4 ms·

One question I’ we never gotten an answer for is what about arm makes these apple chips so good? Is it just that Apple can design them themselves compared to wh

One question I’ we never gotten an answer for is what about arm makes these apple chips so good? Is it just that Apple can design them themselves compared to when they were with Intel? Or is there something about Arm that makes it better for making the processors that Apple likes? Outside of the M1 ultra I feel like most of the advancements are just due to be on the newest processes

ZetaZero 5y ago
ARM makes instruction decoding simpler. More memory bandwidth also helps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25257932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25257932
sliken 5y ago
Well apple got an architecture license, has been iterating on their design for many years, has bought companies with significant expertise, and has been pretty aggressive with making their Iphone/Ipad CPUs the best that they can be, and more recently applied a very similar design to MBPs, Mini, and Studio. M1 is based on the Apple A14 core and the future M2 will be based on the A15 core that's been shipping for awhile now in iphones. Sadly you can't take advantages of Apple's CPU designs unless you buy into their ecosystem. Here's hoping ASAHI linux (Marcan's port to the M1) goes well. There's little things like ditching the 32 bit ISA, not a big deal, but does make each new iteration that much easier from a design and testing standpoint. ARM also has a loser memory model, which makes it easier to use more effectively use existing bandwidth. But there's no magic. It's a straight up aggressive design, wide instruction decode (yes that's easier for arm than x86-64), large re-order buffer, wide issue, etc. Anandtech has a nice summary comparing various M1 features to the Intel and AMD competition. Apple has a high IPC and they make the most of their lower clocks (usually around 3.2 GHz). The chips from Intel/AMD that they are compared against are often in the 4-5 GHz range and burn significantly more power because of that.

ZetaZero 5y ago

ARM makes instruction decoding simpler. More memory bandwidth also helps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25257932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25257932

sliken 5y ago

Well apple got an architecture license, has been iterating on their design for many years, has bought companies with significant expertise, and has been pretty aggressive with making their Iphone/Ipad CPUs the best that they can be, and more recently applied a very similar design to MBPs, Mini, and Studio. M1 is based on the Apple A14 core and the future M2 will be based on the A15 core that's been shipping for awhile now in iphones. Sadly you can't take advantages of Apple's CPU designs unless you buy into their ecosystem. Here's hoping ASAHI linux (Marcan's port to the M1) goes well. There's little things like ditching the 32 bit ISA, not a big deal, but does make each new iteration that much easier from a design and testing standpoint. ARM also has a loser memory model, which makes it easier to use more effectively use existing bandwidth. But there's no magic. It's a straight up aggressive design, wide instruction decode (yes that's easier for arm than x86-64), large re-order buffer, wide issue, etc. Anandtech has a nice summary comparing various M1 features to the Intel and AMD competition. Apple has a high IPC and they make the most of their lower clocks (usually around 3.2 GHz). The chips from Intel/AMD that they are compared against are often in the 4-5 GHz range and burn significantly more power because of that.