4 ms·

> I feel like Apple kind of buried this in their press release The press release describes the single core performance as the fastest ever made, full stop: "T

by giobox 2y ago

> I feel like Apple kind of buried this in their press release The press release describes the single core performance as the fastest ever made, full stop: "The M4 family features phenomenal single-threaded CPU performance with the world’s fastest CPU core" The same statement is made repeatedly across most the new M4 line up marketing materials. I think thats enough to get the point across that its a pretty quick machine.

the_king 2y ago
Exactly my point. Saying something is the fastest ever is marketing code (at least to me) for minor improvement over the previous generation. If you're 30% faster than the previous generation, I'd rather see that because my assumption is it's 5%.
- bluSCALE4 2y ago
  Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference.
  - Atotalnoob 2y ago
    Not really fair to the absolutely ancient i7 Intel Macs.
    - KerrAvon 2y ago
      6 years ago isn't that old.
      - Atotalnoob 2y ago
        For cpus? Yes?
        metadat 2y ago
        Not really. Intel CPU performance hasn't changed by orders of magnitude in the last ten years. My ten year old Windoze 10 desktop keeps chugging along fine. My newer 2022 i7 Windows machine works similarly well. However, attention to keeping Intel Macs performant has taken a dive. My 2019 16" MBP died last week so I fell back to my standby 2014 MBP and it's much more responsive. No login jank pause . But it also hasn't been eligible for OS updates for 2 or 3 years. My new M3 MBP is "screaming fast" with Apple's latest patched OS. My god, it's ridiculous. I really prefer Linux desktops. They've been snappy for the past 30 years, and don't typically get slow UI's after a year or two of updates.
        vel0city 2y ago
        Core i7 6700K was released in August 2015. 4c/8t 4.2GHz. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88195/intel-core-i7-6700k-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88195/i... Core i7 14700K was released in Q4 2023. 8 P-core, 12 E-core, 28 threads. ~5.5GHz for Performance-core max frequency. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/intel-core-i7-processor-14700k-33m-cache-up-to-5-60-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/... This is the same CPU tier, just a later generation. Passmark scores: 6700K: 8,929 14700K: 53,263 Yeah, that's practically the same performance. But hey, that newer i7 has way more cores. Let's pick something with a closer core count for a fairer comparison. Let's pick the Core i3-14100 with its 4C/8T with a turbo of 4.7GHz. Even then, its Passmark benchmark 15,050. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/intel-core-i7-processor-14700k-33m-cache-up-to-5-60-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/... https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2565vs5719vs5831/Intel-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-i7-14700K-vs-Intel-i3-14100 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2565vs5719vs5831/Intel-... I get it, an old CPU can still be useful. I'm still using an Ivy Bridge CPU for a server in my closet hosting various services for my home, but it is vastly slower than my Ryzen 7 3700x on my current gaming desktop and was even slower than the previous Ryzen 5 2600 I had before and sold to a friend.
      - zamadatix 2y ago
        Not even, they are referring to the 2020 model: > Results are compared to previous-generation 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD. Matches https://support.apple.com/en-us/111339 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111339
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    I think the point is to try to convince MacBook users who haven't looked to upgrade yet rather than something trying to make a comparison to other non-mac models you could buy today. From that perspective it's perfectly valid, even if it doesn't tick the boxes of what others might want from a different comparison perspective.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference. The last Intel macbook pros were released 4 years ago. Their owners are starting to shop around for replacements. Their question will be "will the expense be worth it?"
- zamadatix 2y ago
  The article has all of the "x times faster than M1" notes but the video shows graphs with the M3 whenever they do that and it is usually ~1.2x in the CPU on that. I think it's probably a smart move this page (and the video) focused so much on 2x or greater performance increases from the M1 generation. After all, so what if it's 20% faster than the M3? As in: how many customers that weren't already interested in just buying the latest thing before reading your marketing material are you going to convince to upgrade from the M3 just because the M4 is ~20% faster vs trying to convince M1 users to upgrade because it's over twice as fast.
sfmike 2y ago
I maybe don't understand but isn't an intel at 5.5ghz faster in terms of bits processed then the 4.4ghz m4? wouldn't that be fastest as more data can be processed?
- zamadatix 2y ago
  GHz represents the number of cycles per second, not the number of bits actually processed per second. On different CPUs the same instruction can take a different number of cycles, a different number of the instruction can be in flight at the same time, a different number of several different instructions can be issued at once, a different amount of data can be pulled from cache to feed these instructions, a different quality of instruction reordering and branch prediction, and so on. As an example a single thread on an x64 core of an old Pentium 4 661 @ 3.6 GHz benchmarks at 315 with PassMark while a single x64 core of a current 285k @ 5.7 GHz turbo benchmarks at 5195. Some of that also comes down to things like newer RAM to feed the CPU but the vast majority comes down to the CPU calculating more bits per clock cycle.
  - sfmike 2y ago
    Thank you for a great comment and answer
resource_waste 2y ago
lol After decades of Apple, people still believe them.

by giobox 2y ago

the_king 2y ago

Exactly my point. Saying something is the fastest ever is marketing code (at least to me) for minor improvement over the previous generation. If you're 30% faster than the previous generation, I'd rather see that because my assumption is it's 5%.

bluSCALE4 2y ago
Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference.
- Atotalnoob 2y ago
  Not really fair to the absolutely ancient i7 Intel Macs.
  - KerrAvon 2y ago
    6 years ago isn't that old.
    - Atotalnoob 2y ago
      For cpus? Yes?
      - metadat 2y ago
        Not really. Intel CPU performance hasn't changed by orders of magnitude in the last ten years. My ten year old Windoze 10 desktop keeps chugging along fine. My newer 2022 i7 Windows machine works similarly well. However, attention to keeping Intel Macs performant has taken a dive. My 2019 16" MBP died last week so I fell back to my standby 2014 MBP and it's much more responsive. No login jank pause . But it also hasn't been eligible for OS updates for 2 or 3 years. My new M3 MBP is "screaming fast" with Apple's latest patched OS. My god, it's ridiculous. I really prefer Linux desktops. They've been snappy for the past 30 years, and don't typically get slow UI's after a year or two of updates.
        vel0city 2y ago
        Core i7 6700K was released in August 2015. 4c/8t 4.2GHz. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88195/intel-core-i7-6700k-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-20-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/88195/i... Core i7 14700K was released in Q4 2023. 8 P-core, 12 E-core, 28 threads. ~5.5GHz for Performance-core max frequency. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/intel-core-i7-processor-14700k-33m-cache-up-to-5-60-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/... This is the same CPU tier, just a later generation. Passmark scores: 6700K: 8,929 14700K: 53,263 Yeah, that's practically the same performance. But hey, that newer i7 has way more cores. Let's pick something with a closer core count for a fairer comparison. Let's pick the Core i3-14100 with its 4C/8T with a turbo of 4.7GHz. Even then, its Passmark benchmark 15,050. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/intel-core-i7-processor-14700k-33m-cache-up-to-5-60-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/236783/... https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2565vs5719vs5831/Intel-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-i7-14700K-vs-Intel-i3-14100 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2565vs5719vs5831/Intel-... I get it, an old CPU can still be useful. I'm still using an Ivy Bridge CPU for a server in my closet hosting various services for my home, but it is vastly slower than my Ryzen 7 3700x on my current gaming desktop and was even slower than the previous Ryzen 5 2600 I had before and sold to a friend.
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Not even, they are referring to the 2020 model: > Results are compared to previous-generation 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD. Matches https://support.apple.com/en-us/111339 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111339
- zamadatix 2y ago
  I think the point is to try to convince MacBook users who haven't looked to upgrade yet rather than something trying to make a comparison to other non-mac models you could buy today. From that perspective it's perfectly valid, even if it doesn't tick the boxes of what others might want from a different comparison perspective.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > Yeah, better than the glaring, 10x better than i7 Intel Mac. Like that's even a valid point of reference. The last Intel macbook pros were released 4 years ago. Their owners are starting to shop around for replacements. Their question will be "will the expense be worth it?"
zamadatix 2y ago
The article has all of the "x times faster than M1" notes but the video shows graphs with the M3 whenever they do that and it is usually ~1.2x in the CPU on that. I think it's probably a smart move this page (and the video) focused so much on 2x or greater performance increases from the M1 generation. After all, so what if it's 20% faster than the M3? As in: how many customers that weren't already interested in just buying the latest thing before reading your marketing material are you going to convince to upgrade from the M3 just because the M4 is ~20% faster vs trying to convince M1 users to upgrade because it's over twice as fast.

sfmike 2y ago

I maybe don't understand but isn't an intel at 5.5ghz faster in terms of bits processed then the 4.4ghz m4? wouldn't that be fastest as more data can be processed?

zamadatix 2y ago
GHz represents the number of cycles per second, not the number of bits actually processed per second. On different CPUs the same instruction can take a different number of cycles, a different number of the instruction can be in flight at the same time, a different number of several different instructions can be issued at once, a different amount of data can be pulled from cache to feed these instructions, a different quality of instruction reordering and branch prediction, and so on. As an example a single thread on an x64 core of an old Pentium 4 661 @ 3.6 GHz benchmarks at 315 with PassMark while a single x64 core of a current 285k @ 5.7 GHz turbo benchmarks at 5195. Some of that also comes down to things like newer RAM to feed the CPU but the vast majority comes down to the CPU calculating more bits per clock cycle.
- sfmike 2y ago
  Thank you for a great comment and answer

resource_waste 2y ago

lol After decades of Apple, people still believe them.