3 ms·

The newer AMD chips have already caught up in terms of performance/efficiency. Software is more of a challenge.

conradev 3y ago
At both ends of the spectrum? My intuition is that on the low end they’d take a hit in efficiency by not having low-power cores to schedule background tasks onto like Intel and ARM have been pushing
- incrudible 3y ago
  Fair point. They do have efficiency cores (Zen4c) in some of the latest mobile and server chips. However, even when they do have dedicated efficiency cores, it's not clear that this would be a major advantage in the Windows software landscape.
ahoka 3y ago
What do you mean?
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Any modern CPU, made within the past 5 years or so (perhaps longer), is plenty fast, but the software either doesn't take advantage of that speed, or is does so in a very wrong way. There is no reason for Windows to be sluggish on any mid-range CPU or up, yet here we are. I should not, I haven't used Windows for a good while, but I see demos and people are amazed by the speed of which windows open and coming from the Mac or a light weight Linux desktop, I can't say that I'm impressed. Apple still holds the advantage that they just need to target a very small set of hardware configurations, all of which they have designed and control. It does still allow them to build the most pleasant desktop experience of all the current offering, even with less amazing hardware (mostly their GPU). But this is HN, what people probably mean is: LLM are still better with an Nvidia GPU and neither Apples nor AMDs APIs and libraries are as good as Nvidias CUDA.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    >It does still allow them to build the most pleasant desktop experience of all the current offering I wouldn't call MacOs desktop experience as most pleasant. Not if you are a power user.
    - Longlius 3y ago
      In what way? Can you elaborate? From a poweruser PoV, the only complaint I have with MacOS is its lackluster tiling support which I need to install separate applications to fix.
      - fulladder 3y ago
        What do you use or recommend for tiling?
  - ahoka 3y ago
    I don’t experience this difference with Windows vs Mac performance. Actually my desktop machine is much faster in most tasks than the similar vintage M1 Macbook Pro I use for work. Probably mostly due to faster storage in the desktop.
DeathArrow 3y ago
Which laptop with AMD CPU I can use to watch movies for 20 hours or browse the Internet for the same amount of time without recharging? I am not an Apple or MacOs fan but I recently bought a MacBook Pro just for battery life. So I can watch movies and browse the Internet on the sofa without having to plug the laptop.
- incrudible 3y ago
  If you benchmark the AMD 7xxx series aganst the Apple chips while considering their power budget, AMD is on par or on top. Battery life is strongly tied to software though, and here Apple has the upper hand. However, if you use Chrome vs Safari, you will notice degraded battery life on Mac OS too.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    I use Edge and I can browse the Internet for about 20 hours.
  - TheCapeGreek 3y ago
    > However, if you use Chrome vs Safari, you will notice degraded battery life on Mac OS too. Still way better than non-M chips. I've done the runaround and used Safari, Orion, Chrome, Arc, and back to Firefox on my M1 MBP. Some are better than others, but the machine overall is still superior.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  The ASUS ZenBook 14 has been tested to have about 18 hours of battery life for basic web browsing [1]. In the same test the 2020 MacBook Air 13" only scored about 14 hours. The Zenbook also easily beat the M1 in multicore performance, though single core is still where Apple shines. Unfortunately, this test didn't include a more recent Macbook, so I can't tell how it stacks up against the M3. Still, for about €500 less than the M2 Air, I know what I would pick. The 1600p screen and the soldered-on memory is a bit of a downside, but the thing sells for less than half the price of a new M2 Macbook Air when you actually configure it with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage; whatever improvements the M2 chip made don't seem all that interesting for that price difference. Based on their historical data [2] for another guide, the Zenbook also seems to beat the M2 in terms of multi core performance and browsing battery life when recorded in another test, but I can't tell if those numbers are representative. [1]: https://tweakers.net/reviews/11472/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-oktober-2023-thin-en-lights-tot-1000-euro.html https://tweakers.net/reviews/11472/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-o... [2]: https://tweakers.net/reviews/11610/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-december-2023-instap-macbook-air-m1-m2-of-pro-m3.html https://tweakers.net/reviews/11610/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-d...

At both ends of the spectrum? My intuition is that on the low end they’d take a hit in efficiency by not having low-power cores to schedule background tasks onto like Intel and ARM have been pushing

incrudible 3y ago
Fair point. They do have efficiency cores (Zen4c) in some of the latest mobile and server chips. However, even when they do have dedicated efficiency cores, it's not clear that this would be a major advantage in the Windows software landscape.

ahoka 3y ago

What do you mean?

mrweasel 3y ago
Any modern CPU, made within the past 5 years or so (perhaps longer), is plenty fast, but the software either doesn't take advantage of that speed, or is does so in a very wrong way. There is no reason for Windows to be sluggish on any mid-range CPU or up, yet here we are. I should not, I haven't used Windows for a good while, but I see demos and people are amazed by the speed of which windows open and coming from the Mac or a light weight Linux desktop, I can't say that I'm impressed. Apple still holds the advantage that they just need to target a very small set of hardware configurations, all of which they have designed and control. It does still allow them to build the most pleasant desktop experience of all the current offering, even with less amazing hardware (mostly their GPU). But this is HN, what people probably mean is: LLM are still better with an Nvidia GPU and neither Apples nor AMDs APIs and libraries are as good as Nvidias CUDA.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >It does still allow them to build the most pleasant desktop experience of all the current offering I wouldn't call MacOs desktop experience as most pleasant. Not if you are a power user.
  - Longlius 3y ago
    In what way? Can you elaborate? From a poweruser PoV, the only complaint I have with MacOS is its lackluster tiling support which I need to install separate applications to fix.
    - fulladder 3y ago
      What do you use or recommend for tiling?
- ahoka 3y ago
  I don’t experience this difference with Windows vs Mac performance. Actually my desktop machine is much faster in most tasks than the similar vintage M1 Macbook Pro I use for work. Probably mostly due to faster storage in the desktop.

DeathArrow 3y ago

Which laptop with AMD CPU I can use to watch movies for 20 hours or browse the Internet for the same amount of time without recharging? I am not an Apple or MacOs fan but I recently bought a MacBook Pro just for battery life. So I can watch movies and browse the Internet on the sofa without having to plug the laptop.

incrudible 3y ago
If you benchmark the AMD 7xxx series aganst the Apple chips while considering their power budget, AMD is on par or on top. Battery life is strongly tied to software though, and here Apple has the upper hand. However, if you use Chrome vs Safari, you will notice degraded battery life on Mac OS too.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  I use Edge and I can browse the Internet for about 20 hours.
- TheCapeGreek 3y ago
  > However, if you use Chrome vs Safari, you will notice degraded battery life on Mac OS too. Still way better than non-M chips. I've done the runaround and used Safari, Orion, Chrome, Arc, and back to Firefox on my M1 MBP. Some are better than others, but the machine overall is still superior.
jeroenhd 3y ago
The ASUS ZenBook 14 has been tested to have about 18 hours of battery life for basic web browsing [1]. In the same test the 2020 MacBook Air 13" only scored about 14 hours. The Zenbook also easily beat the M1 in multicore performance, though single core is still where Apple shines. Unfortunately, this test didn't include a more recent Macbook, so I can't tell how it stacks up against the M3. Still, for about €500 less than the M2 Air, I know what I would pick. The 1600p screen and the soldered-on memory is a bit of a downside, but the thing sells for less than half the price of a new M2 Macbook Air when you actually configure it with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage; whatever improvements the M2 chip made don't seem all that interesting for that price difference. Based on their historical data [2] for another guide, the Zenbook also seems to beat the M2 in terms of multi core performance and browsing battery life when recorded in another test, but I can't tell if those numbers are representative. [1]: https://tweakers.net/reviews/11472/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-oktober-2023-thin-en-lights-tot-1000-euro.html https://tweakers.net/reviews/11472/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-o... [2]: https://tweakers.net/reviews/11610/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-december-2023-instap-macbook-air-m1-m2-of-pro-m3.html https://tweakers.net/reviews/11610/4/laptop-best-buy-guide-d...