros were exuberant when it was announced, because it was an indication that Apple has started Caring about them after over a decade of being neglected. But if Apple continues the pattern they started with M1 by waiting a year or more to sieve the iPhone core architecture each year all the way down to a proper high-end part, its not obvious to me that pros are better off. The issues Pros were facing on Apple hardware, up to this point, were really Intel's fault (and Apple's ability to integrate Intel's chips in an effective manner); but AMD forced Intel into high gear, and now to some degree, for pros, it feels like we're re-living the same story again. Apple in-housing their chips does not fix their perpetual de-prioritization of pro workloads; if anything it exasperates it, because now we're at the bottom of the totem pole for Apple's chip production monopoly each year, rather than at least hoping Intel could service us.

n7pdx 5y ago

Right, it is actually possible Intel found the one set of multi-threaded tests where they can lower the voltage/frequency to match the M1 Pro/Max power consumption and just edge ahead on performance due to sheer thread count. Apple decided their high-end laptop needed x number of cores, Intel can always grab a desktop part with x+n cores, shove it into a laptop, and claim a victory. Makes for a good marketing slide. Does not say a whole lot about the whole package, or every other workload besides this one that laptops might run. Say for example, single thread power efficiency, or anything that needs a GPU and won't drain the battery in 30 minutes.

jeffbee 5y ago

I have an M1, M1 Pro, and Core i7-12700K on my desk. The Intel part is the fastest on single and multi-threaded workloads I care about, and it does not come with the rosetta nonsense that makes it difficult to manage your compilers and libs on macOS. It does come with a different kind of nonsense, namely that Linux doesn't know what to do with the efficiency cores of the Intel part, so you have to either disable them or manually manage process and IRQ placement. Oh, and I can put however much memory and SSDs into the PC as I can afford, unlike the Macs. Currently using the M1 mini as a display head with VSCode connected to the PC over Thunderbolt, as a backend. Seems like the best of worlds. M1 Pro is probably going to get sold.

Gigachad 5y ago
The M1 is probably the first time a lot of people have had to deal with cross compiling so the tooling kind of sucks right now but I imagine in a few years it will be seamless.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  There's been a heck of a lot of friction though. It turns out that there are lots of open source builds that believe darwin but not x86 implies powerpc, and there are lots of python programs that believe they are entitled to build and install .so libraries, overwriting one arch with the other. Also fortran continues to be a mess.
mamcx 5y ago
> that makes it difficult to manage your compilers and libs on macOS A failure of the C/C++ toolchain, mostly.

chippiewill 5y ago

I agree, it's definitely not unbelievable that Intel can beat Apple under load. Especially as many workloads will be optimised for x86 (for now). Idle definitely seems to be Intel's Achilles heel, although I guess the e-cores will help once good OS support is there as Intel mobile chips seem to be pretty decent at saving power once they go into the lower c-states. I think a lot of the Apple efficiency gains also come from the all-in SoC design (i.e. memory etc. all in the same chip). I guess Intel is trying to make the same play here but I'm sceptical they'll have as much success in the near term simply because they're reliant on OEMs to pretty much redesign their products around that so it could be several years before all the manufacturers cycle their product lines around. Not to mention many PC fans _like_ the fact they can upgrade the RAM in their laptops SODIMM slots.

wmf 5y ago
they're reliant on OEMs to pretty much redesign their products around SoC design U-class 13" and 14" laptops have been SoC-based for years.

Gigachad 5y ago

I'm glad power efficiency is really getting a spotlight recently I tested a new AMD build with a ryzen 5 and a few hard drives and it was drawing 70w idle with a headless linux distro running. Some of this can be blamed on the case fans and hard drives, but even without that it doesn't come anywhere close to what a mac mini would draw.

fomine3 5y ago
AMD platform is notorious for idle power usage. Also you may have dGPU.

015a 5y ago

Yeah; with all these comparisons, many people in the HN bubble forget how much work (and play) still happens on desktops (not to mention in servers). Power efficiency matters, but raw power still matters too. The 12900k (desktop) pushes an obscene 8p+8e 16c/24t design. Compare this to M1 Max's 8p+2e 10c/10t. M1's per-core perf lead, if it even exists, won't overcome that. And yeah, its an obscene miss if one overlooks that the 12900k can draw 250 watts, versus M1 Max's ~50w (?). But Apple sells desktops too; they're loved by the Pros Apple spent years neglecting. There are rumors that Apple is prepping a "M1 Duo" or "M1 Quad" variant of M1 Max for an upcoming Mac Pro. But the wild part is two-fold: First, a "Duo" variant (16p+4e 20c/20t) still may not match the 12900k, and while a "Quad" variant would surpass it (32p+8e 40c/40t), we'd be talking about 12900k levels of power draw anyway. And arguably a chip like that shouldn't be compared to i9; it should be compared to the Xeons its replacing in the Mac Pro. Apple's M1 is an obscene chip; but I'm fearful of expectations going forward. Pros were exuberant when it was announced, because it was an indication that Apple has started Caring about them after over a decade of being neglected. But if Apple continues the pattern they started with M1 by waiting a year or more to sieve the iPhone core architecture each year all the way down to a proper high-end part, its not obvious to me that pros are better off. The issues Pros were facing on Apple hardware, up to this point, were really Intel's fault (and Apple's ability to integrate Intel's chips in an effective manner); but AMD forced Intel into high gear, and now to some degree, for pros, it feels like we're re-living the same story again. Apple in-housing their chips does not fix their perpetual de-prioritization of pro workloads; if anything it exasperates it, because now we're at the bottom of the totem pole for Apple's chip production monopoly each year, rather than at least hoping Intel could service us.