Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

> Intel manufactures different state-of-the-art laptop CPUs. Apple SoCs can compete with the ultra-low voltage Intels, but not with high-end i7 HQ/MQ series.

I think his point was that a $15 Apple chip crushes a $150 Intel Core M. Core M chips have extremely little bang/buck value, as do the new "Celerons" and "Pentiums" that are dressed up $110+ Atom chips.

View on HN

That $15 vs $150 comparison is stupid - where I can buy a A9 for $15?

The A9 is a great jump forward by Apple - and I'm impressed by my iPhone 6s - but I'm yet to see the "crushing" benchmark, except for those that are skewed by SHA results.

Not to mention people buying the x86 chip were buying performance and x86 compatibility. Proper comparisons for cheap or energy-efficient x86 would be best made against VIA's CPU's. Maybe also the Loongson with x86 emulation since they can give you speed in MIPS mode and x86 compatibility where needed. Don't know their price, though.

It's funny that the Celerons you call expensive make up for almost all the processors in cheap laptops such as Chromebooks which sell around the $200 price point[1]. Heck I bought one of those Kangaroo portable desktop things[2] last week for $100 which has a dual core Atom.

Now maybe Core M was an especially gimped CPU but it might be a part of Apple's strategy to push users from entry level Macbooks to the iPad Pro. But all of these other devices with Celerons / Atoms are really capable and people use them for actual work instead of using an iPhone/iPad despite what the benchmarks say.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MMLV7VQ [2] http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/26/infocus-kangaroo-pc/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com