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292 points kaboro | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.414s | source
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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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sooheon ◴[] No.25059897[source]
> THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT A 5W PART LIKE THE A14 IS FASTER THAN A 100W PART LIKE THE i9-10900k

"RIM thought iPhone was impossible in 2007": https://web.archive.org/web/20150517013510/http://www.macnn....

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gamblor956 ◴[] No.25061083[source]
They thought the iPhone was "impossible" in the sense that it couldn't offer everything it claimed to offer without having terrible battery life.

And they were absolutely correct: battery life on the original iPhone was abysmal. But it turns out that consumers didn't care.

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donor20 ◴[] No.25063007[source]
I used / bought the original iphone and thought it was fine, and the phone was magic.

The next one or two though had really bad battery life (iphone 3g?) I mean, 3-5 hours active use down from 7-8 (which meant you needed to charge one in morning or evening usually).

Remember, the original iphone had data, but it was pretty slow (but still amazing).

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1. oblio ◴[] No.25063174[source]
Well, you overlooked the battery side because of other features. But you have to remember that battery life for the average phone back then was measured in the tens of hours. I'd use to leave for the weekend with my Nokia without a charger. A decade later and smartphones aren't there yet. We've just learned to accept the pain :-)
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2. photojosh ◴[] No.25066658[source]
Put it on low power mode and only use it to make a few calls and send a few texts and an iPhone will easily last a weekend. The real issue is that many people actually use their phones constantly, and it's not just for calls/texts.