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I have been out of the PC world for a long time, but in terms of performance efficiency, is Apple running away from the competition? Or are AMD and Intel produc

I have been out of the PC world for a long time, but in terms of performance efficiency, is Apple running away from the competition? Or are AMD and Intel producing similar performing chips at the same wattage?

api 2y ago
There have always been higher performing x64 chips than the M series but they use several times more power to get that. Apple seems to be reliably annihilating everyone on performance per watt at the high end of the performance curve. It makes sense since the M series are mobile CPUs on ‘roids.
- MBCook 2y ago
  Irony being that’s the same thing Intel learned from the P4. They gave it up for Core, grown from their low power chips, which took them far further with far less power than the P4 would have used.
  - api 2y ago
    Since power is the limiting factor due to heat, optimize for power first then scale up.
LorenDB 2y ago
AMD's latest Strix Point mobile chips are on par with M3 silicon: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WKR0VHfJw https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WKR0VHfJw
- radicalbyte 2y ago
  I was looking into this recently as my M1 Max screen suddenly died out of the blue within warranty and Apple are complete crooks wrt honouring warranties. The AMD mobile chips are right there with M3 for battery life and have excellent performance only I couldn't find a complete system which shipped with the same size battery as the MBP16. They're either half or 66% of the capacity.
  - matwood 2y ago
    > and Apple are complete crooks wrt honouring warranties Huh? I've used AC for both MBP and iPhones a number of times over the years, and never had an issue. They are known for some of the highest customer ratings in the industry.
    - radicalbyte 2y ago
      They claimed that it wasn't covered because the machine was brought in Germany. I live in The Netherlands and brought it here. Also I contacted Apple Support to checked my serial number and then gave me the address to take it to. Which I did. They charged me $100 to get my machine back without repair. Also bear in mind that the EU is a single market, warranties etc are, by law, required to be honoured over the ENTIRE single market. Not just one country. Especially when the closest Apple Store to me is IN GERMANY. I have since returned it to Amazon who will refund it (they're taking their sweet time though, I need to call them next week as they should have transferred already).
      - bartekrutkowski 2y ago
        So you haven't purchased it from Apple but instead you've purchased it from Amazon. This may change things. In Europe you have two ways of dealing with it, either by manufacturer warranty (completely good will and on terms set by the manufacturer) or by consumer rights (warranted you by law, overruling any warranty restrictions). Sellers often will try to steer you to use warranty as it removes their responsibility, Amazon is certainly shady here. Apple will often straight on give you a full refund or a new device (often newer model), that happened to me with quite few iPhones and MacBooks. Know your rights.
        radicalbyte 2y ago
        Amazon helped instantly however my mistake was talking to Apple. They didn't even ask if I'd spoken to the retailer. I was, at the time, focused on just getting it fixed as I needed to get the data off of it (the entire Apple + external monitors thing is also a shit-show, terrible UX, terrible design and terrible documentation). I'll keep buying from Amazon as their support is great and prices competitive. I don't trust Apple buying from them directly.
- MBCook 2y ago
  Is that in performance, or performance while matching thermals? If a competing laptop has to run significantly hotter/louder than in my mind that’s not on par.
ttul 2y ago
My assessment is that ARM is running away from the competition. Apple is indeed designing the chip, but without the ARM architecture, Apple would have nothing to work with. This is not to diminish the incredible work of Apple’s VLSI team who put the chip architecture together and deftly navigated the Wild West of the fabrication landscape, but if you look at the specialized server chip side, it’s now dominated by ARM IP. I think ARM is the real winner here.
- torginus 2y ago
  Even compared to other ARM cores, Apple is in a league of its own.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    They have a good silicon design team, but having so much money that they can just buy out exclusive access to TSMCs most advanced processes doesn't hurt either. The closest ARM competitor to the M4, the Snapdragon X Elite, is a full node behind on 4nm while Apple is already using 2nd generation 3nm.
    - nottorp 2y ago
      So then it should be comparable to the M1 or M2? Which isn't bad at all, if true. But is it, for the same power consumption?
      - philistine 2y ago
        For some benchmarks the Snapdragon is on par with the M3. But the weirdo tests I found online did not say which device they compared, since the M3 is available in fan-less machines, which limits its potential.
  - tempest_ 2y ago
    Outside of Ampere(who are really more server focused) who else is designing desktop/laptop ARM cpus?
tempest_ 2y ago
Their margins tend to allow them to always use the latest TSMC process so they will often be pretty good just based on that. They are also ARM chips which obviously have been more focused on efficiency historically.
- philistine 2y ago
  Oh how the mighty have fallen. For decades, when comparing Mac versus PCs, it was always about performance, with any other consideration always derided. Yet here we are, with the excuses of margins and silicon processes generations. But you haven't answered the question. Is Apple pulling ahead or is the x86 cabal able to keep up?
  - wmf 2y ago
    Apple is ahead. The fab stuff is an explanation of why they are ahead, not an excuse for being behind.
- omikun 2y ago
  They actually work with TSMC to develop the latest nodes. They also fund the bulk of the development. It's not as if without Apple's funds someone else will get the same leading edge node.
- FuckButtons 2y ago
  To a greater or lesser extent, Apple funds tsmc’s latest nodes.
juancn 2y ago
The M1 was a complete surprise, it was so far ahead that it was ridiculous. The M2-4 are still ahead (in their niche), but since the M1, Intel and AMD have been playing catchup.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Or more accurately AMD is playing catch up with the Strix series, while Intel seems too busy shooting themselves in the foot to bother.
trynumber9 2y ago
Apple is slightly pulling away. AMD's top desktop chips were on par with M1/M2/M3 1T but now they cannot match even M4 despite releasing a new design (Zen 5) this year. It's partially because AMD is on a two year cadence while Apple is on approximately a yearly cadence. And AMD has no plans to increase the cadence of their Zen releases. 2020 - M1, Zen 3 2021 - ... 2022 - M2, Zen 4 2023 - M3 2024 - M4, Zen 5 Edit: I am looking at peak 1T performance, not efficiency. In that regard I don't think anyone has been close.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > Edit: I am looking at peak 1T performance, not efficiency. In that regard I don't think anyone has been close. Indeed. Anything that approaches Apple performance does so at a much higher power consumption. Which is no biggie for a large-ish desktop (I often recommend getting middle-of-the-road tower servers for workstations).
  - MBCook 2y ago
    Don’t thermals basically explode non-linearly with speed? It’s possible Apple’s chips could be dramatically faster if they were willing to use up 300W. I remember seeing an anecdote where Johny Srouji, the chief Apple Silicon designer, said something like the efficiency cores get 90% of the performance of the performance cores at like 10% of the power. I don’t remember the exact numbers but it was staggering. While the single core wouldn’t be as high, it sounded as if they could (theoretically) make a chip of only 32 efficiency cores and just sip power.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      I’m now imagining an “M4 Hot” for the next MacPro with an Intel Xeon W power budget. > they could (theoretically) make a chip of only 32 efficiency cores and just sip power. Intel and AMD did that with their latest data-center chips to compete with Ampere and AWS’s Graviton. I’d love to build a workstation out of one such beast.
      - 2y ago
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
TSMC is running away from the competition
spockz 2y ago
For many workloads I think they are pulling definitely ahead. However, I think there is still much to gain in software. For example, my Linux/Fedora desktop with 5900X is many times more responsive than my 16” M1 Pro. Java runs faster. GraalVM native generated native images run way waster. Golang runs faster. X86_64 has seen more love from optimalisations than aarch64 has. One of the things I hit was different GC/memory performance due to different page sizes. Moreover, docker runs natively on Linux, and the network stack itself is faster. But even given all of that, the 16” M1 PRO edges close to the desktop. (When it is not constrained by anti virus.) And it does this in a portable form factor, with way less power consumption. My 5900X tops out at about 180W. So yes, I would definitely say they are pulling ahead.
- MBCook 2y ago
  I suspect that’s an OS issue. Linux is simply more optimized and faster at equivalent OS stuff. Which isn’t too surprising given a lot of the biggest companies in the world have been optimizing the hell out of it for their servers for the last 25+ years. On the flipside of the coin though Apple also clearly optimizes their OS for power efficiency. Which is likely paying some good dividends.
  - spockz 2y ago
    For sure, the networking is on the OS level because in both I’m using the tcp stack provided by the OS. (Also GUI in Linux has less transitions and feels snappier in general.) The remainder can be attributed to compiler optimisations or lack thereof.
jeswin 2y ago
> is Apple running away from the competition? No. On the same node, the performance is quite similar. Apple's previous CPU (M3) has been a 3nm part, while AMD's latest and greatest Zen 5 is still on TSMC's 4nm.

api 2y ago

There have always been higher performing x64 chips than the M series but they use several times more power to get that. Apple seems to be reliably annihilating everyone on performance per watt at the high end of the performance curve. It makes sense since the M series are mobile CPUs on ‘roids.

MBCook 2y ago
Irony being that’s the same thing Intel learned from the P4. They gave it up for Core, grown from their low power chips, which took them far further with far less power than the P4 would have used.
- api 2y ago
  Since power is the limiting factor due to heat, optimize for power first then scale up.

LorenDB 2y ago

AMD's latest Strix Point mobile chips are on par with M3 silicon: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WKR0VHfJw https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WKR0VHfJw

radicalbyte 2y ago
I was looking into this recently as my M1 Max screen suddenly died out of the blue within warranty and Apple are complete crooks wrt honouring warranties. The AMD mobile chips are right there with M3 for battery life and have excellent performance only I couldn't find a complete system which shipped with the same size battery as the MBP16. They're either half or 66% of the capacity.
- matwood 2y ago
  > and Apple are complete crooks wrt honouring warranties Huh? I've used AC for both MBP and iPhones a number of times over the years, and never had an issue. They are known for some of the highest customer ratings in the industry.
  - radicalbyte 2y ago
    They claimed that it wasn't covered because the machine was brought in Germany. I live in The Netherlands and brought it here. Also I contacted Apple Support to checked my serial number and then gave me the address to take it to. Which I did. They charged me $100 to get my machine back without repair. Also bear in mind that the EU is a single market, warranties etc are, by law, required to be honoured over the ENTIRE single market. Not just one country. Especially when the closest Apple Store to me is IN GERMANY. I have since returned it to Amazon who will refund it (they're taking their sweet time though, I need to call them next week as they should have transferred already).
    - bartekrutkowski 2y ago
      So you haven't purchased it from Apple but instead you've purchased it from Amazon. This may change things. In Europe you have two ways of dealing with it, either by manufacturer warranty (completely good will and on terms set by the manufacturer) or by consumer rights (warranted you by law, overruling any warranty restrictions). Sellers often will try to steer you to use warranty as it removes their responsibility, Amazon is certainly shady here. Apple will often straight on give you a full refund or a new device (often newer model), that happened to me with quite few iPhones and MacBooks. Know your rights.
      - radicalbyte 2y ago
        Amazon helped instantly however my mistake was talking to Apple. They didn't even ask if I'd spoken to the retailer. I was, at the time, focused on just getting it fixed as I needed to get the data off of it (the entire Apple + external monitors thing is also a shit-show, terrible UX, terrible design and terrible documentation). I'll keep buying from Amazon as their support is great and prices competitive. I don't trust Apple buying from them directly.
MBCook 2y ago
Is that in performance, or performance while matching thermals? If a competing laptop has to run significantly hotter/louder than in my mind that’s not on par.

ttul 2y ago

My assessment is that ARM is running away from the competition. Apple is indeed designing the chip, but without the ARM architecture, Apple would have nothing to work with. This is not to diminish the incredible work of Apple’s VLSI team who put the chip architecture together and deftly navigated the Wild West of the fabrication landscape, but if you look at the specialized server chip side, it’s now dominated by ARM IP. I think ARM is the real winner here.

torginus 2y ago
Even compared to other ARM cores, Apple is in a league of its own.
- jsheard 2y ago
  They have a good silicon design team, but having so much money that they can just buy out exclusive access to TSMCs most advanced processes doesn't hurt either. The closest ARM competitor to the M4, the Snapdragon X Elite, is a full node behind on 4nm while Apple is already using 2nd generation 3nm.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    So then it should be comparable to the M1 or M2? Which isn't bad at all, if true. But is it, for the same power consumption?
    - philistine 2y ago
      For some benchmarks the Snapdragon is on par with the M3. But the weirdo tests I found online did not say which device they compared, since the M3 is available in fan-less machines, which limits its potential.
- tempest_ 2y ago
  Outside of Ampere(who are really more server focused) who else is designing desktop/laptop ARM cpus?

tempest_ 2y ago

Their margins tend to allow them to always use the latest TSMC process so they will often be pretty good just based on that. They are also ARM chips which obviously have been more focused on efficiency historically.

philistine 2y ago
Oh how the mighty have fallen. For decades, when comparing Mac versus PCs, it was always about performance, with any other consideration always derided. Yet here we are, with the excuses of margins and silicon processes generations. But you haven't answered the question. Is Apple pulling ahead or is the x86 cabal able to keep up?
- wmf 2y ago
  Apple is ahead. The fab stuff is an explanation of why they are ahead, not an excuse for being behind.
omikun 2y ago
They actually work with TSMC to develop the latest nodes. They also fund the bulk of the development. It's not as if without Apple's funds someone else will get the same leading edge node.
FuckButtons 2y ago
To a greater or lesser extent, Apple funds tsmc’s latest nodes.

juancn 2y ago

The M1 was a complete surprise, it was so far ahead that it was ridiculous. The M2-4 are still ahead (in their niche), but since the M1, Intel and AMD have been playing catchup.

moffkalast 2y ago
Or more accurately AMD is playing catch up with the Strix series, while Intel seems too busy shooting themselves in the foot to bother.

trynumber9 2y ago

Apple is slightly pulling away. AMD's top desktop chips were on par with M1/M2/M3 1T but now they cannot match even M4 despite releasing a new design (Zen 5) this year. It's partially because AMD is on a two year cadence while Apple is on approximately a yearly cadence. And AMD has no plans to increase the cadence of their Zen releases. 2020 - M1, Zen 3 2021 - ... 2022 - M2, Zen 4 2023 - M3 2024 - M4, Zen 5 Edit: I am looking at peak 1T performance, not efficiency. In that regard I don't think anyone has been close.

rbanffy 2y ago
> Edit: I am looking at peak 1T performance, not efficiency. In that regard I don't think anyone has been close. Indeed. Anything that approaches Apple performance does so at a much higher power consumption. Which is no biggie for a large-ish desktop (I often recommend getting middle-of-the-road tower servers for workstations).
- MBCook 2y ago
  Don’t thermals basically explode non-linearly with speed? It’s possible Apple’s chips could be dramatically faster if they were willing to use up 300W. I remember seeing an anecdote where Johny Srouji, the chief Apple Silicon designer, said something like the efficiency cores get 90% of the performance of the performance cores at like 10% of the power. I don’t remember the exact numbers but it was staggering. While the single core wouldn’t be as high, it sounded as if they could (theoretically) make a chip of only 32 efficiency cores and just sip power.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    I’m now imagining an “M4 Hot” for the next MacPro with an Intel Xeon W power budget. > they could (theoretically) make a chip of only 32 efficiency cores and just sip power. Intel and AMD did that with their latest data-center chips to compete with Ampere and AWS’s Graviton. I’d love to build a workstation out of one such beast.
    - 2y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

TSMC is running away from the competition

spockz 2y ago

For many workloads I think they are pulling definitely ahead. However, I think there is still much to gain in software. For example, my Linux/Fedora desktop with 5900X is many times more responsive than my 16” M1 Pro. Java runs faster. GraalVM native generated native images run way waster. Golang runs faster. X86_64 has seen more love from optimalisations than aarch64 has. One of the things I hit was different GC/memory performance due to different page sizes. Moreover, docker runs natively on Linux, and the network stack itself is faster. But even given all of that, the 16” M1 PRO edges close to the desktop. (When it is not constrained by anti virus.) And it does this in a portable form factor, with way less power consumption. My 5900X tops out at about 180W. So yes, I would definitely say they are pulling ahead.

MBCook 2y ago
I suspect that’s an OS issue. Linux is simply more optimized and faster at equivalent OS stuff. Which isn’t too surprising given a lot of the biggest companies in the world have been optimizing the hell out of it for their servers for the last 25+ years. On the flipside of the coin though Apple also clearly optimizes their OS for power efficiency. Which is likely paying some good dividends.
- spockz 2y ago
  For sure, the networking is on the OS level because in both I’m using the tcp stack provided by the OS. (Also GUI in Linux has less transitions and feels snappier in general.) The remainder can be attributed to compiler optimisations or lack thereof.

jeswin 2y ago

> is Apple running away from the competition? No. On the same node, the performance is quite similar. Apple's previous CPU (M3) has been a 3nm part, while AMD's latest and greatest Zen 5 is still on TSMC's 4nm.