How long can Apple stay ahead in CPU performance?

[JahBoolean]

j

I think the answer to this question depends on :
1. Mainly how competitors will be able to put their hands on TSMC a d screw Apple's contracts in 3-5 years from now
2. A little bit about how early Apple will adopt Armv9.
3. How obsessed Apple is to keep their insane thermal specs instead of adding more performance in desktop computers (this could actually kill Apple Silicon in the long run).

The whole industry is going to have and implement efficiency-focused solutions [https://www.nrdc.org/experts/pierre...pproves-nations-1st-computer-energy-standards]

 

[PsykX]

How so?

Well Apple Silicon is a quadruple feat : CPU performance, performance-per-watt (read : thermals / less throttling), memory management, and I think it's safe to say, price. Key advantages that have the potential to keep Apple well ahead of the competition if they play their cards accordingly.

My first example : Battery life in iPhones. Apple has been obsessed by making their products thinner and thinner, and most people complained because flagship Android phones had a better battery. Now they actually made the iPhone 13 unnoticeably thicker and at this point this makes the Android users jealous for the first time ever about the iPhone battery life. The end of this obsession is rewarding them because the iPhone 13 has been a strong lineup and Android users are actually switching more than in the past.

My second : Memory. How long will Apple stay obsessed by making big profits and keep only 8 GB of memory in their base models, at these price points ? It started to become a joke with Intel computers and now, thanks to outstanding memory management in Apple Silicon, it makes a little more sense with Apple Silicon because of its insane memory management. But you have to know that memory management is incredible with AS. Most people will just compare specs on paper and might be tempted to buy a PC.

My third example is more related to the case : The iMac. It has an M1 processor. The same as we see in a MacBook Air. iMacs will always be compared against desktop PCs, and at this point it will lose against most competitors. They really need to understand that customers don't expect iMacs to have insane thermals and insane thinness, they expect performance. The Mac Studio kinda showed Apple is not that obsessed about thermals, but the death of the large iMac (so far) makes me scared for the future of this specific product (which has always been my personal favorite BTW).

 

[Gnattu]

They really need to understand that customers don't expect iMacs to have insane thermals and insane thinness, they expect performance.

Mac Studio kinda showed Apple is not that obsessed about thermals, but the death of the large iMac (so far) makes me scared for the future of this specific product (which has always been my personal favorite BTW).

The reason why Apple formally killed the performance-oriented iMac is that they want to use this "bigger Mac Mini" to replace the iMac Pro. Reasons unknown, but my guess is that the sales data shows that most iMac buyers does not purchase the high end models.

 

[TSE]

Facts are Intel, nvidia, and AMD are all ahead of Apple in terms of pure performance already.


But if Apple can provide "good enough" pure performance to the masses while more than making up for it in terms of overall experience (product support longevity, battery life, heat, software integration, and value-per-dollar), I don't see any cause for concern.


Laptops from a decade ago still have the performance to be a daily driver for 90% of people out there. Where Apple wants to get more customers is getting that performance in crazy small, beautiful packages that create amazing experience in other areas. My MacBook Air is an ultimate testament to that - I could never go back to an x86 chip in it's current state again. Fanless, ridiculous battery life, and all at about $1000.

 

[exoticSpice]

Which application do you suggest specifically? Modern benchmarking paradigms rely on a selection of real-world tasks and algorithms. The age of truly synthetic microbenchmarks ended 10 years ago.

For example, Geekbench 5 CPU tests include things like C compilation using clang, PDF rendering, compression/decompression, running queries agains a SQLite database, basic image processing, HTML DOM manipulation etc.

https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf

gaming, video editing that does not use encoders or decoders, blender on CPU and Excel to name a few at least for me.

 

[exoticSpice]

Facts are Intel, nvidia, and AMD are all ahead of Apple in terms of pure performance already.

Agree, but happens when they beat Apple in efficiency. Then there would be no point to using Mx Sillicon on Macs other than a few niche cases which also be replicated on Intel CPUs in the future.

There is no right or wrong answer, we just have to see how the market reacts and how the industry will be in 3 years time.

 

[mi7chy]

But Mac people will have macOS and a more power efficient computer... AND the most profitable ones for their maker.

Not anymore since it's been debunked by Feral with Total War: War Hammer III that is limited to 30fps unless plugged in.

 

[leman]

Agree, but happens when they beat Apple in efficiency. Then there would be no point to using Mx Sillicon on Macs other than a few niche cases which also be replicated on Intel CPUs in the future.

Well, sure, if they beat Apple on efficiency that would be the case. But there is currently no indication whatsoever that there is much chance of that being to happen. I mean, the latest and greatest Intel is roughly 10-20% faster at 5-6x higher power consumption compared to 18 months old M1. And Intel's efficiency cores are like what, half the speed at most compared to M1 Firestorm at a comparable power consumption?

If Intel (or AMD) want to beat Apple on power efficiency, they have to increase theirs by a factor or 4-5 in the next couple of years. Nothing like that has ever happened before. So I don't see that happening any time soon either.

 

[leman]

Not anymore since it's been debunked by Feral with Total War: War Hammer III that is limited to 30fps unless plugged in.

Because CA/Feral decided to code it this way... and what does it even have to do with power efficiency? Any M1 Mac will use less than half the power than an equivalent PC for similar performance.

 

[TSE]

Agree, but happens when they beat Apple in efficiency. Then there would be no point to using Mx Sillicon on Macs other than a few niche cases which also be replicated on Intel CPUs in the future.

There is no right or wrong answer, we just have to see how the market reacts and how the industry will be in 3 years time.

If other companies beat them in efficiency as well, then you are right - there is little reason to buy a Mac. Apple would either offer further value with their other products to where buying a Mac to get into the Apple ecosystem is worth it despite worse performance & efficiency, or they would have to move again to their competitors.

You can say a lot negative about Apple, but one thing they should be very proud of is how nimble of a company they are despite being so huge. They make very bold "executive actions" often, at the expense of leaving some customers and pieces of software behind for the value of better overall experiences for the majority. They have gone from 68k to PPC to Intel to Apple Silicon just in my lifetime and each one was a great decision. I can't say that many other companies would make things happen that quickly. My point is, if there are CPUs and GPUs that beat Apple's in the long term, they will move to them.

 

[mi7chy]

Because CA/Feral decided to code it this way...

Because people that deny basic science (100 watt-hour battery / ~90 watt heavier workload = ~1 hour battery life) will blame Feral when their laptop dies after about an hour of game play.

 

[killawat]

My pondering thought is when will Apple Mac users regret that Apple moved away from Intel?

The best course for Apple would have been to stick with Intel and also make their own chips. Apple certainly has enough capital to maintain both x86 and ARM.

I don't think I'll ever regret using AS.

 

[BootsWalking]

M1 is not ahead in performance. In single-threaded performance (Spec2017, measured by Anandtech), the fastest non-overclocked Alder Lake desktop chip (i9-12900K with DDR5) is 10% faster than the M1 Max (averaging integer and floating point results). But that's at the expense of far higher power consumption. If things continue as they are, Intel will likely stay marginally ahead in performance, but at the cost of much poorer efficiency.

So the interesting question is not will AS be able to stay ahead of Intel in performance (it's not), but rather if AS will be able to maintain its huge lead in efficiency over Intel. And that's really up to Intel.

The Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K Review: Hybrid Performance Brings Hybrid Complexity

www.anandtech.com

A stock i5-12600K has a much more reasonable TDP of 125w/150w and also beats the M1 in single-core performance. I looked but couldn't find a precise power draw figure for it running single-core Geekbench 5 but it should be well below these TDP numbers. Of course it'll still be materially higher than the M1's power draw.

 

[JMacHack]

“PC will regain the lead guys! Y-y-you’ll see! Apple will r—r-regret moving away from Intel!”

 

[iPadified]

Hopefully not too long or they get lazy.

The new Mac Pro will be much more interesting than the studio to watch for as it will be a direct competitor to high end systems where power draw is not important.

In my country, the price of electricity is about 50 cents/kWh (I know it is expensive). A 1 kW computer doing the same work as a 0.5 kW may make a large difference. Assuming these systems runs close to the power envelope, 24/7, this means that a 1kW systems costs 4380$ and a 0.5 kW systems 2190$. Looks like a significant difference to me. No wonder that data centres are bothered with the electricity bill.

At some point performance/price and performance/power both needs to be fulfilled.

 

[jav6454]

This whole thread's theme is about "winning' the single threading drag racing war. Overlocked CPU coupled to a heavy duty liquid and/or refrigerated cooler is likely going to win the single threaded drag race. If that is the focus then they are superior along that dimension of evaluation.

Most laptop dies aren't in the K status. Which again means it is a different dies and design tuning really talking about here. ( K dies tend not to have biggest iGPU coupled to them. )

Upclocking both the memory and the CPU at some point will leave Apple LPDDR system behind.

Like you said, to achieve such performance you have to use an expensive active cooling (like water) and you have to push the chip. Intel has been stuck there for some time now, I doubt they'll leave it.

That said, the allure of Apple's silicone chips is the low power vs performance. Yes, single threaded is lagging, but trade-offs must be made.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

iMacs will always be compared against desktop PCs, and at this point it will lose against most competitors.

Not “most” competitors. ALL competitors. And All competitors will always lose when the comparison is “runs macOS”.

 

[timber]

I don't know when or if Intel (or AMD) will lap Apple or vice versa but I believe this time Apple has much better chance of keeping its edge compared with previous "proprietary endeavors".

M series is deeply connected with Apple's mobile business on 2 things, core design and use of TSMC's top processes. In the past Apple was always running a low volume gig compared with intel and that eventually always resulted in subpar performance due to lack of resources thrown at it. Not this time.

 

[jav6454]

iMacs will always be compared against desktop PCs, and at this point it will lose against most competitors. They really need to understand that customers don't expect iMacs to have insane thermals and insane thinness, they expect performance. The Mac Studio kinda showed Apple is not that obsessed about thermals, but the death of the large iMac (so far) makes me scared for the future of this specific product (which has always been my personal favorite BTW).

Yes and no. iMacs are usually compared to desktops, but that's the wrong comparison. iMacs would ideally need to be compared to an all-in-one from HP or Dell (et al).

 

[jav6454]

I don't know when or if Intel (or AMD) will lap Apple or vice versa but I believe this time Apple has much better chance of keeping its edge compared with previous "proprietary endeavors".

M series is deeply connected with Apple's mobile business on 2 things, core design and use of TSMC's top processes. In the past Apple was always running a low volume gig compared with intel and that eventually always resulted in subpar performance due to lack of resources thrown at it. Not this time.

Apple has an edge now due to their acquisitions of chip making companies. They imported lots of talent that has yielded one of the best CPU lines that works in desktop, mobile and ultra-mobile devices. Impressive feat.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Agree, but happens when they beat Apple in efficiency. Then there would be no point to using Mx Sillicon on Macs other than a few niche cases which also be replicated on Intel CPUs in the future.

They won’t beat Apple in efficiency UNLESS they’re willing to drop backwards compatibility. Intel would have to do several times LESS work per instruction in order to come close, that’s the mountain they’ve got to come down from in order to even be in the same playing field as Apple.

And, there’s no point to using Mx Silicon NOW if the goal is “peak performance”. No one currently using a Mac is using it because it has the general best performance. That will always be the case as there will always be someone with a bucket of liquid nitrogen and a dream.

Mx Silicon WILL always have the best macOS and macOS application performance, though. And that won’t change regardless of how well Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc. does.

 

[killawat]

Mx Silicon WILL always have the best macOS and macOS application performance, though. And that won’t change regardless of how well Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc. does.

Agreed. Mx is designed with not only macOS but the physical device itself in mind. The AS team has stated as much. macOS will always have decent momentum from users and developers. People have stuck by Apple in the darkest days and the worst Macs. Now not only are we on the other side, but the Mac is once again turning heads of the general populace.

 

[JMacHack]

Seriousposting:

I think Apple is going to continue to trade blows with top x86 chips in raw performance and continue to whup them in PPW. Intel at the very least has shown willing to skew benchmarks and push clocks far past peak efficiency points just to maintain a performance lead. That’s not something they’re gonna give up without a fight, and Apple doesn’t wanna play that game.

However, more interesting to me is the other competition. Many other companies have stated their intentions to make M1 competitors. To my mind NVidia is best suited to that having arguably the best GPU design teams, experienced ARM designers, several ARM processors already under their belt, and enough capital and weight to make a competitor.

The other wildcard is AMD, which has turned into a serious competitor to Intel and NVIDIA from being far behind both in a short period. To my mind, circuit design is a skill that can transcend architecture, and they could theoretically deliver an ARM SoC using the same skilled engineers.

Other companies such as Qualcomm have shown great interest as well, but they haven’t caught up to the A-series so I’m dubious as to whether they’ll deliver.

Intel isn’t going anywhere for sure, but I think their era of dominance is over. They’re still having trouble delivering products on time (their GPU efforts lately), and so far have been reliant on the halo effect from the performance crown.

And none of this addresses a huge advantage for Apple, vertical integration. The M chips have huge die sizes, but because they’re only inApple products, Apple can afford to eat the cost of the die in the end product, not just the processor itself. Likewise Apple can tailor MacOS to specific functions of their own processors.

Their competition doesn’t have the same luxury.

We haven’t seen any of the announced or rumored M1 competitors as of yet either. So there’s no real competition yet.

 

[Argon_]

Laptops from a decade ago still have the performance to be a daily driver for 90% of people out there. Where Apple wants to get more customers is getting that performance in crazy small, beautiful packages that create amazing experience in other areas. My MacBook Air is an ultimate testament to that - I could never go back to an x86 chip in it's current state again. Fanless, ridiculous battery life, and all at about $1000.

Macs now represent a compelling value, purely from a perspective of performance per dollar. Not something we could say in the Intel days.

Remember that a 12900K alone costs 2/3 of an M1 Mini, making the latter's performance that much more impressive.

 

[leman]

Macs now represent a compelling value, purely from a perspective of performance per dollar. Not something we could say in the Intel days.

Remember that a 12900K alone costs 2/3 of an M1 Mini, making the latter's performance that much more impressive.

A dubious virtue if you look at the multicore performance. For anyone needing a fast CPU the 12900K will be running circles around the mini.