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Processor design isn't black voodoo. Its all configuration, most of which is now designed with CAD, and targeting particular use cases. Its kinda like the evol

Processor design isn't black voodoo. Its all configuration, most of which is now designed with CAD, and targeting particular use cases. Its kinda like the evolution of bitcoin mining-everyone was doing it with GPUs, AMDs were better because of some hardware optimization where they could hash something in less cycles, then people started making ASIC which are purpose built and the fastest possible way to run the necessary compute. There were no technical advancements here, just economic forces driving the design and manufacture of components that made making ASICs profitable. Apple did the same thing except they designed the chip and the computer as one, and they succeeded because it allowed them to optimize stuff further, and you see this in results where they are the leader but not by much, and often behind systems that are overclocked in single core performance. Power consumption on macs, also varies greatly depending on what you are running, which is again a result of optimization for particular use cases.

aurareturn 3y ago
The iPhone is the most profitable product in the world. It gets massive resources to design a new SoC every single year. That resource spills over to the M series which is just based on whatever the A series does that year. AMD does not have that.
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  And yet, despite the advantages if all the Apple silicon, its not being used to run the backbone of the web, while AMD and Intel are. Making something work well in general purpose is just as "advanced" as making something super optimized.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    Apple Silicon isn't designed to be server chips. The M1 team thought it was a good idea but management did not want to do it. So some of the team broke off and started Nuvia to design ARM chips for servers. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and that became the Qualcomm Oryon SoCs. Anyways, ARM chips are being used for the backbone of the internet. They're called Amazon Graviton chips. Ampere Computing also has ARM server chips. So do many Chinese hyperscalers.

aurareturn 3y ago

The iPhone is the most profitable product in the world. It gets massive resources to design a new SoC every single year. That resource spills over to the M series which is just based on whatever the A series does that year. AMD does not have that.

ActorNightly 3y ago
And yet, despite the advantages if all the Apple silicon, its not being used to run the backbone of the web, while AMD and Intel are. Making something work well in general purpose is just as "advanced" as making something super optimized.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  Apple Silicon isn't designed to be server chips. The M1 team thought it was a good idea but management did not want to do it. So some of the team broke off and started Nuvia to design ARM chips for servers. Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and that became the Qualcomm Oryon SoCs. Anyways, ARM chips are being used for the backbone of the internet. They're called Amazon Graviton chips. Ampere Computing also has ARM server chips. So do many Chinese hyperscalers.