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> Do you people honestly believe we can have a real discussion about CPUs on HN? It's not just CPUs, feels like many discussions related to personal computing

by bakugo 3y ago

> Do you people honestly believe we can have a real discussion about CPUs on HN? It's not just CPUs, feels like many discussions related to personal computing in general get hijacked into Apple discussions, likely because there's many people here desperate to rationalize their purchase of mediocre hardware at a 10x markup.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Agree that Apple fanboys hijacking all CPU threads are indeed annoying (along with the TSMC and ASML chip hipsters) and I wish moderators would handle this so we could enjoy on-topic discussion without the usual "my M1 is so good, every other non-M1 CPU is now pointless" spam, but I think it's also that people would like to have Apple's M1 level of performance and efficiency from other vendors of more open systems and not be conditioned of always buying into the Apple ecosystem for it, which we know isn't gonna happen, as nobody else is as vertically integrated and has the market share and profit margins of Apple to pull off a X86 to ARM transition for consumers like Apple did, nor is there any standardized ARM platform yet, like the trinational IBM PC clones were, where you can just plug in an extern GPU. The transition to ARM will happen first in the server/cloud space, but consumer will have to wait much longer for it to reach PCs, if it ever does, as X86 is also making progress.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > X86 to ARM transition for consumers Apple did. > ARM will happen first in the server/cloud space, but consumer will have to wait much longer. It's not obvious to me that this is somehow inevitable. Yeah power efficiency wise Apple is ahead currently. But are there any reasons AMD/Intel why wouldn't be able to catch up and surpass Apple in a generation or two?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Not while Apple is the main investor in TSMCs leading edge nodes, plus, X86 still has a lot of backwards compatibility cruft keeping it back. Eventually the gap will narrow as Apple already picked the lowest hanging fruits with the M1 design, and as we saw the jump to M2 was no longer as impressive, so we just have to wait.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > Not while Apple is the main investor in TSMCs It's not inconceivable that Intel might catch up and surpass TSMC. I mean they were in a somewhat similar situation they are in now back in the early to mid 2000s.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        Maybe, maybe not, maybe Samsung ups their game, who knows, nobody can predict what will happen with semi fab players and their processes in the distant future, it's all just speculation at this point.
        ac29 3y ago
        If you believe Intel, the "distant future" is 2025. Thats when they say they will take fab process leadership. Of course, you should take what any company says about future timelines with some degree of skepticism, but Intel isnt that far behind currently and the first product on their next node (Intel 4) is being launched next month.
qwytw 3y ago
> desperate to rationalize their purchase of mediocre hardware at a 10x markup Are silly claims like this necessary? Yes, Apple massively overcharges on memory and storage upgrades because their users obviously have no other options... But besides Macs are pretty good value if you're prioritizing battery life, slimness and fan sound. I guess latest XPS 15/17 are fairly competitive with MBP 14/16. Especially if you don't care about battery life and heat that much, the 13700H/ 13900H seem to be on par with the M2 Pro/Max. The base price is up to $500 lower and you get replaceable RAM (also slower) and 2 m2 slots. However I don't think there is anything that's close the the M2 Air on the market atm?
- re-thc 3y ago
  > I guess latest XPS 15/17 are fairly competitive with MBP 14/16. Nah, there's been a history of poor QA and just general poor build issues. Have they fixed the coil whine yet? It's still there last I checked.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > I don't think there is anything that's close the the M2 Air on the market atm? I will be "that guy"; the original M1 Macbook Air struggled to compete with the Ryzen 4800u at launch. Current Ryzen mobile chips put up very well against the M2, considering the architecture gap: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/1604691 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/1604691 This is the sort of discussion the grandparent comment was lamenting though. Honest-to-god, none of this matters; dev shops will use whatever they need at the end of the day. Infecting the discussion with pedestrian "muh ARM revolution" comments always ruins it though. I like ARM for reading e-books as much as the next guy, but server use is a whole different discussion. Even mentioning Apple's consumer offerings is a punch-line like saying you want to beat OpenAI using consumer-grade GPUs. They exist in the ARM space, but they could not be any less-present in the server one. Their relationship to the topic at-hand is fraught and near non-existent if it weren't for their history of failure with Xserve.

by bakugo 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Agree that Apple fanboys hijacking all CPU threads are indeed annoying (along with the TSMC and ASML chip hipsters) and I wish moderators would handle this so we could enjoy on-topic discussion without the usual "my M1 is so good, every other non-M1 CPU is now pointless" spam, but I think it's also that people would like to have Apple's M1 level of performance and efficiency from other vendors of more open systems and not be conditioned of always buying into the Apple ecosystem for it, which we know isn't gonna happen, as nobody else is as vertically integrated and has the market share and profit margins of Apple to pull off a X86 to ARM transition for consumers like Apple did, nor is there any standardized ARM platform yet, like the trinational IBM PC clones were, where you can just plug in an extern GPU. The transition to ARM will happen first in the server/cloud space, but consumer will have to wait much longer for it to reach PCs, if it ever does, as X86 is also making progress.

qwytw 3y ago
> X86 to ARM transition for consumers Apple did. > ARM will happen first in the server/cloud space, but consumer will have to wait much longer. It's not obvious to me that this is somehow inevitable. Yeah power efficiency wise Apple is ahead currently. But are there any reasons AMD/Intel why wouldn't be able to catch up and surpass Apple in a generation or two?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Not while Apple is the main investor in TSMCs leading edge nodes, plus, X86 still has a lot of backwards compatibility cruft keeping it back. Eventually the gap will narrow as Apple already picked the lowest hanging fruits with the M1 design, and as we saw the jump to M2 was no longer as impressive, so we just have to wait.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > Not while Apple is the main investor in TSMCs It's not inconceivable that Intel might catch up and surpass TSMC. I mean they were in a somewhat similar situation they are in now back in the early to mid 2000s.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Maybe, maybe not, maybe Samsung ups their game, who knows, nobody can predict what will happen with semi fab players and their processes in the distant future, it's all just speculation at this point.
      - ac29 3y ago
        If you believe Intel, the "distant future" is 2025. Thats when they say they will take fab process leadership. Of course, you should take what any company says about future timelines with some degree of skepticism, but Intel isnt that far behind currently and the first product on their next node (Intel 4) is being launched next month.

qwytw 3y ago

> desperate to rationalize their purchase of mediocre hardware at a 10x markup Are silly claims like this necessary? Yes, Apple massively overcharges on memory and storage upgrades because their users obviously have no other options... But besides Macs are pretty good value if you're prioritizing battery life, slimness and fan sound. I guess latest XPS 15/17 are fairly competitive with MBP 14/16. Especially if you don't care about battery life and heat that much, the 13700H/ 13900H seem to be on par with the M2 Pro/Max. The base price is up to $500 lower and you get replaceable RAM (also slower) and 2 m2 slots. However I don't think there is anything that's close the the M2 Air on the market atm?

re-thc 3y ago
> I guess latest XPS 15/17 are fairly competitive with MBP 14/16. Nah, there's been a history of poor QA and just general poor build issues. Have they fixed the coil whine yet? It's still there last I checked.
smoldesu 3y ago
> I don't think there is anything that's close the the M2 Air on the market atm? I will be "that guy"; the original M1 Macbook Air struggled to compete with the Ryzen 4800u at launch. Current Ryzen mobile chips put up very well against the M2, considering the architecture gap: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-2022 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/1604691 https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/1604691 This is the sort of discussion the grandparent comment was lamenting though. Honest-to-god, none of this matters; dev shops will use whatever they need at the end of the day. Infecting the discussion with pedestrian "muh ARM revolution" comments always ruins it though. I like ARM for reading e-books as much as the next guy, but server use is a whole different discussion. Even mentioning Apple's consumer offerings is a punch-line like saying you want to beat OpenAI using consumer-grade GPUs. They exist in the ARM space, but they could not be any less-present in the server one. Their relationship to the topic at-hand is fraught and near non-existent if it weren't for their history of failure with Xserve.