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Comment by dmitrygr | Hacker News Reader

> closest competition to Apple's M series that we have,

Not very close at all, not even to the two-year-old model, it appears

https://wccftech.com/snapdragon-x2-plus-loses-to-m4-in-4-out...

Check this chart. Single core performance is where Apple has dominated the most. Qualcomm is above every non-Apple competitor including desktop chips, and only 5% behind the fastest M5 MacBook Air (this chip is going into Air-class laptops). Yes, M6 is coming, but X2 has been available for months already.

https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks

For Geekbench in particular, expect to gain a few percent in Linux vs. Windows. Of course, you should always look at your workload. The thing that causes me to wait for my computer the most is build times, where the multi-core benchmarks are more interesting than single core benchmarks, and these look like they could make for interesting low power dev boxes when/if proper Linux support lands.

"Desktop chip" hasn't been a meaningful variable for single-thread performance in more than a decade. A single core can't use more than a given amount of power or it would melt and laptops have that much in their power budget.

Where a desktop's TDP is actually useful is for multi-thread performance, and naturally the multi-thread chart is topped by Threadrippers.

Moreover, Geekbench is rubbish in general. For example, it has Threadripper 9980X with a <50% higher multi-thread score than Ryzen 9 9950X even though it has twice the memory bandwidth and four times as many of the same cores and you have to look pretty hard to find a real multi-threaded workload where it's not significantly more than twice as fast:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-threadripper-9970x-9980x...

Yes, where desktops differ is not so much the chips but rather the cooling capability. You have the space to have proper air flow and water cooling etc. So that do give quite a bit of performance.

that's x2 plus. look for benchmarks of the x2 elite extreme, which currently is selling with 48gb ram for $1370: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-zenbook-a16-16-3k-oled-...

OK, i did.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/19122559

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/14591329

yup... still laughably behind by nearly 20%. And that is behind the M5, not even the current M6

> still laughably behind by nearly 20%

20% slower than the M5 is still a great result. I'm still using an M1 macbook pro, and it's more than fast enough for editing film, browsing the internet and writing code.

Especially when it is significantly faster than literally every non-Apple competitor. Including Intel and AMD's best desktop chips.

better than the closest linux alternative (M3 on asahi)

20% behind that's actually very impressive and if it will support Linux that's more impressive.

> laughably behind by nearly 20%

I think we have a different definition of what laughably means. Especially since A16 is 25% ahead of M5 in multithreaded.

You're still trying to deliver your original point after you were told you use the wrong reference and you're not doing a good job.

i wish that wasn't literally the only X2 EE system we could buy! (as i said a while ago in this submission, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823752)

nothing wrong with it! looks fine! just: there should be other products with the nice core. i could really use a 10-14" tablet. i mean, after all, ROG Flow 13 with a Strix Halo was not even that late after launch! dense is doable!

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