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

    447 points stephenheron | 14 comments | 25 Aug 25 21:50 UTC | HN request time: 1.34s | source | bottom

    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

    Show context
    blacksmith_tb ◴[25 Aug 25 23:27 UTC] No.45020465[source]▶
    I considered getting a personal MBP (I have an M3 from work), but picked up a Framework 13 with the AMD 7 7840U. I have Pop!_OS on it, and while it isn't quite as impressive as the MBP, it is radically better than other Windows / Linux laptops I have used lately, battery life is quite good, ~5hr or so, not quite on par with the MBP but still good enough that I don't really have any complaints (and being able to up upgrade RAM / SSD / even mobo is worth some tradeoff to me, where my employers will just throw my MBP away in a few years).
    replies(4): >>45020978 #>>45021113 #>>45022114 #>>45022791 #
    1. bigmadshoe ◴[26 Aug 25 03:57 UTC] No.45022114[source]▶
    5 hours seems a lot worse than the ~10 hours I get on my M4 Air.
    replies(3): >>45022521 #>>45022670 #>>45027517 #
    2. threatripper ◴[26 Aug 25 05:16 UTC] No.45022521[source]▶
    I get like 3 hours on my MBP when I use it. MacBooks have better runtime only when they are mostly idle, not when you fully load them.
    replies(2): >>45022602 #>>45022726 #
    3. baq ◴[26 Aug 25 05:29 UTC] No.45022602[source]▶
    Can confirm, when developing software (a big project at $JOB) getting 3h out of a M3 MBP is a good day. IDE, build, test and crowdstrike are all quite power hungry.
    replies(2): >>45023010 #>>45023182 #
    4. bigstrat2003 ◴[26 Aug 25 05:40 UTC] No.45022670[source]▶
    At a certain point it's not like it matters. If you're working for 5 hours, let alone 10, you will almost certainly be able to plug in during that time.
    replies(1): >>45022880 #
    5. koiueo ◴[26 Aug 25 05:50 UTC] No.45022726[source]▶
    I concur.

    The only portable M device I heavily used on the go was my iPad Pro.

    That thing could survive for over a week if not or lightly used. But as soon as you open Lightroom to process photos, the battery would melt away in an hour or two.

    6. ManBeardPc ◴[26 Aug 25 06:16 UTC] No.45022880[source]▶
    It’s true for me. I need a portable workstation more than a mobile laptop, as long as it survives train travels (most have power outlets now), moving between buildings/rooms or the occasional meeting with a customer +presentation it is enough for me.

    But I can imagine some people have different needs and may not have access to (enough) power outlets. Some meeting/conference rooms had only a handful outlets for dozens of people. Definitely nice to survive light office work for a full working day.

    7. mbreese ◴[26 Aug 25 06:33 UTC] No.45023010{3}[source]▶
    I wonder how much of that is crowdstrike. At $LASTJOB my Mac was constantly chugging due to some mandated security software. Battery life on that computer was always horrible compared to a personal MB w/o it.
    replies(1): >>45023222 #
    8. musicale ◴[26 Aug 25 07:01 UTC] No.45023182{3}[source]▶
    > crowdstrike

    It is incredible that crowdstrike is still operating as a business.

    It is also hard to understand why companies continue to deploy shoddy, malware-like "security" software that decreases reliability while increasing the attack surface.

    Basically you need another laptop just to run the "security" software.

    replies(2): >>45023519 #>>45024989 #
    9. yalok ◴[26 Aug 25 07:05 UTC] No.45023222{4}[source]▶
    Exactly. Antiviruses are evil in this sense - crippling battery life significantly.

    Wherever possible, I send “pkill -STOP” to all those processes, and stall them and thus save battery…

    replies(1): >>45025390 #
    10. baq ◴[26 Aug 25 07:50 UTC] No.45023519{4}[source]▶
    Allegedly, crowdstrike is S-tier EDR. Can’t blame security folks to want to have it. The performance and battery tax is very real though.
    replies(1): >>45024037 #
    11. swiftcoder ◴[26 Aug 25 08:55 UTC] No.45024037{5}[source]▶
    Ever since Crowdstrike fucked up and took out $10 billion worth of Windows PCs with a bad patch, most of the security folks I know have come around to the view that it is an overall liability. Something lighter-touch carries less risk, even if it isn't quite as effective.
    12. zillow ◴[26 Aug 25 11:14 UTC] No.45024989{4}[source]▶
    there's a few different reasons: - its pushed by gov (it gives full access to machines, huge backdoor) - its not actually the worst of its kind, sadly - their threat database is good (ie it will catch stuff) - it lets you look at everything on the machine (not the only one, but, its def. useful) - its big - cant be faulted for "we had it and we got pwned" - yep, sad as well

    If operating systems weren't as poop as they are today, this would not be necessary - but here we are. And I bet you major OS manufacturers will not really fix their OSes without ensuring its just a fully walled garden (terrible for devs.. but you'll probably just run a linux vm for dev on top..). Bad intents lead to bad software.

    13. mbreese ◴[26 Aug 25 12:05 UTC] No.45025390{5}[source]▶
    The firewall on that computer killed the battery (with repeated crashing). It also refused to work with a USB Ethernet adapter so I could only use wifi. It was clearly a product meant to check a security box, written by a company that knew nothing about Macs, bought by Enterprise Windows admins. It was incredibly frustrating. (The next version of MacOS moved firewalls away from in-kernel to extensions. I like to think it was my repeated crash logs that made the difference.)

    I half wonder if that’s part of the issue with Windows PCs and their battery life. The OS requires so much extra monitoring just to protect itself that it ends up affecting performance and battery life significantly. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if this alone was the major performance boost Macs have over Windows laptops.

    14. Delk ◴[26 Aug 25 14:59 UTC] No.45027517[source]▶
    I get 8 to 10 hours of light use on my personal ThinkPad. Or ~6 h of Netflix at 50% screen brightness, despite the lack of hardware decoding for DRM encrypted video on Linux. All of these are with a max charge threshold of 80%. 5 hours of battery life sounds rather limited to me, too.

    But then the numbers are hardly comparable without having comparable workloads. If I were regularly running builds or had some other moderate load throughout a working day, that'd probably cost a couple of hours.