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

447 points stephenheron | 4 comments | 25 Aug 25 21:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.294s | 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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veidr ◴[26 Aug 25 18:09 UTC] No.45030167[source]▶
I don't give any fucks about battery life or even total power consumption cost; I just hate that I have some crap-ass Apple mid-range (for them) laptop with only 36GB RAM and an "M4 Max" CPU, and it runs rings around my 350W Core i9-14900K desktop Linux workstation, and there is essentially no way I can develop software (Rust, web apps, multi-container Docker crap) on Linux with anything close to the performance of my shitty laptop computer, even if I spend $10,000.

That's actually wild. I think we're in a kind of unique moment, but one that is good for Apple mainly, because their OS is so developer-hostile that I pay back all the performance gains with interest. T_T

replies(1): >>45030335 #
1. kwimajs ◴[26 Aug 25 18:24 UTC] No.45030335[source]▶
To be honest, I haven't done any research on this, but it's something that crosses my mind from time to time. My laptop has 32 GB of RAM and an i7-14700H processor, with Linux Mint installed. I'm more than happy with its performance, especially considering I bought it for a price that was very cheap for the market.

I wonder what specs a MacBook would need to give me similar performance. For example, on Linux with 32 GB of RAM, I can sometimes have 4 or 5 instances of WebStorm open and forget about them running in the background. Could a MacBook with 16 GB of RAM handle that? Similarly, which MacBook processor would give me the real-world, daily-use performance I get from my 14700H? Should I continue using cheap and powerful Windows/Linux laptops in the future, or should I make the switch to a MacBook?

(Translated from my native language to English using Gemini.)

replies(1): >>45030619 #
2. veidr ◴[26 Aug 25 18:49 UTC] No.45030619[source]▶
I don't know for sure, either, but I suspect any recent Macbook with 16GB RAM would be a significant upgrade over 14700H.

I don't like macOS, so in recent years, I only use it on laptop (which for me is like, a few on-site meetings per year, plus a few airplane flights). What infuriates me is that my mid-tier Mac laptop for those use cases is now significantly faster than any Linux workstation I can possibly buy... and positively annihilates any non-Apple laptop machine on essentially every meaningful benchmark.

replies(2): >>45031269 #>>45033160 #
3. vlod ◴[26 Aug 25 19:38 UTC] No.45031269[source]▶
I really hoped that Asahi Linux had progressed. I want to use Linux on apple hardware.
4. mixmastamyk ◴[26 Aug 25 22:31 UTC] No.45033160[source]▶
There are a few new AMD rigs, for either games or unified memory applications that are competitive or narrowly beat Apple in performance (not efficiency).