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Ask HN: Why hasn't x86 caught up with Apple M series?

447 points stephenheron | 5 comments | 25 Aug 25 21:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source

Hi,

My daily workhorse is a M1 Pro that I purchased on release date, It has been one of the best tech purchases I have made, even now it really deals with anything I throw at it. My daily work load is regularly having a Android emulator, iOS simulator and a number of Dockers containers running simultaneously and I never hear the fans, battery life has taken a bit of a hit but it is still very respectable.

I wanted a new personal laptop, and I was debating between a MacBook Air or going for a Framework 13 with Linux. I wanted to lean into learning something new so went with the Framework and I must admit I am regretting it a bit.

The M1 was released back in 2020 and I bought the Ryzen AI 340 which is one of the newest 2025 chips from AMD, so AMD has 5 years of extra development and I had expected them to get close to the M1 in terms of battery efficiency and thermals.

The Ryzen is using a TSMC N4P process compared to the older N5 process, I managed to find a TSMC press release showing the performance/efficiency gains from the newer process: “When compared to N5, N4P offers users a reported +11% performance boost or a 22% reduction in power consumption. Beyond that, N4P can offer users a 6% increase in transistor density over N5”

I am sorely disappointed, using the Framework feels like using an older Intel based Mac. If I open too many tabs in Chrome I can feel the bottom of the laptop getting hot, open a YouTube video and the fans will often spin up.

Why haven’t AMD/Intel been able to catch up? Is x86 just not able to keep up with the ARM architecture? When can we expect a x86 laptop chip to match the M1 in efficiency/thermals?!

To be fair I haven’t tried Windows on the Framework yet it might be my Linux setup being inefficient.

Cheers, Stephen

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daemonologist ◴[25 Aug 25 23:00 UTC] No.45020198[source]▶
I think this is partially down to Framework being a very small and new company that doesn't have the resources to make the best use of every last coulomb, rather than an inherent deficiency of x86. The larger companies like Asus and Lenovo are able to build more efficient laptops (at least under Windows), while Apple (having very few product SKUs and full vertical integration) can push things even further.

notebookcheck.com does pretty comprehensive battery and power efficiency testing - not of every single device, but they usually include a pretty good sample of the popular options.

replies(1): >>45020798 #
1. nextos ◴[26 Aug 25 00:20 UTC] No.45020798[source]▶
Framework is a bit behind the others in terms of cooling, apparently due to compromises needed to achieve modularity. However, a well-tuned Ryzen U in the latest ThinkPads is not that far from M chips in terms of computing power per Watt according to some benchmarks.

Most Linux distributions are not well tuned, because this is too device-specific. Spending a few minutes writing custom udev rules, with the aid of powertop, can reduce heat and power usage dramatically. Another factor is Safari, which is significantly more efficient than Firefox and Chromium. To counter that, using a barebones setup with few running services can get you quite far. I can get more than 10 hours of battery from a recent ThinkPad.

replies(2): >>45022451 #>>45028958 #
2. quijoteuniv ◴[26 Aug 25 05:05 UTC] No.45022451[source]▶
+1 on powertop, i have use it successfully for tunning old macs that I have upcycled with Linux and difference is day & night.
replies(1): >>45023163 #
3. danieldk ◴[26 Aug 25 06:57 UTC] No.45023163[source]▶
powertop helps a lot, I went from 3-4 hours to 6-7 hours on a ThinkPad. That said, it's not something you would want to bother a regular user with. E.g. enabling powertop optimizations will enable USB autosuspend, this will add a delay every darn time you didn't touch your USB keyboard or mouse for a second. So, you end up writing udev rules that excludes certain HID devices (or using different settings for when a laptop is on power or not), etc.

These are the kinds of optimizations that macOS does out of the box and you cannot expect most Linux users to do (which is one of the reasons battery life is so bad on Linux out-of-the-box).

replies(1): >>45028971 #
4. Klonoar ◴[26 Aug 25 16:39 UTC] No.45028958[source]▶
> using a barebones setup with few running surfaces

The entire point here is that you can run whatever the hell you want on Apples stuff without breaking a sweat. I shouldn’t have to counter shit.

5. nextos ◴[26 Aug 25 16:40 UTC] No.45028971{3}[source]▶
I agree. The trick is to use powertop's suggestions to craft good udev rules, not to enable the powertop optimizations daemon directly. That doesn't work well in many scenarios. Someone should create a udev rule hardware database, or a udev rule generator for laptops and desktops to help common users.