You still have to look at total cost of ownership. I am getting ready to retire an 8 year old MB Air and replace it with an M2 Air. Maybe you spend less, but you have to replace sooner in some cases. And, as someone pointed out earlier, just because one is cheaper, does not mean that it meets the needs of the end user. I am not disagreeing that Apple's computers are priced at a premium. But I don't think the premium is that much of a deciding factor for most buyers. Ease of use, part of the ecosystem,.... name your tried and true reasoning here.
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Geekbench score for the Intel i9-13900K is out and it’s not looking pretty for Apple …
- Thread starter Retskrad
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THIS! I can't bump this enough. Every single Apple machine has the same class-leading single-core performance, regardless of price point. That means even the lower end models are still snappy and responsive, even if you can't do heavy duty video editing or gaming on them.
They don't know or care about performance-per-watt directly, but you can best believe they care about battery life!
As far as laptops are concerned, the M-series chips managing stellar single-core and iGPU performance while also offering easy 20-hour battery life is one heck of a selling point. That's only possible with a chip that has really good performance-per-watt.
I bought my M1 Pro MBP because I needed a higher-performance machine for relatively heavy scientific computing work (which it delivers very well on), but what I like most about it is that I get all that performance without any of the unpleasant usability tradeoffs (size, weight, battery life) you ususally get with a workstation laptop. If I'm just working on reports or Python code (and don't forget to close Teams when I'm not using it), I can make it days on a single charge!
Then… they continue to sell millions of laptops which is what most people are buying anyway? Sure, this chip posts big numbers, but very very few consumers will have one of these in their next laptop.
The M1 was remarkable for the following reasons:
- all Versions from the 7-core-GPU to the 64-core Ultra have the same Single Core Performance
- the Single Core Performance stays high even in Battery mode
- regardless of the money spent on the device the performance (SC) is the same (that made the mb air m1 such a good value)
- no Frequency- or Cache-differences (i'm looking at you Powerpc G4)
- Hardware requirements for software can easily be told ("it runs on M1")
- Thin and light enclosures are finally possible (imagine the thickness of an x86-iPad in the same performance-ballpark)
- stays silent even during load (with exceptions)
- no more "finger-burning-good"
In all these comparisons, People tend to ignore what made Apple switch to intel in the first place:
putting performance chips in tdp-constrained devices (aka "Powerbook G5")
With Alder Lake and nvidia as a close aide, Intel finally did the impossible. They succeded were IBM failed.
They put a G5 in a macbook.
But Apple wanted a new "yonah" though.
Who cares if Intel closed the distance to AS?
With these improvements, can Apple build an x86-iPad with the same thickness, battery-life and performance as the M1 or even the A12x?
My iMac M1 draws avg 35W/ load 56W out of the plug. (Food for though - How many TWh on millions of devices have been saved thanks to the M1)
- all Versions from the 7-core-GPU to the 64-core Ultra have the same Single Core Performance
- the Single Core Performance stays high even in Battery mode
- regardless of the money spent on the device the performance (SC) is the same (that made the mb air m1 such a good value)
- no Frequency- or Cache-differences (i'm looking at you Powerpc G4)
- Hardware requirements for software can easily be told ("it runs on M1")
- Thin and light enclosures are finally possible (imagine the thickness of an x86-iPad in the same performance-ballpark)
- stays silent even during load (with exceptions)
- no more "finger-burning-good"
In all these comparisons, People tend to ignore what made Apple switch to intel in the first place:
putting performance chips in tdp-constrained devices (aka "Powerbook G5")
With Alder Lake and nvidia as a close aide, Intel finally did the impossible. They succeded were IBM failed.
They put a G5 in a macbook.
But Apple wanted a new "yonah" though.
Who cares if Intel closed the distance to AS?
With these improvements, can Apple build an x86-iPad with the same thickness, battery-life and performance as the M1 or even the A12x?
My iMac M1 draws avg 35W/ load 56W out of the plug. (Food for though - How many TWh on millions of devices have been saved thanks to the M1)
I am factual on this point. Several states have passed laws not allowing pre-built electronics to exceed a certain defined wattage.
Nobody is entitled to give a works cited page for posts on an internet forum. This isn't a scholarly journal and I'm not trying to publish for research. You don't have to get so upset about it...google is your friend.
Power per Watt was, as a matter of fact, what Steve Jobs based his decision to switch to Intel on. He elaborated on this in the very same keynote he announced the first Macbook (previously, Apple notebooks used the PowerBook moniker).
So, Performance per Watt is indeed a metric used for more than 15 years and is, once again, the main reason for a platform switch. That is to say, performance / Watt ist the reason for a platform switch the second time in a row
About the 1 minute mark…
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Power costs aren't hidden nor intangible in that we know all computers need it. Last I checked, we're not in the zero-carbon-superabundance-age yet. Sure, power costs vary from region to region - assume lowest rates and you'll still wind spending more on power over a short lifetime. Especially when these latest processors (more for Raptor Lake!) consume so much of it...
I'm thinking of retiring my home server (which I leave on 24x7 to automate things that need automating) for a Mac Studio for precisely the energy savings. I'll post calculations later today when I get a chance, of which you can feel free to poke holes at.
I moved NAS duties from my i7-10700 Windows Desktop to my M1 Mac mini a few weeks ago. The Windows desktop is off most of the time. I use it for a few hours per week. I run my professional workload off the M1 Mac mini as well. It easily handles it all.
Agreed with this, apple is king for portable devices but dekstop isn't playing with the same rules.
Also the harsh truth is that a lot of cross platform software for creative (adobe, blender, etc) will run better on intel/windows than macos/apple hardware. Because devs are more familiar - mainly target - windows and intel systems + truly optimizing for apple sillicon is not trivial.
Those rules only govern idle power consumption. They don't care how much power the computer uses when it's active. As far as I understand, the rules only hit certain mass market brands that had traditionally used low-quality power supplies in their computers. Higher-end gaming brands were unaffected, because they had been using efficient high-end PSUs anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. They will sell millions of laptops and for everyday use those Mx chips are brilliant and allows far more mileage per charging cycle. Heck my fairly new windows/intel laptop holds battery for max one hour. I can’t even take it to a meeting without bringing a charger.
What I’m questioning is the chart apple shows with performance per effect and if that can also be translated into more performance and keep up with intel if you just allow it to pull the watts.
A Fiat will also give you more mileage per gallon than a Ferrari, but it will never be able to outperform the Ferrari in speed and acceleration. It will still sell millions and be a great car for 98% of use-cases.
Now if Apple can do some trickery and ensure that the last 2% will also be able to get all the speed and acceleration they need it will be amazing.
Add in a couple of ultra-performance cores that are never used until the user wants performance and doesn't care about power consumption. They have the transistor budget.
Windows isn't single threaded, and neither is Mac OS. Single threaded performance is still highly relevant on both.
Even if future Intel chips runs flaming circles around Apple Silicon, Apple will never go back to Intel since they have the better performance per watt.
Apple likes to have total control of their products (hardware and software) and they'll hold on to that power as much as possible even if the competition is better.
Apple likes to have total control of their products (hardware and software) and they'll hold on to that power as much as possible even if the competition is better.
Never going back to Intel is a bold statement but I think the more fundamentally sound statement is:
Apple will not go back to Intel if they continue to offer bad products for mobile applications. Furthermore, since the entire industry seems to be adopting the arm64 instruction set, I suspect that Apple is not going to make an instruction set transition for quite some time because the rest of the industry is heading that way too.
Apple may go back to Intel but it will be when Intel makes competitive (in the markets Apple cares about) arm64 instruction set processors.
Edit: Competitive might not be enough, Intel's R&D will need to find some major leap where Apple's own silicon team cannot even compete with what they're offering in technologies Apple prefers.
Apple will not go back to Intel if they continue to offer bad products for mobile applications. Furthermore, since the entire industry seems to be adopting the arm64 instruction set, I suspect that Apple is not going to make an instruction set transition for quite some time because the rest of the industry is heading that way too.
Apple may go back to Intel but it will be when Intel makes competitive (in the markets Apple cares about) arm64 instruction set processors.
Edit: Competitive might not be enough, Intel's R&D will need to find some major leap where Apple's own silicon team cannot even compete with what they're offering in technologies Apple prefers.
What if China attacks Taiwan and takes over TSM and makes it unavailable to US companies? My opinion is that they will take back Taiwan. Not an if but a when.
If that happens, I don't think anybody is going to be worried too much with the chips inside a MacBook because we'll be in WWIII.
So I don't find much utility in positing this hypothetical because one is essentially asking "well what if the world splits in two, what then?!"
Lol are u seriously comparing a Entry M2 Chip with a High End Class i9??????
It's already happened in Ukraine and we don't have WWIII. Conventional wisdom is that the US will just let them take Taiwan.
If you're Tim Cook, you will of course plan for this possibility.
I’ve read that as Apple’s solutions are SoC’s there may be far more of a balancing act to get everything to work perfectly at a given frequency (compared to Intel). Any changes to power/frequency may just cause it to fall out of it’s balance. I personally think that Apple designs for the cores to hit specific performance goals with each generation. If they hit the goal of 15-20% performance increase, good. That’s pretty much all that’s needed.
Apple doesn’t have the luxury Intel has of producing solutions then throwing them over the wall to vendors that will have to deal with powering it and keeping it cool. They have to design solutions that fit into the scale of what they can actually sell a Mac for, so the cooler and more performant they’re designed to run, the simpler, cheaper and easier to produce the system they reside within can be.
2% is generous.
Any Mac performing at that level (if they could be made to perform at that level) would be selling below 1% a year. The current highest end Mac Pro is already there… folks just generally don’t want desktop systems. And, many that do, don’t see the value in how much the highest end costs, they end up with a desktop, but not one at the top of the performance chart.So, it makes sense that Apple doesn’t pay much attention to a market that may, in a good year, end up with 50 units sold.And, that leap would have to be in the mobile space as that’s most of what Apple sells. Having high end desktop available for purchase means little to Apple when their customers are looking for the next MacBook Air.
And, there is no way Intel will ever make a high performance mobile part that challenges their desktop solutions as much as Apple Silicon does. They need everyone to continue believing that the only way you get the best performance is with hot power sucking desktop chips that cost as much as some computers. Making a performant mobile chip will upend their entire marketing structure. While part of me believes they COULD do it, they will forever be restricted from doing it due to business.
Look at the charts. Every Apple Silicon processor made is within the top 30 in single threaded performance. ALL of them. And the HIGHEST single threaded performing i9 is still within just a few hundred points of the worst performing Apple Silicon chip. That is quite remarkable.
Then, as you go down the charts you see ALLLLLLLL the i3’s, i7’s and i5’s that pad Intel’s low end so they can charge dearly for the high end.
It’s really like Apple just makes and puts i9’s in everything.Thats is as far as the theory goes. Practically no-one is using the i7-1280p/1260p in its normal 15W TDP configuration. Most are using a cTDP UP configuration with PL1 = 28W - which makes them comparable with the MxPro/Max and not with the base M2.
Beside for passive cooling you need a TDP of less than 10W - most likely closer to 9W.