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292 points kaboro | 11 comments | | HN request time: 0.888s | source | bottom
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parsimo2010 ◴[] No.25059497[source]
I accept that the performance of Apple's chips have increased rapidly in the last few years, but the benchmarks that they are using to compare to various x86 CPUs makes me suspicious that they are cherry-picking benchmarks and aren't telling the whole story (either in the Stratechery article or the Anandtech they got the figures from).

Why am I suspicious? THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT A 5W PART LIKE THE A14 IS FASTER THAN A 100W PART LIKE THE i9-10900k! I understand they are comparing single threaded speed. I'll accept that the A14 is more power efficient. I'll acknowledge that Intel has been struggling lately. But to imply that a low power mobile is straight up faster than a high power chip in any category makes me extremely suspicious that the benchmark isn't actually measuring speed (maybe it's normalizing by power draw), or that the ARM and x86 versions of the benchmark have different reference values (like a 1000 score for an ARM is not the same speed of calculation as a 1000 score on x86). It just can't be true that the tablet with a total price of $1k can hang with a $500 CPU that has practically unlimited size, weight and power compared to the tablet, and when the total price to make it comparable in features (motherboard, power supply, monitor, etc) makes the desktop system more expensive.

Regardless of whether it's an intentional trick or an oversight, I don't think that the benchmark showing the mobile chip is better than a desktop chip in RAW PERFORMANCE is true. And that means that a lot of the conclusions that they draw from the benchmark aren't true. There is no way that the A14 (nor the M1) is going to be faster in any raw performance category than a latest generation and top-spec desktop system.

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1. mrtksn ◴[] No.25059583[source]
Apple’s chip is not just a general purpose CPU, it is designed for specific workloads.

We have similar performance jumps in cryptocurrency mining: GPU’s are orders of magnitude faster than CPU’s and ASIC’s are orders of magnitude faster than GPU’s for the same power consumption.

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2. norswap ◴[] No.25059678[source]
It's supposed to run a Mac, why isn't it a general purpose CPU? What specific workload do you have in mind? I could use it for web browsing, programming, media editing...
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3. klelatti ◴[] No.25059861[source]
But the M1 is a general purpose CPU and it is faster (without any help from Neural Engines etc) than competing devices.
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4. kridsdale1 ◴[] No.25059931[source]
Perhaps the answer is that x86 is far more general purpose than that. Many of the instructions are as old as the Millennial workforce at Intel who is building their chips, from an era where the web wasn't a concern and GUIs were uncommon. A vast amount of transistors are dedicated to a different optimization than what the software of this decade cares about.

OTOH ARM and Apple have tailored their chips to the workload of ~10 years ago (running Javascript at single-digit watts) which is far more tailored to what actually gets used these days.

5. mrtksn ◴[] No.25059934[source]
Anything that has to do with audio, video, graphics processing and so on.

There are videos on youtube demonstrating that you can edit large video files on an iPhone connected to an external monitor and do it smoother than a much larger PC.

Here is an example of using iPhone SE strapped to an external screen, editing a 4K footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmbrOUPFDvg

Notice how smooth is everything.

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6. mrtksn ◴[] No.25059977[source]
Why without any help from Neural Engines and etc.? They, the workload specific processors, are included in M1.
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7. klelatti ◴[] No.25060044{3}[source]
They are but they don't account for the CPU performance jumps being quoted - these are the result of better standalone CPU performance.

Your parent comment seemed to imply that the leap was due to an architecture shift like CPU -> GPU. It's not, it's just better CPU design.

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8. mrtksn ◴[] No.25060179{4}[source]
Well, there's no standalone CPU to talk about, is there?

Purpose built architecture could mean many things, like having efficient cores and high performance cores, codec specific hardware, the way that the memory is accessed, cache configuration, co-processors, signal processors.

Everything counts.

9. wmf ◴[] No.25060255{3}[source]
Plenty of workloads like SPEC and compiling don't use GPUs, neural networks, etc. They just use CPU cores, cache, and memory. Fortunately Apple has gotten the basics right and they have also added accelerators.
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10. mrtksn ◴[] No.25060897{4}[source]
I would guess that the tight proximity of the components as well as the way their communication is designed also brings something on the table. People are used to complain that the ram is soldered to the board, now it is part of the IC.
11. photojosh ◴[] No.25066699{3}[source]
I thought the mouse support was iPad only... thanks for the TIL.