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Do you have any actual evidence for that? Intel does care about power efficiency - they've been making mobile CPUs for decades. And I don't think they are lacki

Do you have any actual evidence for that? Intel does care about power efficiency - they've been making mobile CPUs for decades. And I don't think they are lacking intelligent chip designers. I would need some strong evidence to make me think it isn't the ISA that makes the difference.

high_na_euv 1y ago
Isn't Lunar Lake first mobile chip with focus on energy eff? And it is reasonably efficient We will see how big improvement is it's successor panther lake in January on 18A node >I would need some strong evidence to make me think it isn't the ISA that makes the difference. It is like saying that Java syntax is faster than C# syntax. Everything is about the implementation: compiler, jit, runtime, stdlib, etc If you spent decades of effort on peformance and ghz then don't be shocked that someone who spent decades on energy eff is better in that category
- cogman10 1y ago
  > Isn't Lunar Lake first mobile chip with focus on energy eff? Not by a long shot. Over a decade ago, one of my college professors was an ex-intel engineer who worked on Intel's mobile chips. He was even involved in an Intel ARM chip that ultimately never launched (At least I think it never launched. It's been over a decade :D). The old conroe processors were based on Intel's mobile chips (Yonah). Netburst didn't focus on power efficiency explicitly so and that drove Intel into a corner. Power efficiency is core to CPU design and always has been. It's easy create a chip that consumes 300W idle. The question is really how far that efficiency is driven. And that may be your point. Lunar Lake certainly looks like Intel deciding to really put a lot of resource on improving power efficiency. But it's not the first time they did that. The Intel Atom is another decades long series which was specifically created with power in mind (the N150 is the current iteration of it).
- mrsmrtss 1y ago
  Actually, if you had made an opposite example, it might have gone against your point. ;) C# gives you a lot more control over memory and other low-level aspects, after all.
  - high_na_euv 1y ago
    Yet how much perf in recent dot nets comes from that, and how much comes from "Span<T>"ning whole BCL?
    - mrsmrtss 1y ago
      There’s much more to it than just Span<T>. Take a look at the performance improvements in .NET 10: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-10/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen.... When it comes to syntax, even something like structs (value types) can be a decisive factor in certain scenarios. C# is fast and with some effort, it can be very fast! Check out the benchmarks here: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...
      - high_na_euv 1y ago
        I know that C# is fast, this is my favourite lang, but it is hard to say honestly which one is faster I love the saying "i dont trust benchmarks that i didn't fake myself"
  - layer8 1y ago
    That’s semantics though, not syntax. What’s holding Java performance back in some areas is its semantics. It might be the same with x86 and power-efficiency (semantics being the issue), but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on that.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  > It is like saying that Java syntax is faster than C# syntax. Java and C# are very similar so that analogy might make sense if you were comparing e.g. RISC-V and MIPS. But ARM and x86 are very different, so it's more like saying that Go is faster than Javascript. Which... surprise surprise it is (usually)! That's despite the investment into Javascript implementation dwarfing the investment into Go.
jorvi 1y ago
https://chipsandcheese.com/p/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-matter https://chipsandcheese.com/p/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-matter Basically, x86 uses op caches and micro ops which reduces instruction decoder use, the decoder itself doesn't use significant power, and ARM also uses op caches and micro ops to improve performance. So there is little effective difference. Micro ops and branch prediction is where the big wins are and both ISAs use them extensively. If the hardware is equal and the designers are equally skilled, yet one ISA consistently pulls ahead, that leads to the likely conclusion that the way the chips get designed must be different for teams using the winning ISA. For what it's worth, the same is happening in GPU land. Infamously, the M1 Ultra GPU at 120W equals the performance of the RTX 3090 at 320W (!). That same M1 also smoked an Intel i9.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  ARM doesn't use micro-ops in the same way as x86 does at all. And that's not the only difference, e.g. x86 has TSO. I'm not saying the skill of the design team makes zero difference, but it's ludicrous to say that the ISA makes no difference at all. The claims about the M1 Ultra appear to be marketing nonsense: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/tbj4lf/d_apple_claims_m1_ultra_beats_rtx_3090_whats_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/tbj4lf/d_a...
- lossolo 1y ago
  > Infamously, the M1 Ultra GPU at 120W equals the performance of the RTX 3090 at 320W That's not true.
array_key_first 1y ago
Intel has made SOC designs with power efficiency very, very close to M series. Look at lunar lake and compare it to what was available at the time.

high_na_euv 1y ago

Isn't Lunar Lake first mobile chip with focus on energy eff? And it is reasonably efficient We will see how big improvement is it's successor panther lake in January on 18A node >I would need some strong evidence to make me think it isn't the ISA that makes the difference. It is like saying that Java syntax is faster than C# syntax. Everything is about the implementation: compiler, jit, runtime, stdlib, etc If you spent decades of effort on peformance and ghz then don't be shocked that someone who spent decades on energy eff is better in that category

cogman10 1y ago
> Isn't Lunar Lake first mobile chip with focus on energy eff? Not by a long shot. Over a decade ago, one of my college professors was an ex-intel engineer who worked on Intel's mobile chips. He was even involved in an Intel ARM chip that ultimately never launched (At least I think it never launched. It's been over a decade :D). The old conroe processors were based on Intel's mobile chips (Yonah). Netburst didn't focus on power efficiency explicitly so and that drove Intel into a corner. Power efficiency is core to CPU design and always has been. It's easy create a chip that consumes 300W idle. The question is really how far that efficiency is driven. And that may be your point. Lunar Lake certainly looks like Intel deciding to really put a lot of resource on improving power efficiency. But it's not the first time they did that. The Intel Atom is another decades long series which was specifically created with power in mind (the N150 is the current iteration of it).
mrsmrtss 1y ago
Actually, if you had made an opposite example, it might have gone against your point. ;) C# gives you a lot more control over memory and other low-level aspects, after all.
- high_na_euv 1y ago
  Yet how much perf in recent dot nets comes from that, and how much comes from "Span<T>"ning whole BCL?
  - mrsmrtss 1y ago
    There’s much more to it than just Span<T>. Take a look at the performance improvements in .NET 10: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-10/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen.... When it comes to syntax, even something like structs (value types) can be a decisive factor in certain scenarios. C# is fast and with some effort, it can be very fast! Check out the benchmarks here: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...
    - high_na_euv 1y ago
      I know that C# is fast, this is my favourite lang, but it is hard to say honestly which one is faster I love the saying "i dont trust benchmarks that i didn't fake myself"
- layer8 1y ago
  That’s semantics though, not syntax. What’s holding Java performance back in some areas is its semantics. It might be the same with x86 and power-efficiency (semantics being the issue), but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on that.
IshKebab 1y ago
> It is like saying that Java syntax is faster than C# syntax. Java and C# are very similar so that analogy might make sense if you were comparing e.g. RISC-V and MIPS. But ARM and x86 are very different, so it's more like saying that Go is faster than Javascript. Which... surprise surprise it is (usually)! That's despite the investment into Javascript implementation dwarfing the investment into Go.

jorvi 1y ago

https://chipsandcheese.com/p/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-matter https://chipsandcheese.com/p/arm-or-x86-isa-doesnt-matter Basically, x86 uses op caches and micro ops which reduces instruction decoder use, the decoder itself doesn't use significant power, and ARM also uses op caches and micro ops to improve performance. So there is little effective difference. Micro ops and branch prediction is where the big wins are and both ISAs use them extensively. If the hardware is equal and the designers are equally skilled, yet one ISA consistently pulls ahead, that leads to the likely conclusion that the way the chips get designed must be different for teams using the winning ISA. For what it's worth, the same is happening in GPU land. Infamously, the M1 Ultra GPU at 120W equals the performance of the RTX 3090 at 320W (!). That same M1 also smoked an Intel i9.

IshKebab 1y ago
ARM doesn't use micro-ops in the same way as x86 does at all. And that's not the only difference, e.g. x86 has TSO. I'm not saying the skill of the design team makes zero difference, but it's ludicrous to say that the ISA makes no difference at all. The claims about the M1 Ultra appear to be marketing nonsense: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/tbj4lf/d_apple_claims_m1_ultra_beats_rtx_3090_whats_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/tbj4lf/d_a...
lossolo 1y ago
> Infamously, the M1 Ultra GPU at 120W equals the performance of the RTX 3090 at 320W That's not true.

array_key_first 1y ago

Intel has made SOC designs with power efficiency very, very close to M series. Look at lunar lake and compare it to what was available at the time.