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I was really excited to see these benchmarks until I realized: 1. The Ryzen setup has twice the ram 2. The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores 3. The Ryzen s

I was really excited to see these benchmarks until I realized: 1. The Ryzen setup has twice the ram 2. The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores 3. The Ryzen setup has 3x the power envelope (in watts) as the M2[1] 4. They are using Asahi Linux on the M2.[2] Too bad I missed the window to downvote. If this said: Apple M2 (Linux/8gb/4c) vs. Ryzen 7 Pro 6850U (Linux/16gb/8c)... it would have been more honest, and potentially interesting, as it would also be an indication of the progress of Asahi Linux. (edited to add line breaks) [1]: Ryzen 46w (not sure if this includes the GPU) vs M2 15w (not sure if this includes the GPU) [2]: Asahi Linux is super cool, but most M2 chips in the wild are not running it. So it's not a useful comparison.

danaris 4y ago
Seems to me the real story here is that even with those disadvantages, the M2 is very much holding its own in the comparison. It's not blowing away the Ryzen, sure, but neither is it being left in the dust.
emn13 4y ago
I think you're overstating the issues here; and it's necessary to take what you can get in hard-to-do comparisons like this. There are caveats: certainly. The Ryzen chip's TDP is configurable between 15W and 28W, which would include the GPU (but I doubt most of these tests touch the GPU anyhow). There will be power usage differences, but the TDP difference won't be huge - most differences will be due to utilization differences, which might be large. The RAM issue usually doesn't affect most benchmarks, but it's something to consider if there are odd outliers. The CPU core count number represents the reality of these chips (but M2 has a 4+4 config, apparently?). Using linux is likely far from ideal, but probably necessary for them to run such an extensive and mostly comparable set of benchmarks. It's a significant caveat, but for CPU-limited benchmarks it's hopefully merely of reasonably limited impact (on the order of 30% on average rather than 300%, say?). OS differences tend to be larger for I/O, GPU, and some niche things like context-switching benchmarks. Of course, the power scheduler stuff matters. It's worth pointing out that phoronix itself (on different hardware and slightly older OS versions) looked at some linux vs. macos benchmarks: https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m1-linux-perf https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m1-linux-perf - and while there were a few unsurprising macos wins, there also were some (far fewer) linux wins. I think the benchmark is very interesting for what it is. Despite limitations, it _is_ informative. You can't always get a shrinkwrapped answer to whatever question you really have; so extra data-points such as this are helpful. You know what they say: there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks. Or something like that; caveat lector anyhow.
- viraptor 4y ago
  > You know what they say: there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks. Also, all benchmarks flawed, some are useful. This one is definitely useful.
- hajile 4y ago
  15-20w is never the peak TDP. They will actually hit as much as 50-60w with minimal GPU usage just from trying to hit that insane clockspeed. M1 maxed out at 22w according to Anandtech and the max shouldn't be too much different for the M2.
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    [citation needed]
  - mkopec 4y ago
    That's Intel's boost behavior, AMD is much more linear. My 4750U in performance mode never exceeds 25W and settles at 23W under sustained load.
    - hajile 4y ago
      What device is that chip in and at what frequencies is it running (by number of cores in use)?
      - mkopec 4y ago
        Lenovo ThinkPad Gen1 AMD, Arch Linux, acpi platform_profile = performance When running stress-ng, measured with turbostat: - 4.18 GHz single thread consuming 9W - 3 GHz 16 threads consuming 25W, ramping down to 2.94 / 23W after a couple of seconds and when compiling Linux on 16 threads it stays at 2.85 GHz / 23W In performance mode it does run at 80 degC under sustained load, so usually when undocked I just leave it in balanced mode where it's capped at 20W short / 15W long Also worth noting is that in low-power mode (11W / 11W) it'll still hit max single core frequency possible.
  - 4y ago
darkwater 4y ago
> 4. They are using Asahi Linux on the M2.[2] To you and all the rest saying the same: do you really think that when trying to judge a processor speed you should run benchmarks with different OSes? So, why not benchmark Lenovo + Windows vs MacBook + macOS? Those are the most sold configurations for both laptops, no? To me, it makes sense try to compare the raw HW with the same layer of software, unless there is some big glaring missing feature in Linux, inhibiting the use of some HW capability of the M2 processor.
- lazyier 4y ago
  It's a Linux website. They are not interested in the performance of the CPU with Windows or Mac OS. As far as the mismatched CPU and whatnot... These are the same sort of CPUs that you can get in the same form factor at around the same price. So the comparison is valid. The only thing suspect is the 8 vs 16GB of RAM. But since these are CPU-bound benchmarks I don't know how much of a actual difference that will make.
  - nh2 4y ago
    > They are not interested in the performance of the CPU with Windows or Mac OS. Phoronix regularly benchmarks across OSs. Type "Windows" into the search bar in the top right. Example: https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-mid22adl https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-mid22adl The memory difference might be addressed with the `mem=8G` Linux kernel boot parameter.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  Usually these comments are by people that are angry that their preferred choice didn't win the benchmark and try to find a rationale to invalidate the finding. Considering the context, they probably wanted apple to clearly win and not just be basically on par or slightly behind. Often these people aren't even aware of this themselves. I found the stats to be missing the most important datapoint for laptops however. If performance/wattage is irrelevant you really don't need a laptop after all, and they're even using the low energy /underperforming ryzen chipset... I know they couldn't get the data from the drivers on Linux, unfortunate nonetheless.
bnieuwen 4y ago
Are we sure this is actually 4 cores and not a reporting error? AFAICT with some surface Googling Apple doesn't sell the M2 with cores disabled does it? Also 4 cores 8 threads is suspicious given that AFAIU the M2 doesn't have SMT. So you'd have 4 big and 4 little cores for 8 total. (at which point I think that part is fair. This is a chip to chip, not an uarch to uarch comparison)
- wmf 4y ago
  They're just ignoring the efficiency cores. They are definitely there.
jackmott42 4y ago
1. The RAM doesn't matter in any of those benchmarks 2. The Ryzen is 6nm the M2 is 5nm 3. Ryzen specs list TDP at 15W-28W
- google234123 4y ago
  TDP is a pretty fake spec usually. I’m pretty sure the processors can use twice as much power
  - nicolaslem 4y ago
    This is kind of true for desktop and maybe high end laptops but here we're talking about a chip for ultrabooks. Those laptop designs don't have a lot of headroom for cooling and power delivery. The listed spec is accurate. Note that it is possible to basically overclock the chip and raise this limit up to around 50W for the combo GPU/CPU if you really want to. This requires enhancing the cooler as shown in [0] and no OEM does that out of the box. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6D6NT5rGyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6D6NT5rGyk
kllrnohj 4y ago
> The Ryzen setup has 3x the power envelope (in watts) as the M2[1] TDP does not represent the power envelope of the chips. It's the sustained load target at best, but mostly even that is kinda made up and the rules don't matter. But for any short (where short is less than a minute or even 5 minutes) burst, that TDP figure is completely irrelevant. Nothing respects it. Also for single threaded tasks, neither one is even going to pull that high. You have to compare actual power used during the specific test in question to make any such comparison. Otherwise trying to judge power consumption by looking at TDP is like trying to judge performance by only looking at clock speeds. Within the same manufacturers same generation you can kinda infer something useful. Other than that? Not a chance.
- Retric 4y ago
  For small differences in TDP you kind of have a point, but 3x is relevant far more quickly.
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    But again it's not. TDP isn't a defined thing. There's no standard for it. It's literally a made up value by the SoC manufacturer, and in the case of laptops the laptop manufacturer even gets to fiddle with it. That said in this case it is a small difference regardless. The 6850U's TDP per AMD's spec is 15W-28W. That's bang on the same as M2 basically. There's no 3x difference here. Unless there is because again TDP is a made up number with no formal definition.
    - hajile 4y ago
      M1/M2 use around 20-22w MAX in CPU-only tests. AMD and Intel chips usually max out at around 50-60w real-world power. That's hardly apples to apples..
      - kllrnohj 4y ago
        > AMD and Intel chips usually max out at around 50-60w real-world power. That's a sweepingly broad claim that's not at all well supported. AMD & Intel both make CPUs that top out far below 50-60w real-world power and also top out far, far above 50-60W real-world power. From a different review of the same CPU (didn't check if same laptop, could be though) "The Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U with the Linux 5.18 kernel had a 18.4 Watt average (or 16.6 Watt average with Linux 5.19 Git) while the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U average on Linux 5.18 was up at 21.96 Watts." https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-6850u/8 https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-6850u/8 So no, this isn't a 50-60W real-world power CPU. That's the non-U SKUs. But if this AMD was a 50-60W CPU that'd exactly prove my point that TDP is a stupid number to compare and you always, always have to look at actual power consumption used (which this M2 vs. 6850U didn't do because as noted briefly in the intro power monitoring of the M2 doesn't work on Asahi yet)
Retr0id 4y ago
> it would also be an indication of the progress of Asahi Linux. Other than power management support, the progress of Asahi doesn't really impact CPU performance. > Asahi Linux is super cool, but most M2 chips in the wild are not running it. So it's not a useful comparison. Clearly this is aimed at an audience who wants to run Asahi. It's a perfectly useful comparison for that. Prices weren't mentioned, but I suspect the prices of the two systems being benchmarked were similar. (Edit: I take that back, the AMD system looks considerably more expensive - it would be interesting to see a more price-matched comparison) Maybe these benchmarks aren't useful for you personally, but I think a lot of people (myself included) consider it to be an interesting and useful comparison.
thathndude 4y ago
I'm no fanboy (but, admittedly, a Mac user), but this was a pretty rough comparison. Linux can't make use of half of the specialized chips and functions in the M2. I suppose, if someone needed an article to learn that M2 hardware isn't needed for linux, you have your confirmation. But was that ever in question?
- viraptor 4y ago
  What do you mean by specialised chips and functions? The tests here are running pretty generic code where there's no M2 magic that could speed them up. The unsupported hardware in Asahi currently is just extra hardware, not the basic CPU operation. Then again, there are some features supported by Asahi but not macos https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1556297295838453760 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1556297295838453760
  - hajile 4y ago
    My understanding is that using the XCode compiler and libraries means that your could could very much wind up using co-processors that other compilers and codebases aren't aware of and aren't able to take advantage of.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      Absolutely not. The M architecture with their Firestorm and Icestorm cores are basically a big.LITTLE architecture. Some cores are made for low power, energy efficient work with a lower frequency, while others are made to run at full blast. There are no magic coprocessors to run on. The goal of the benchmark is to run the two exact same binaries, not to make one that uses all of Apple's ARM extensions and one with AVX-512 to see who can go fastest in the best conditions.
      - hajile 4y ago
        This isn't strictly true. Apple has other co-processors and some custom instructions (eg, matrix instructions). If you use their compiler and code, they can offload some calls to these while if you used another compiler and different libraries, these co-processors will be completely unused in all cases.
pornel 4y ago
OTOH 8GB RAM is Apple's own self-inflicted limitation. Why should the other CPU be given artificially less RAM only because Apple chose a design that limits how much RAM their chip can use?
- yakubin 4y ago
  M2 is not limited to 8GB. 8GB is only the base Macbook Air M2 model. You can buy one with 16 or 24GB. Most people who buy 8GB Macs these days complain about performance, while people with 16GB praise it.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    And there I am with a Lenovo sporting 64 GB of RAM...
    - yakubin 4y ago
      I haven't written my comment in the spirit of entering a competition of who can get more RAM, but in the spirit that the Phoronix benchmark compares completely different computers, one with 8GB, the other with 16GB of RAM and gives a title suggesting that it's a comparison between chips, when the chip with 8GB isn't limited to 8GB. They could have gone for the 16GB option and made the comparison more honest. The chip doesn't have any such limitation.
      - viraptor 4y ago
        The apps they use for comparison are limited by the CPU performance not memory size, so 8/16 shouldn't matter here. Unless you can point at something that's likely losing due to swapping?
  - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
    That is, however, an artifact of how Apple is pricing the models. The price difference between 8GB and 16GB is $200. This is absurd -- there's no way the added cost in ram is more than $50 for them and due to their market position and massive volume, it's probably quite a bit below that.
rovr138 4y ago
The MBA M2 has been shown to throttle itself vs the MBP running M2. So, it's not a comparison of the processors. If they selected them based on price point, form factor or something else, then that should be stated.
phkahler 4y ago
>> The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores That may explain why is crushes Apple on some benchmarks. I wonder what causes Apple to crush Ryzen on other ones. This was the strangest comparison I've ever seen with large wins going to both contenders.
- minimaul 4y ago
  With cross-arch benchmarks like this, you find a lot of software that has hyper-optimised x86_64 implementations does better on AMD/Intel because of that. It skews the numbers and makes a good comparison really annoying to do, unless you do your own comparison on your own workloads.
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    The exact same binary saw crushing victors in different directions, though, depending on what it was testing. Look at the GNU Radio results for example.
    - minimaul 4y ago
      It's not the exact same binary - that's the point. It is different instruction sets, with potentially different optimisations. They're even compiled with different compilers - what looks like a GCC 12.1.1 snapshot for x86, and GCC 12.1.0 for ARM64. It might be the same C, it might have hand-coded assembly for important bits in x86 but not in ARM, or vice versa, it might be just one specific algorithm executes particularly well on one CPU rather than the other, it might be that the slightly different version of GCC did a new optimisation. edit: they're also comparing an actively cooled laptop to a passive one - so you would expect M2 to throttle in longer benchmarks, for extra distortion. The methodology is flawed. It lets you cherry pick some individual results, and if your particular usecase is in there, great. But you don't know what state the M2 was in when a test started (eg if it was already hot and throttling, etc). It's basically impossible to draw any useful generalised conclusions from these benchmarks.
      - 4y ago
nbf_1995 4y ago
> Apple M2 (Linux/8gb/4c) This is an error on Phoronix's part. The M2 has 8 physical cores with no SMT which makes it 8c/8t. You can see all 8 cores in the die shots https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-architecture https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-ar...
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  >The M2 has 8 physical cores 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.
  - nbf_1995 4y ago
    Correct. I should have specified in my comment
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  While it technically has 8 cores, you can only use 4 at a time, so it's in most cases more correct to think of it as having 4 cores.
  - nbf_1995 4y ago
    This is not the case. All 8 physical cores of the M1/2 can be utilized simultaneously, since each is a full physical core, independent of the others. The statement about only being able to use 4 at a time is true of threads, such as those found on SMT enabled processors that have core/thread counts like 4c/8t. In those systems, the threads share logic and decoding circuitry with each other, which would make your statement correct. You can see this in the M2 die shots. Both banks of 4 cores are in separate areas of the die. https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-architecture https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-ar... (edit): Granted 4 of the cores are lower powered "efficiency" cores, this is by no means equivalent to having just 4 cores
  - olliej 4y ago
    The hardware doesn’t have such a restriction, is there software/kernel issue you’re referring to?
whalesalad 4y ago
The M2 air with the smaller SSD configuration (tested here) is also at a big performance disadvantage from all the other models with bigger disks[1]. AFAIK it is due to the low end config coming with a single physical chip for the disk, where other configs have two and can do dual channel. It also has no active cooling - apparently more performance can be squeezed out of it by disassembling and applying nerdcore thermal paste. - 1. https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/m2-macbook-pro-slower-ssd/ https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/m2-macbook-pro-slower-ssd/
- olliej 4y ago
  But it’s still a fair comparison in that this is the performance you will get.
  - whalesalad 4y ago
    As the owner of an M1 and M2 machine, I am really impressed with Ryzen.
pdpi 4y ago
It all makes a lot more sense if you remember that this is Phoronix we're talking about. This is the rest of today's posts: * Radeon ROCm 5.2.3 Released (...) * Mesa 22.2-rc3 Released (...) * [bootloader project] Updated With Improved SMBIOS Support * GCC 12.2 Compiler Released With 70+ Bug Fixes They're a Linux-centric outlet through and through, and the Phoronix Test Suite (the benchmark they're running) is Linux-based. Of course they're running the benchmarks on Linux, that's whole point! As for the hardware, the Air is just the entry level model, and AFAICT the X13 they're using is roughly the same price as the Air. About as fair a comparison as you could make it. They also specifically call out the power thing: > Due to the Apple M2 currently lacking any power/temperature sensor support under Linux, this is simply looking at the raw performance of the M2 and Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U with not being able to accurately compare the M2 power efficiency / performance-per-Watt at this time. It's important to look at the context: Lenovo laptops have been a staple in the Linux world for a long time, and people in the Linux world are genuinely excited about the Apple Silicon laptops, hell even Linus is running Asahi. For the target audience, this comparison is exactly the benchmark they want.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paulmd 4y ago
  > They also specifically call out the power thing: saying "we can't measure the power on M2" isn't the same thing as pointing out that in broad terms the M2 is only using 1/3 of the power of the 6850U. These are really different power classes and yeah, you'd expect the processor with triple the power budget to pull ahead. Triple isn't my number, but, Ryzen is allowed to boost extremely high during short tests like Phoronix is doing, where a MBA is always 15W max, period the end, even in max clock states.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    This is just completely false. You have no idea what the actual max power consumption of an MBA is. 15W is it's TDP, and various companies release chips that run at triple their TDP - including repeated by Apple in the past. Saying it's never going to exceed it's TDP is just blatantly ridiculous, and Phoronix were completely right in treating it as a useless number (which it is). The only reliable way to measure power draw is either to monitor the exact voltages and amperages on each power lane - which is not made available by Apple - or wire into the motherboard. Anything else is not serious, least of all taxing the TDP to its word.
themitigating 4y ago
Do those four affect the results of the benchmarks? What color was the laptop case?
zamalek 4y ago
> 1. The Ryzen setup has twice the ram > 2. The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores Why should this be held against the Ryzen? It was the competitive advantage that they had against Intel, and if Apple choose not to compete then it should be to their disadvantage. It's as ridiculous as this hypothetical argument: > 1. The M2 is arm64.
jakogut 4y ago
> The Ryzen setup has twice the ram CPU micro benchmarks aren't typically affected by memory quantity, especially at these levels. > The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores The Ryzen chip has eight homogeneous cores, the M2 has eight heterogeneous cores. [0] All else being equal, having high performance and low power cores in the same package _should_ result in better performance and efficiency. I do note that the machine specs in the article show the M2 as having 4c/8t, so I wonder if there's an SMP issue in Asahi on the M2 currently? They don't make it clear if this is the case, or why all eight cores aren't being reported/used. Doing some preliminary searching, it seems the M2 doesn't employ SMT, so perhaps this is misreported, or Asahi does something weird with scheduling. > The Ryzen setup has 3x the power envelope (in watts) as the M2 > Ryzen 46w (not sure if this includes the GPU) The 6850U is reported by the manufacturer as having a configurable TDP of 15-28W [1]. I believe this is total package power usage, so using either the CPU or GPU would allow better performance than maxing out both, and this probably applies to both chips. Some board/laptop manufacturers will also extend these limits, especially when plugged in, and design their cooling solutions to handle the increased power usage accordingly. Intel, for example, has published a TDP of 125W for some chips that can consume up to 230W while boosting [2]. I'm curious what both of these pull from the battery under load. I would expect the M2 to be more efficient, being manufactured on a newer, denser node. > They are using Asahi Linux on the M2. Any other comparison would be wholly meaningless. You (probably) can't run macOS on a Ryzen 6850U. Running benchmarks built by different compilers to run on different kernels wouldn't really be comparing the same thing. In the end, this benchmark, while interesting, measures what it measures. The results should be taken with a grain of salt, and should not be extrapolated to predict the performance of other applications on these platforms. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2 [1] https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-pro-6850u https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-pro-6850u [2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16495/intel-rocket-lake-14nm-review-11900k-11700k-11600k/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16495/intel-rocket-lake-14nm-...
_pigpen__ 4y ago
What is the state of compiler optimization for Apple Silicon under Linux? I’ll wager it’s far less mature than amd64. Indeed the whole point of Apple Silicon is its deep integration with macOS. These benchmarks are interesting, but of little practical value. No sane person should make system purchase decision solely based on this.
etempleton 4y ago
First thing I thought as well. I don't see any value in this comparison. These processors are consuming vastly different amounts of power. Not only that, but they are using a passively cooled Macbook Air (ultraportable) and a nearly twice as thick, actively cooled Lenovo X13. They are not even price equivalent: The base price of the X13 is $1,800 compared to $1,200 for the M2 Macbook Air. And they aren't even comparing base model to base model. They are comparing base model Macbook Air to a ~$2,500 X13 Lenovo that has been upgraded with additional memory and the faster processor. So the Lenovo is twice as expensive, uses twice as much power, is actively vs passively cooled, and is twice as thick. What are we comparing?
minimaul 4y ago
It's not even running the same compiler (x86 is a GCC 12.1.1 snapshot, ARM64 is GCC 12.1.0), so even before you get to some of these tests having hand optimised x86 codepaths, you're already potentially skewed. No, I don't expect it accounts for the differences, but there's a ton of procedural flaws in this benchmark that make using the results for any purpose very tricky. The other one that really concerns me is that the M2 was tested in the MBA. The MBA is thermally constrained and throttles. They have zero data on what temperatures it was (because it's not implemented yet!) so they don't know when/if the MBA was throttling in each test. The M2 MBP would have been a better comparison. I'm wary of trying to draw any useful conclusions from this article about the M2's general performance vs the new Ryzen 6xxx lineup, the methodology is just too flawed.
michaelmrose 4y ago
The RAM difference probably isn't material to tasks which use less than the 8GB involved, the power envelope is part of the difference between the parts involved, and the m2 mac air has 8 cores. Not sure where they would have bought hardware that never existed like a 4c m2. If one wanted to know what the difference in performance per watt or per core it would be useful to constrain the matter but that isn't the most useful question for measuring performance. Honestly I think the important takeaway is that both chips are in the same ballpark.
sudosysgen 4y ago
Sorry but this is completely fair. Despite the Ryzen system having far more resources on paper, they're going to be pretty similar on price and on silicon area. I don't see how Asahi is going to limit performance in those benchmarks. TDP is a complete garbage metric and doesn't mean anything. I think this is a more than fair comparison. They are both the high end, low power chips.
rldjbpin 4y ago
this is a straightforward, real-world use case for two systems. while memory could have been set equal perhaps, even doing so would not make it all even. you are only focusing on capacity while ignoring memory speed/timings and channel. if Apple can advertise their findings and compare to desktop CPUs, then the TDP debate is completely pointless. moreover, each chip maker has their own way of calculating what they call "TDP". to the intended reader (Linux users), this is a great guide to decide which options works best from actual performance standpoint.

danaris 4y ago

Seems to me the real story here is that even with those disadvantages, the M2 is very much holding its own in the comparison. It's not blowing away the Ryzen, sure, but neither is it being left in the dust.

emn13 4y ago

I think you're overstating the issues here; and it's necessary to take what you can get in hard-to-do comparisons like this. There are caveats: certainly. The Ryzen chip's TDP is configurable between 15W and 28W, which would include the GPU (but I doubt most of these tests touch the GPU anyhow). There will be power usage differences, but the TDP difference won't be huge - most differences will be due to utilization differences, which might be large. The RAM issue usually doesn't affect most benchmarks, but it's something to consider if there are odd outliers. The CPU core count number represents the reality of these chips (but M2 has a 4+4 config, apparently?). Using linux is likely far from ideal, but probably necessary for them to run such an extensive and mostly comparable set of benchmarks. It's a significant caveat, but for CPU-limited benchmarks it's hopefully merely of reasonably limited impact (on the order of 30% on average rather than 300%, say?). OS differences tend to be larger for I/O, GPU, and some niche things like context-switching benchmarks. Of course, the power scheduler stuff matters. It's worth pointing out that phoronix itself (on different hardware and slightly older OS versions) looked at some linux vs. macos benchmarks: https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m1-linux-perf https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m1-linux-perf - and while there were a few unsurprising macos wins, there also were some (far fewer) linux wins. I think the benchmark is very interesting for what it is. Despite limitations, it _is_ informative. You can't always get a shrinkwrapped answer to whatever question you really have; so extra data-points such as this are helpful. You know what they say: there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks. Or something like that; caveat lector anyhow.

viraptor 4y ago
> You know what they say: there are lies, damn lies, and benchmarks. Also, all benchmarks flawed, some are useful. This one is definitely useful.
hajile 4y ago
15-20w is never the peak TDP. They will actually hit as much as 50-60w with minimal GPU usage just from trying to hit that insane clockspeed. M1 maxed out at 22w according to Anandtech and the max shouldn't be too much different for the M2.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  [citation needed]
- mkopec 4y ago
  That's Intel's boost behavior, AMD is much more linear. My 4750U in performance mode never exceeds 25W and settles at 23W under sustained load.
  - hajile 4y ago
    What device is that chip in and at what frequencies is it running (by number of cores in use)?
    - mkopec 4y ago
      Lenovo ThinkPad Gen1 AMD, Arch Linux, acpi platform_profile = performance When running stress-ng, measured with turbostat: - 4.18 GHz single thread consuming 9W - 3 GHz 16 threads consuming 25W, ramping down to 2.94 / 23W after a couple of seconds and when compiling Linux on 16 threads it stays at 2.85 GHz / 23W In performance mode it does run at 80 degC under sustained load, so usually when undocked I just leave it in balanced mode where it's capped at 20W short / 15W long Also worth noting is that in low-power mode (11W / 11W) it'll still hit max single core frequency possible.
- 4y ago

darkwater 4y ago

> 4. They are using Asahi Linux on the M2.[2] To you and all the rest saying the same: do you really think that when trying to judge a processor speed you should run benchmarks with different OSes? So, why not benchmark Lenovo + Windows vs MacBook + macOS? Those are the most sold configurations for both laptops, no? To me, it makes sense try to compare the raw HW with the same layer of software, unless there is some big glaring missing feature in Linux, inhibiting the use of some HW capability of the M2 processor.

lazyier 4y ago
It's a Linux website. They are not interested in the performance of the CPU with Windows or Mac OS. As far as the mismatched CPU and whatnot... These are the same sort of CPUs that you can get in the same form factor at around the same price. So the comparison is valid. The only thing suspect is the 8 vs 16GB of RAM. But since these are CPU-bound benchmarks I don't know how much of a actual difference that will make.
- nh2 4y ago
  > They are not interested in the performance of the CPU with Windows or Mac OS. Phoronix regularly benchmarks across OSs. Type "Windows" into the search bar in the top right. Example: https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-mid22adl https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-linux-mid22adl The memory difference might be addressed with the `mem=8G` Linux kernel boot parameter.
411111111111111 4y ago
Usually these comments are by people that are angry that their preferred choice didn't win the benchmark and try to find a rationale to invalidate the finding. Considering the context, they probably wanted apple to clearly win and not just be basically on par or slightly behind. Often these people aren't even aware of this themselves. I found the stats to be missing the most important datapoint for laptops however. If performance/wattage is irrelevant you really don't need a laptop after all, and they're even using the low energy /underperforming ryzen chipset... I know they couldn't get the data from the drivers on Linux, unfortunate nonetheless.

bnieuwen 4y ago

Are we sure this is actually 4 cores and not a reporting error? AFAICT with some surface Googling Apple doesn't sell the M2 with cores disabled does it? Also 4 cores 8 threads is suspicious given that AFAIU the M2 doesn't have SMT. So you'd have 4 big and 4 little cores for 8 total. (at which point I think that part is fair. This is a chip to chip, not an uarch to uarch comparison)

wmf 4y ago
They're just ignoring the efficiency cores. They are definitely there.

jackmott42 4y ago

1. The RAM doesn't matter in any of those benchmarks 2. The Ryzen is 6nm the M2 is 5nm 3. Ryzen specs list TDP at 15W-28W

google234123 4y ago
TDP is a pretty fake spec usually. I’m pretty sure the processors can use twice as much power
- nicolaslem 4y ago
  This is kind of true for desktop and maybe high end laptops but here we're talking about a chip for ultrabooks. Those laptop designs don't have a lot of headroom for cooling and power delivery. The listed spec is accurate. Note that it is possible to basically overclock the chip and raise this limit up to around 50W for the combo GPU/CPU if you really want to. This requires enhancing the cooler as shown in [0] and no OEM does that out of the box. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6D6NT5rGyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6D6NT5rGyk

kllrnohj 4y ago

> The Ryzen setup has 3x the power envelope (in watts) as the M2[1] TDP does not represent the power envelope of the chips. It's the sustained load target at best, but mostly even that is kinda made up and the rules don't matter. But for any short (where short is less than a minute or even 5 minutes) burst, that TDP figure is completely irrelevant. Nothing respects it. Also for single threaded tasks, neither one is even going to pull that high. You have to compare actual power used during the specific test in question to make any such comparison. Otherwise trying to judge power consumption by looking at TDP is like trying to judge performance by only looking at clock speeds. Within the same manufacturers same generation you can kinda infer something useful. Other than that? Not a chance.

Retric 4y ago
For small differences in TDP you kind of have a point, but 3x is relevant far more quickly.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  But again it's not. TDP isn't a defined thing. There's no standard for it. It's literally a made up value by the SoC manufacturer, and in the case of laptops the laptop manufacturer even gets to fiddle with it. That said in this case it is a small difference regardless. The 6850U's TDP per AMD's spec is 15W-28W. That's bang on the same as M2 basically. There's no 3x difference here. Unless there is because again TDP is a made up number with no formal definition.
  - hajile 4y ago
    M1/M2 use around 20-22w MAX in CPU-only tests. AMD and Intel chips usually max out at around 50-60w real-world power. That's hardly apples to apples..
    - kllrnohj 4y ago
      > AMD and Intel chips usually max out at around 50-60w real-world power. That's a sweepingly broad claim that's not at all well supported. AMD & Intel both make CPUs that top out far below 50-60w real-world power and also top out far, far above 50-60W real-world power. From a different review of the same CPU (didn't check if same laptop, could be though) "The Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U with the Linux 5.18 kernel had a 18.4 Watt average (or 16.6 Watt average with Linux 5.19 Git) while the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U average on Linux 5.18 was up at 21.96 Watts." https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-6850u/8 https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-6850u/8 So no, this isn't a 50-60W real-world power CPU. That's the non-U SKUs. But if this AMD was a 50-60W CPU that'd exactly prove my point that TDP is a stupid number to compare and you always, always have to look at actual power consumption used (which this M2 vs. 6850U didn't do because as noted briefly in the intro power monitoring of the M2 doesn't work on Asahi yet)

Retr0id 4y ago

> it would also be an indication of the progress of Asahi Linux. Other than power management support, the progress of Asahi doesn't really impact CPU performance. > Asahi Linux is super cool, but most M2 chips in the wild are not running it. So it's not a useful comparison. Clearly this is aimed at an audience who wants to run Asahi. It's a perfectly useful comparison for that. Prices weren't mentioned, but I suspect the prices of the two systems being benchmarked were similar. (Edit: I take that back, the AMD system looks considerably more expensive - it would be interesting to see a more price-matched comparison) Maybe these benchmarks aren't useful for you personally, but I think a lot of people (myself included) consider it to be an interesting and useful comparison.

thathndude 4y ago

I'm no fanboy (but, admittedly, a Mac user), but this was a pretty rough comparison. Linux can't make use of half of the specialized chips and functions in the M2. I suppose, if someone needed an article to learn that M2 hardware isn't needed for linux, you have your confirmation. But was that ever in question?

viraptor 4y ago
What do you mean by specialised chips and functions? The tests here are running pretty generic code where there's no M2 magic that could speed them up. The unsupported hardware in Asahi currently is just extra hardware, not the basic CPU operation. Then again, there are some features supported by Asahi but not macos https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1556297295838453760 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1556297295838453760
- hajile 4y ago
  My understanding is that using the XCode compiler and libraries means that your could could very much wind up using co-processors that other compilers and codebases aren't aware of and aren't able to take advantage of.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    Absolutely not. The M architecture with their Firestorm and Icestorm cores are basically a big.LITTLE architecture. Some cores are made for low power, energy efficient work with a lower frequency, while others are made to run at full blast. There are no magic coprocessors to run on. The goal of the benchmark is to run the two exact same binaries, not to make one that uses all of Apple's ARM extensions and one with AVX-512 to see who can go fastest in the best conditions.
    - hajile 4y ago
      This isn't strictly true. Apple has other co-processors and some custom instructions (eg, matrix instructions). If you use their compiler and code, they can offload some calls to these while if you used another compiler and different libraries, these co-processors will be completely unused in all cases.

pornel 4y ago

OTOH 8GB RAM is Apple's own self-inflicted limitation. Why should the other CPU be given artificially less RAM only because Apple chose a design that limits how much RAM their chip can use?

yakubin 4y ago
M2 is not limited to 8GB. 8GB is only the base Macbook Air M2 model. You can buy one with 16 or 24GB. Most people who buy 8GB Macs these days complain about performance, while people with 16GB praise it.
- hef19898 4y ago
  And there I am with a Lenovo sporting 64 GB of RAM...
  - yakubin 4y ago
    I haven't written my comment in the spirit of entering a competition of who can get more RAM, but in the spirit that the Phoronix benchmark compares completely different computers, one with 8GB, the other with 16GB of RAM and gives a title suggesting that it's a comparison between chips, when the chip with 8GB isn't limited to 8GB. They could have gone for the 16GB option and made the comparison more honest. The chip doesn't have any such limitation.
    - viraptor 4y ago
      The apps they use for comparison are limited by the CPU performance not memory size, so 8/16 shouldn't matter here. Unless you can point at something that's likely losing due to swapping?
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  That is, however, an artifact of how Apple is pricing the models. The price difference between 8GB and 16GB is $200. This is absurd -- there's no way the added cost in ram is more than $50 for them and due to their market position and massive volume, it's probably quite a bit below that.

rovr138 4y ago

The MBA M2 has been shown to throttle itself vs the MBP running M2. So, it's not a comparison of the processors. If they selected them based on price point, form factor or something else, then that should be stated.

phkahler 4y ago

>> The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores That may explain why is crushes Apple on some benchmarks. I wonder what causes Apple to crush Ryzen on other ones. This was the strangest comparison I've ever seen with large wins going to both contenders.

minimaul 4y ago
With cross-arch benchmarks like this, you find a lot of software that has hyper-optimised x86_64 implementations does better on AMD/Intel because of that. It skews the numbers and makes a good comparison really annoying to do, unless you do your own comparison on your own workloads.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  The exact same binary saw crushing victors in different directions, though, depending on what it was testing. Look at the GNU Radio results for example.
  - minimaul 4y ago
    It's not the exact same binary - that's the point. It is different instruction sets, with potentially different optimisations. They're even compiled with different compilers - what looks like a GCC 12.1.1 snapshot for x86, and GCC 12.1.0 for ARM64. It might be the same C, it might have hand-coded assembly for important bits in x86 but not in ARM, or vice versa, it might be just one specific algorithm executes particularly well on one CPU rather than the other, it might be that the slightly different version of GCC did a new optimisation. edit: they're also comparing an actively cooled laptop to a passive one - so you would expect M2 to throttle in longer benchmarks, for extra distortion. The methodology is flawed. It lets you cherry pick some individual results, and if your particular usecase is in there, great. But you don't know what state the M2 was in when a test started (eg if it was already hot and throttling, etc). It's basically impossible to draw any useful generalised conclusions from these benchmarks.
    - 4y ago

nbf_1995 4y ago

> Apple M2 (Linux/8gb/4c) This is an error on Phoronix's part. The M2 has 8 physical cores with no SMT which makes it 8c/8t. You can see all 8 cores in the die shots https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-architecture https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-ar...

GeekyBear 4y ago
>The M2 has 8 physical cores 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.
- nbf_1995 4y ago
  Correct. I should have specified in my comment
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
While it technically has 8 cores, you can only use 4 at a time, so it's in most cases more correct to think of it as having 4 cores.
- nbf_1995 4y ago
  This is not the case. All 8 physical cores of the M1/2 can be utilized simultaneously, since each is a full physical core, independent of the others. The statement about only being able to use 4 at a time is true of threads, such as those found on SMT enabled processors that have core/thread counts like 4c/8t. In those systems, the threads share logic and decoding circuitry with each other, which would make your statement correct. You can see this in the M2 die shots. Both banks of 4 cores are in separate areas of the die. https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-architecture https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-m2-die-shot-and-ar... (edit): Granted 4 of the cores are lower powered "efficiency" cores, this is by no means equivalent to having just 4 cores
- olliej 4y ago
  The hardware doesn’t have such a restriction, is there software/kernel issue you’re referring to?

whalesalad 4y ago

The M2 air with the smaller SSD configuration (tested here) is also at a big performance disadvantage from all the other models with bigger disks[1]. AFAIK it is due to the low end config coming with a single physical chip for the disk, where other configs have two and can do dual channel. It also has no active cooling - apparently more performance can be squeezed out of it by disassembling and applying nerdcore thermal paste. - 1. https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/m2-macbook-pro-slower-ssd/ https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/26/m2-macbook-pro-slower-ssd/

olliej 4y ago
But it’s still a fair comparison in that this is the performance you will get.
- whalesalad 4y ago
  As the owner of an M1 and M2 machine, I am really impressed with Ryzen.

pdpi 4y ago

It all makes a lot more sense if you remember that this is Phoronix we're talking about. This is the rest of today's posts: * Radeon ROCm 5.2.3 Released (...) * Mesa 22.2-rc3 Released (...) * [bootloader project] Updated With Improved SMBIOS Support * GCC 12.2 Compiler Released With 70+ Bug Fixes They're a Linux-centric outlet through and through, and the Phoronix Test Suite (the benchmark they're running) is Linux-based. Of course they're running the benchmarks on Linux, that's whole point! As for the hardware, the Air is just the entry level model, and AFAICT the X13 they're using is roughly the same price as the Air. About as fair a comparison as you could make it. They also specifically call out the power thing: > Due to the Apple M2 currently lacking any power/temperature sensor support under Linux, this is simply looking at the raw performance of the M2 and Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U with not being able to accurately compare the M2 power efficiency / performance-per-Watt at this time. It's important to look at the context: Lenovo laptops have been a staple in the Linux world for a long time, and people in the Linux world are genuinely excited about the Apple Silicon laptops, hell even Linus is running Asahi. For the target audience, this comparison is exactly the benchmark they want.

deleted 4y ago
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paulmd 4y ago
> They also specifically call out the power thing: saying "we can't measure the power on M2" isn't the same thing as pointing out that in broad terms the M2 is only using 1/3 of the power of the 6850U. These are really different power classes and yeah, you'd expect the processor with triple the power budget to pull ahead. Triple isn't my number, but, Ryzen is allowed to boost extremely high during short tests like Phoronix is doing, where a MBA is always 15W max, period the end, even in max clock states.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  This is just completely false. You have no idea what the actual max power consumption of an MBA is. 15W is it's TDP, and various companies release chips that run at triple their TDP - including repeated by Apple in the past. Saying it's never going to exceed it's TDP is just blatantly ridiculous, and Phoronix were completely right in treating it as a useless number (which it is). The only reliable way to measure power draw is either to monitor the exact voltages and amperages on each power lane - which is not made available by Apple - or wire into the motherboard. Anything else is not serious, least of all taxing the TDP to its word.

themitigating 4y ago

Do those four affect the results of the benchmarks? What color was the laptop case?

zamalek 4y ago

> 1. The Ryzen setup has twice the ram > 2. The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores Why should this be held against the Ryzen? It was the competitive advantage that they had against Intel, and if Apple choose not to compete then it should be to their disadvantage. It's as ridiculous as this hypothetical argument: > 1. The M2 is arm64.

jakogut 4y ago

> The Ryzen setup has twice the ram CPU micro benchmarks aren't typically affected by memory quantity, especially at these levels. > The Ryzen setup has twice the cpu cores The Ryzen chip has eight homogeneous cores, the M2 has eight heterogeneous cores. [0] All else being equal, having high performance and low power cores in the same package _should_ result in better performance and efficiency. I do note that the machine specs in the article show the M2 as having 4c/8t, so I wonder if there's an SMP issue in Asahi on the M2 currently? They don't make it clear if this is the case, or why all eight cores aren't being reported/used. Doing some preliminary searching, it seems the M2 doesn't employ SMT, so perhaps this is misreported, or Asahi does something weird with scheduling. > The Ryzen setup has 3x the power envelope (in watts) as the M2 > Ryzen 46w (not sure if this includes the GPU) The 6850U is reported by the manufacturer as having a configurable TDP of 15-28W [1]. I believe this is total package power usage, so using either the CPU or GPU would allow better performance than maxing out both, and this probably applies to both chips. Some board/laptop manufacturers will also extend these limits, especially when plugged in, and design their cooling solutions to handle the increased power usage accordingly. Intel, for example, has published a TDP of 125W for some chips that can consume up to 230W while boosting [2]. I'm curious what both of these pull from the battery under load. I would expect the M2 to be more efficient, being manufactured on a newer, denser node. > They are using Asahi Linux on the M2. Any other comparison would be wholly meaningless. You (probably) can't run macOS on a Ryzen 6850U. Running benchmarks built by different compilers to run on different kernels wouldn't really be comparing the same thing. In the end, this benchmark, while interesting, measures what it measures. The results should be taken with a grain of salt, and should not be extrapolated to predict the performance of other applications on these platforms. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2 [1] https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-pro-6850u https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-pro-6850u [2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16495/intel-rocket-lake-14nm-review-11900k-11700k-11600k/5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16495/intel-rocket-lake-14nm-...

_pigpen__ 4y ago

What is the state of compiler optimization for Apple Silicon under Linux? I’ll wager it’s far less mature than amd64. Indeed the whole point of Apple Silicon is its deep integration with macOS. These benchmarks are interesting, but of little practical value. No sane person should make system purchase decision solely based on this.

etempleton 4y ago

First thing I thought as well. I don't see any value in this comparison. These processors are consuming vastly different amounts of power. Not only that, but they are using a passively cooled Macbook Air (ultraportable) and a nearly twice as thick, actively cooled Lenovo X13. They are not even price equivalent: The base price of the X13 is $1,800 compared to $1,200 for the M2 Macbook Air. And they aren't even comparing base model to base model. They are comparing base model Macbook Air to a ~$2,500 X13 Lenovo that has been upgraded with additional memory and the faster processor. So the Lenovo is twice as expensive, uses twice as much power, is actively vs passively cooled, and is twice as thick. What are we comparing?

minimaul 4y ago

It's not even running the same compiler (x86 is a GCC 12.1.1 snapshot, ARM64 is GCC 12.1.0), so even before you get to some of these tests having hand optimised x86 codepaths, you're already potentially skewed. No, I don't expect it accounts for the differences, but there's a ton of procedural flaws in this benchmark that make using the results for any purpose very tricky. The other one that really concerns me is that the M2 was tested in the MBA. The MBA is thermally constrained and throttles. They have zero data on what temperatures it was (because it's not implemented yet!) so they don't know when/if the MBA was throttling in each test. The M2 MBP would have been a better comparison. I'm wary of trying to draw any useful conclusions from this article about the M2's general performance vs the new Ryzen 6xxx lineup, the methodology is just too flawed.

michaelmrose 4y ago

The RAM difference probably isn't material to tasks which use less than the 8GB involved, the power envelope is part of the difference between the parts involved, and the m2 mac air has 8 cores. Not sure where they would have bought hardware that never existed like a 4c m2. If one wanted to know what the difference in performance per watt or per core it would be useful to constrain the matter but that isn't the most useful question for measuring performance. Honestly I think the important takeaway is that both chips are in the same ballpark.

sudosysgen 4y ago

Sorry but this is completely fair. Despite the Ryzen system having far more resources on paper, they're going to be pretty similar on price and on silicon area. I don't see how Asahi is going to limit performance in those benchmarks. TDP is a complete garbage metric and doesn't mean anything. I think this is a more than fair comparison. They are both the high end, low power chips.

rldjbpin 4y ago

this is a straightforward, real-world use case for two systems. while memory could have been set equal perhaps, even doing so would not make it all even. you are only focusing on capacity while ignoring memory speed/timings and channel. if Apple can advertise their findings and compare to desktop CPUs, then the TDP debate is completely pointless. moreover, each chip maker has their own way of calculating what they call "TDP". to the intended reader (Linux users), this is a great guide to decide which options works best from actual performance standpoint.