PC Life After Apple Silicon
mondaynote.com
mondaynote.com
We've seen major industry improvements this year just due to fabs - nVidia Ampere, AMDs new Zen3 and RDNA, et. al. This article ignores all of that by just doing comparison to Intel which is clearly struggling to compete.
It also assumes ARM is the only way to go which is far from clear at this point.
The M1 also tops the latest Ryazan CPU which came out a week ago, especially considering TDP, so what would it add to the report?
Both, Apple and AMD use TSMC as manufacture and next gen Ryzen is planned to be a 5nm chip too. When you compare the performance gains of the past generations of Ryzen you would definitely bet that AMD could for sure have a very potent CPU next year.
The M1 is very incredible for sure, but AMD is very much on track with their plannings and delivered 3 years in row.
Only in single-core performance and performance/watt, and the advantage the M1 has in both of these metrics is pretty much exactly the difference expected between a 7nm and a 5nm process (they’re both being produced by the same fab, after all).
It’s likely we’ll see Apple and AMD compete on pretty much equal terms in the CPU market in the future.
I mean, the Ryzen besting the M1 in multi-core performance isn't really surprising when you consider that it's a 16-core/32-thread, 105W desktop CPU vs an 8-core/8-thread (four of which are low power cores), ~25W fanless laptop CPU (looking at the 5950X from the Anandtech review).
Maybe, maybe not. There's no reliable way to estimate exactly how much improvement AMD would get from moving their design to the same fabrication process that the M1 is using.
1: Anandtech attempted to estimate the CPU power draw and got to around 10W at single-threaded load and a peak of 27W under compute-intensive load: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... - that might mean you'd need "only" 10 M1s to reach the TDP of a current Threadripper
Well, neither did Apple - and yet all of the article is about their latest released M1 chip which hasn't even stood the test of time.
Meanwhile we know what Ryzens can do - and per-core performance per Watt is rather close still (IIRC 6W vs. 7-8 power draw at load?).
I see the M1 as strong in single core benchmarks, probably because it's an evolution of the iPad's processor, that doesn't do a lot of multitasking, and kinda meh in multicore.
I disconsider geekbench tests because of the disclaimer: "Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count".
I remember that when the Meltdown and Spectre Linux benchmarks came in, my boss immediately ordered 50x AMD EPYC servers the same day. Later that week, we tried to buy more but they were already sold out at our usual supplier.
We effectively replaced most of our Xeons with EPYCs within the month, because the Intel performance became unbearable and the AMD CPUs were cheap enough that we didn't need approval.
That said, I still keep some Xeon servers around, because Intel's software and their compiler are so f-ing perfect that MKL+ICC is unavoidable for some parallelized C++ services.
In terms of processing power per dollar, I'm not sure that's true.
The latest release just gave Intel nowhere else to hide with their "it's best for gaming" benchmarks, which seemed somewhat artificial anyway, seeing as how they were generally using massively powerful GPUs at very low resolutions.
(edit - The Zen2 and even Zen+ lines gave people looking for lots of cores a better path than intel, even where single threaded performance was a few percent off. The 3900X launched around the same price as the 10900K with two more cores/4 more threads)
I see this a lot as if it's just fact or commonly accepted but this is a very specific thing. Certain benchmarks would show Intel holding onto a narrow lead in single core performance (IPC) which is only the top metric in a few scenarios where parallelism isn't of consequence.
And certainly Intel leads in market share by a significant margin, so in that respect AMD hasn't beat Intel yet.
But for a large number of use cases, AMD Zen-based x86 chips been a superior option to Intel at least since Zen 2 if not earlier for many uses (of course - heavy parallelism, improved efficiency, better value, easier to power and cool, etc.)
Sadly there is no news of competition. Nothing from Intel/AMD or even Qualcomm. Microsoft's ARM attempts to take on Chromebook seem so feeble now.
Remember that AMD is fabricating their CPUs at the same fab than Apple does - they're not crippled by obsolete manufacturing process like Intel.
This is why these articles are such puff pieces - they're focusing on Intel, which has fallen behind by quite a lot and completely ignoring the major changes that also happened on x86-64 front.
In Cinebench ST, it's 3.4W per core only...
With CPU _and_ GPU fully saturated: https://twitter.com/andreif7/status/1328820823877095425?s=20 32.6W
Edit: I didn't know before, but AMD also already has 20% of the notebook market. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3615331-amd-to-take-20-share-o...
So that makes it even more weird to say "expand Apple’s share of the PC market — at Intel’s expense" and not mention AMD.
As for MKL, yes it is impressive for some applications like real-time audio processing, but AFAIK with TensorFlow MKL is only used if you don't use a GPU, so pretty much never.
As a weird sidenote to this: Whilst I was looking up the benchmarks of the iPhone I found out that basically every single tech mag is owned by the exact same company - you can tell because they all have the same adblocker nagware.
Sounds like Apple cooks (pun intended) with magic, and not with water, Graviton? Ampere?
Yup, and it assumes that all x86-64 chips will behave like Intels obsolete architecture right after AMD has shown pretty impressive IPC improvements with Zen3 as well.
It's clickbait by someone who doesn't really understand the difference between an architecture and actual designs being built.
This is who you're talking down about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e
OT: I’ve been using a pi-hole for about a year now and adblockers for much longer. The pi-hole combined with ublock origin seems to cover a lot more than what ublock origin alone did.
Indeed, the whole aspect of comparing say an Apple flagship phone to an Android phone and you see differences that on paper would have the Android as a better experience.
What Apple has going is complete integration, from chip to board to OS. That in itself allows for much better integration and utilisation.
>As a weird sidenote to this: Whilst I was looking up the benchmarks of the iPhone I found out that basically every single tech mag is owned by the exact same company - you can tell because they all have the same adblocker nagware.
Not sure I'd read that far into that, maybe some company did a good nagware and sold/open sourced to all those sites. Though still, if the salient points still the same with different wording, that would be telling. For me, YouTube seems to cut thru much of that, not that it don't have it's only area's of concern but does seem to get more honest takes and individual opinions more.
This nagware is available as a service now (CMP, short for "Consent Management Provider/Platform"). Popular examples (out of what I remember from an evaluation some time ago) are TrustArc (used e.g. by Oracle), consentmanager.de (lots of German media) and Usercentrics.
On one hand, I'm really happy that we are doing such an improvements in terms of performance. Competition is always good, no matter what.
But on the other, I had such a terrible experience with all the Macs that I had to work with in the last two years that I'm no longer recommending Macs to anyone. So much so that the illustrated performance gains are simply irrelevant.
To give you a little bit context.
I really liked Apple. I'm a product designer, and I was able to ride the wave of mobile app designs with the first release of the app store. It practically shaped my career. So I'm forever thankful for that and was always happy with them. I've always recommended them wherever I go, because they just worked.
But recently...
I spent about 6-7k worth of Macs for myself and my family (in past two years). Companies I was working with provided Macs worth 8k alone (two high end devices). And all of these had all kinds of different issues like:
- USB-C monitor working on 2 devices but not the others (Mac Minis).
- Bluetooth connection dropping at least twice a day (for around 30 sec, especially annoying during zoom meetings)
- Software issues like mac client popping every bloody hour. Disrupting either my workflow or my screen sharing.
- Overheating issues (and slowness) with my Macbook Pro 16", because I'm charging it from the wrong side.
- Trackpad stopping working for a couple of seconds from time to time, making me question my sanity.
- Mac Minis refusing to wake up the monitor from time to time.
- Macbooks sometimes freezing when being woken up.
And the list goes on ... and some of these devices were returned and exchanged a couple of times to no effect. And there is no Mac in my family that just works. Not anymore. And it become so annoying that I started selling them and purchasing custom Window stations instead.
I'm sorry for the offtopic, but needed to vent.
And most people aren't doing anything remotely close to requiring the "latest and greatest" processor. All of these benchmarks are great for us nerds, but it's hype. A lot of Apple customers want to know they are buying "the best", even if they have no practical need; the company has always been half lifestyle brand.
There's also a cost angle; Intel laptop chips are quite expensive.
There is a market for $1000 computers that is serviced by Apple, Lenovo, HP, etc. If Apple can improve their offering over their competitors then you would expect their market share to increase.
Most people don't want to pay that much money for a computer.
I can't afford a Ferrari but I'm under no illusion that the supercar manufacturers aren't fighting over the same customers.
another area is that apple for years shunned gaming on their Macs either from API changes or lackadaisical driver support to the point of having a riff with Nvidia that was never solved. that reduces the appeal on the consumer side as many did not or count not afford multiple machines and of course upgrading a Mac meant buying a new one
So now they have a really good processor, we need to wait to see what they drop in the dedicated GPU realm to go with it, and finally how they encourage all x86 vendors to come on board.
Apple have successfully executed a bigger R&D project than any PC manufacturer in history. (In fact, the R&D costs probably wouldn't even have been a good investment if Apple only sold laptops and desktops.) As a result, the base model Macbook Air now offers objectively better value for money than any competing laptop, when considering just the basic metrics of performance, form factor and battery life. To me that's outrageously impressive.
I suspect Apple are going to move to a Mac product line structured more like their iPhone product line. When you buy an iPhone you always get way more performance than you really need, even if you buy the cheapest model. PC manufacturers have to differentiate on performance because Intel and AMD won't sell their fastest chips for cheap, but Apple has a lot more flexibility now.
That does not mean it wasn't true. Fourth-gen Macbook Pros were rather meh, coming after the much acclaimed 3rd-gen (not to mention the keyboard fiasco). 2012 MBPs are still sought after today; will anybody really look for a 2018 MBP in 2026?
> Apple have successfully executed a bigger R&D project than any PC manufacturer in history.
That's a testament to the greatness of the open architecture, actually. No single PC manufacturer ever needed to innovate on the core HW, as they could reap the benefits of Intel/Nvidia/AMD's R&D. This allowed for cheaper PCs which penetrated our world much faster than the previous fragmented microcomputer offer. Granted, this also led to a "race to the bottom" wrt. stuff like trackpads and displays, but let's also look at the bright side for a moment :)
> As a result, the base model Macbook Air now offers objectively better value for money than any competing laptop, when considering just the basic metrics of performance, form factor and battery life.
Still, I agree with you on that. All benchmarks (not only from the magazines, but also those from tech Twitter) point to a paradigm shift in what people will expect from a PC a few years from now.
It's still a proprietary chip, available in a single type of device built for certain type of people with no ability so source those chips for other use-cases.
Apple users will browse faster on the go. And they're ecstatic. For most non-Apple users this won't be a life-changing event. Most people currently have COVID and other things on their mind vs. faster browser benchmarks.
Neither are occasional reliability issues with butterfly keyboards, but people seem to get more excited about that issue here than they do about the M1. As a tech nerd that doesn't make sense to me. But of course people are free to get excited or not about whatever they like.
They could take the Mac Mini concept and reconfigure it a bit like blade servers, and then offer compute clusters with better performance for much lower power levels (and heat levels) than any competitor... if they wanted.
The biggest challenge would be deciding whether to put in the macOS effort to re-establish a server tier, or (even less likely) to allow Linux on it.
In terms of stock market safety, they shouldn't bother with any of this. They now have created a big enough disruption and market growth potential in the consumer space that should give them plenty of wave to ride for years. But eventually, the momentum will slow; then whatever else they started working on a few years prior (such as this server idea) would show up just in time to blast the sails.
That is what Amazon is doing with Gravitron, isn't it?
ARM servers were already a thing and they will probably keep growing, but Apple itself will likely not be a player in that space for the foreseeable future.
The power efficiency is a game changer.