Antutu is overall system performance, the Geekbench does not account for the GPU. Yes, A16 still has an edge in CPU but the Android camp has made major progress in the last few years. With next year's X3 core, it will even the playing field. Apple can't rest on its laurels....but remains significantly behind it in Geekbench:
View attachment 2114746
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Geekbench Benchmark score
See how Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Geekbench benchmark ❤️ score compares ⚡ with other processors and check out his rank and performance results in tests.unite4buy.com
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple should hire back Nuvia employees
- Thread starter albertserene
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yes, a larger transistor budget certainly helps. Some have speculated that 3 nm will be needed in order to add hardware RT to AS and still have the chip come in under the reticle limit (I believe that's 26 mm x 33 mm = 858 mm² for current i193 and EUV lithography steppers).
However, performance can be significantly improved without an increase in the transistor budget, by improving the microarchitecture. That was the basis of Intel's tick-tock production strategy: A process shrink (tick), followed by the introduction of a new microarchitecture on that same process (tock).
For example Intel's tock upgrade from Penryn to Nehalem on 45 nm gave a 20%-30% performance boost:
The Nehalem Preview: Intel Does It Again
www.anandtech.com
Indeed, according to Anandtech, Nehalem was able to achieve higher performance than Penryn with fewer transistors:
Nehalem was once in a generation improvement. The Anandtech article tells you why, Nehalem was the first time Intel moved the memory controller onboard. Cache was reduced by 50% compared to Penryn. There's not many pieces of those low hanging fruit anymore. Apple has put the memory as close to the SoC package as possible.
Not sure why you're arguing the point. *Every* tock created a performance improvement on the same process. Hence this absolutist statement is simply incorrect, period:
And the reason it's wrong is you're effectively saying that, with a fixed number of transistors, it's not possible to increase performance by improving the microarchitecture, which is similarly incorrect.
Last edited:
With a 300W power budget? Enough to power the entire Mac Studio? It might overtake but at what cost?
Antutu. If anything, I’d pick that as my last benchmark tool for comparison. Also, winning benchmark means nothing in real world situations.
From MR: M2 chip takes the performance per watt of the M1 even further with an 18 percent faster CPU, a 35 percent more powerful GPU, and a 40 percent faster Neural Engine. There are also other significant enhancements such as more memory bandwidth and support for up to 24GB of unified memory.
As many have mentioned on MR in many many posts before, the leap from Intel to Apple SOC was so dramatic that the next chip, the M2, was a bit of a letdown in speed when compared to its predecessor. But speed is not the only metric when comparing chips, see above.
Would love to know where you are getting this information about Apple's chip designers & engineers, and the absence of some of them being the reason things aren't up to whatever progress you think Apple should be making.
How do you know that Apple's SoC development would be any different if those people had stayed?
How do you know that any chips would be any faster, but for those employees being gone? Where's the proof for the heart of your entire argument?
If 18% isn't enough of an improvement in speed in the year and a half between when the M1 (announced Nov. 10, 2020) and M2 (announced June 6, 2022) chips were launched, what do you think it should be? Must be much greater than that, since you say chip development has come to a "grinding stop."
M1: 16 billion transistors. M2: 20 billion transistors, more CPU and GPU cores, more memory and memory bandwidth, hardware-accelerated media engines for both ProRes and ProRes RAW, 3.6 teraflops of graphics performance vs 2.6 in the M1. I could go on but you get the point. There has provably been progress. Maybe not as much as you want, but I wouldn't call it stagnated, either.
First you said it was two years. Now it's 3? Did it take me that long to read this thread? (hint... it's been 2 years).
Oh and welcome to MR.
I don't think you have taking the time to read my entire thread. It is about stagnation of progress. Without any major improvement in the last 3 years, the rest of the world has caught up to Apple silicon. It is just a matter of time when Apple silicon will be run over by other CPUs. Even x86 camp has great improvement with AMD's 6800U for power efficency over performance. Benchmark means nothing? Then what are we talking about here. You can defend Apple all you want, but the competitions will not stand still.
I love reading threads where many industry experts weigh in on their inside knowledge of the talent currently working within Apple's silicon teams, especially when they inform us all of how desperate Apple is for skilled talent in the area. I also love being left with a sense that Apple's chips are actually quite awful, and that they're really just a failure when you compare them to the rest of the industry.
....
Said nobody.
....
Said nobody.
True, Intel managed to push Raptor Lake past M1.....by running higher clockspeeds using a lot more power and running a lot hotter. Go and compare a per Watt performance and M1 still wins hands down.
I have used volcano hot Intel macbooks in the past. The sound of their fans was loud and annoying and batteries were lasting mere hours.
Silence, coold machines and long battery life is what Apple Silicon has brought us. I will not swap back to Intel for anything in the world if I have to give this up.
Apple is not playing at the "lets clock this thing ever higher and hotter" game.....luckily!
According to this more detailed comparison, the A16 is significantly ahead in CPU, and slightly ahead in GPU (except where RT can be used). So your claim, based on Antutu alone, that Snapdragon 2 has surpassed A16, seems questionable.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs Apple A16 Bionic: It's a Close Call
We have compared Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs Apple A16 Bionic to find out the performance difference in CPU & GPU, AI, cameras, and more.
beebom.com
Comparing next year's chip from brand A with a current chip from brand B is a common fallacy. If X3 is released in 2H 2023, we should be comparing it with A17.
Of course, but that's just a truism that applies to everyone—Apple, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, etc., etc.
Last edited:
I never said Apple Silicon is a terrible chip. It was the best chip when it was released. But the competition doesn't stand still and it's time to take the next big jump. We will see how Apple's semiconductor team can come up with without Gerald William III at the helm.
It's being 3 years since Apple update the micro architecture of its performance core. It's being 2 years since M1's release. It's funny when people are being cynical. 18% improvement over 2 years is reasonable? Look at 55% performance jump between Apple A12 to A14. Those years are gone. I don't care for Apple anymore
Except, nothing grows exponentially forever. Huge jump can only happen so many times before hitting a wall and be forced to push back. 18% over 3 years is Still more impressive than Intel’s 14+++++++++++++++nm for 6 years iirc, where those engineers tried their hardest to squeeze out a bit more than last time.
Same thing as infinite growth. That is a fallacy That Wall Street will never accept And admit.
Odd that you cared enough to create this thread tho. Kind of conflicting IMHO.
I'll ask again: How do you know that Apple's SoC development would be any different if those people had stayed? That was after all the entire point of this thread.
You make it sound as if you were an Apple fanboy for one or two versions of their SoC but no longer. That's a shame. I suggest you buy an Intel machine with the latest and greatest overheatiest energy-suckiest Raptor Lake processor. I mean, they've been out nearly a month. Then you can achieve the calm and happiness you seek as you game your days away.
Until the day comes that they don't upgrade fast enough for your taste either. And what then?
You say that like you think Apple lost its whole chip design team. A small number of employees left to try to start their own company. That happens all the time at companies and doesn’t necessarily catastrophic.
Were you expecting a jump in performance from M1 to M2 to be like the Intel to M1 jump? That is unrealistic. Once on Apple Silicon, the improvements will be incremental. 18% is pretty good for a design-only upgrade. If it had been accompanied by a process change, there probably would have been more improvement but you can’t do a process upgrade every year.
1. Antutu scores for Android and iOS can’t be compared: https://www.antutu.com/en/doc/119646.htm
2. As long as Qualcomm makes processor cores that use the ARM instruction set, it will have to pay licensing fees to ARM, either for licensing ARM-designed cores or for designing their own cores that use ARM’s instruction set/micro architecture.
I agree that it’s a little bit worrisome that Apple seems to not be making the same type of disruptive micro architecture advances performance core-wise since M1 came out, but only time will tell if that’s related to the designers leaving, internal restructuring to design a more advanced desktop chip, supply chain disruptions, or a combination of all of the above.
2. As long as Qualcomm makes processor cores that use the ARM instruction set, it will have to pay licensing fees to ARM, either for licensing ARM-designed cores or for designing their own cores that use ARM’s instruction set/micro architecture.
I agree that it’s a little bit worrisome that Apple seems to not be making the same type of disruptive micro architecture advances performance core-wise since M1 came out, but only time will tell if that’s related to the designers leaving, internal restructuring to design a more advanced desktop chip, supply chain disruptions, or a combination of all of the above.
I did take my time reading your thread, and all I get is you are pessimistic about the Apple silicon progress, because you expect apple Silicon to have 100% performance skyrocket every year or something crazy. What’s bad about the rest of the world catching up? Apple must be always successful 100%, flawless? Not to mention that’s already false (butterfly keyboard for example).
Im not defending Apple here. I just merely point out exponential growth you are looking for can’t happen all the time. Did you not see the huge performance jump between last Intel MacBook vs M1 MacBook Air? Did you not notice The amazing power efficiency on Apple silicon chips? Achieving better CPU performance at the power budget of a freaking whole computer is really something to brag about all the time?
Take your 6800U as an example, https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+7+6800U&id=4923 shows the 6800U still lags behind on performance compared to M1 Pro and M1 Max in some settings, tho TDP is Only 15W, which is indeed impressive. https://www.ultrabookreview.com/36030-amd-ryzen-7-u-laptops/ But, that‘s just one processor designed for ultra books. Does it run games as well as other higher end chips? Likely not. Does it handle more intensive tasks better? I bet not. AMD and Intel still has a ton to do with their power efficiency, not to mention the desktop Apple Silicon hasn’t been released yet. (M1 ultra doesn’t count)
Just like Intel and AMD, apple won’t stand still in this Silicon performance race. I don't know why you are disappointed, just because they might move a bit slower for the time being. And about benchmark, while it can provide a clear comparison between different processors and architectures, do you know the benchmark program might be written to favor one vendor’s processor over the other? Same for GPU?
I see you have high expectations. But do you know anything about chip design, node sizes, etc?
This.
Apple is always expected to perform at a higher standard compared to others ... which I suppose is a good thing.
And the comparison is always on one aspect out of many that Apple lost out on, and ... Apple is doomed. Sigh ...
The AMD 6800U actually has a fairly powerful RDNA2 iGPU. It can achieve 3379 Gigaflops which is only slightly below M2's 3550 Gigaflops. Running at only 15W, It shows that x86 camp has improved its power efficiency.
Anyway, this discussion has gone too far. I hope I am wrong and that Apple can surprise us next year with new chips. Oh yeah, I have been an Apple fanboy since 1985 when I got my first Macintosh.
If only! Then my M1 would stay relevant for a long time. Intel would have time to recover and become a true competitor again. We wouldn't be sucked into an Apple-dominated computing market with no choice. And our Apple Watches wouldn't become sentient and decide to enslave us.