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Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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Seems Intel is a little toasty! I have seen so many threads with trolls saying M1 Max sucks and on and on!

I have said from the start that while Intel may be able to match or even beat AMD and Apple Silicon in some benchmarks they have serious problems with thermals and throttling. So for short bursts the Scalderlake might be great but under sustained heavy loads this thing is going to throttle like crazy!!

Benchmarks and being fast are not everything although they are a important part of evaluating a processor.

If your cpu goes through a battery like candy and heats up like the sun just to obtain the speed and benchmarks then it will not be a very practical cpu for most users as they will have to liquid cool their laptops to get the performance that Intel advertises.

So lets have at it and see why Intel is still king....Lol
 

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Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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Not really. M1 Max runs at 35-45 watts and Scalderlake can get up to over 200 watts plugged in. So in order to achieve the results Intel had to throw a bunch of cores and overclock the chip using the same ESF 10nm++ they have been using on TigerLake. There is NO ipc gain on these chips at all. 4th gen of 10nm as Ice Lake was 2nd, Tiger Lake 3rd and now Alderlake is 4th.

So when Intel has to run at 100 watts or much higher really to match the performance of M1 Max at 45 watts what is happening?? Massive waste in terms of heat and that gives you thermal throttling and huge fans speeds just to perform. M1 Max is barely heating up and maybe over time under heavy load it will reach 100c but it won't throttle like Intel.

So Intel may be able to match or beat AMD or M1 Pro/Max but it comes at a cost and they can only do it in short bursts and not under heavy sustained loads unless it has a liquid cooler!!
 

Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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No not really. Just tired of all the Intel comparisons and pissing contests by trolls.

Just thought I would have some fun and see what new arguments they will make about why Intel is superior to everything and now we are all stuck with crappy AS!???
 

Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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200 watts is not an official number, 115 watts is. However if you were to check wattage of the device plugged in it is not going to be 115watts but much higher. Intel is notorious for using a lot more juice plugged in.
 
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jeanlain

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2009
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However if you were to check wattage of the device plugged in it is not going to be 115watts but much higher.
Where are the reports of an Alder Lake CPU consuming 200 watts in a laptop?
Your link reports numbers close to 100W.
 

skaertus

macrumors 601
Feb 23, 2009
4,252
1,405
Brazil

Seems Intel is a little toasty! I have seen so many threads with trolls saying M1 Max sucks and on and on!

I have said from the start that while Intel may be able to match or even beat AMD and Apple Silicon in some benchmarks they have serious problems with thermals and throttling. So for short bursts the Scalderlake might be great but under sustained heavy loads this thing is going to throttle like crazy!!

Benchmarks and being fast are not everything although they are a important part of evaluating a processor.

If your cpu goes through a battery like candy and heats up like the sun just to obtain the speed and benchmarks then it will not be a very practical cpu for most users as they will have to liquid cool their laptops to get the performance that Intel advertises.

So lets have at it and see why Intel is still king....Lol
Intel is not able to match Apple, but this is a start.

Apple released the M1 in November 2021, over one year ago. Since then, it has released the M1 Pro and the M1 Max, both of which have a similar performance-per-core. It is yet to release the M2, expected to arrive in 2022.

Intel is fighting fiercely. The 12th gen cannot match the M1, but it is an improvement since the release of the 11th gen one year ago. Intel changed its CEO and is investing heavily in improving its CPUs. Windows PCs still run on the x86 architecture and, until that changes, there could be many years.

So, Intel is still the king. Its processors power most computers worldwide. And it has been like this for some time now. Intel did not always have the fastest processors. There was a time when competitors actually existed and left Intel in the dust. Just remember DEC Alpha or Silicon Graphics MIPS or IBM PowerPC or many others. Ultimately, they did not have the scale to beat Intel or Intel just devoured them.

The one who threatens Intel is not Apple. The Mac platform is not a real threat to a market full of Windows PC. The threat is Qualcomm, which powers most smartphones in the world. Just like Apple, Qualcomm can rely on the economics of scale provided by the production of smartphones chips to make processors to equip laptops and desktops. When Qualcomm delivers a PC processor similar to the M-series, then Intel may get into some serious trouble.
 

imDavid

macrumors newbie
May 22, 2021
9
25
Canada
Not sure what the point of the thread is but I will say that playing World of Warcraft on an M1Max with mostly max settings makes the chassis so hot that I can't touch it and the fans are quite loud. ?‍♀️

However with regular use, and playing LoL, Eastward, etc, the laptop is stone cold. It's really amazing and strange at the same time - coming from a gaming laptop that, when just entering Windows, is enough for a 737 engine level audio experience.
 

mi7chy

macrumors G4
Oct 24, 2014
10,625
11,296
Temperature and thermal output are two different things. Alder Lake has far higher thermal output per unit performance than the M1 Max.

Difference is you can't run M1 Max above base clock otherwise it'll run into the same fundamental issue of power consumption increasing exponentially while marginally increasing performance. Putting it in layman's terms, M1 Max is like a car without red line but mileage will be good. Alder Lake has red line when needed but if you stay out of red line mileage will also be good.
 
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Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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Where are the reports of an Alder Lake CPU consuming 200 watts in a laptop?
Your link reports numbers close to 100W

I absolutely have no links because what I said is my own conjecture and the experience of having Intel machines since Pentium days.

But sure it will run only at 115 watts at its highest performance while plugged in?
 

Technerd108

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Original poster
Oct 24, 2021
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Difference is you can't run M1 Max above base clock otherwise it'll run into the same fundamental issue of power consumption increasing exponentially while marginally increasing performance. Putting it in layman's terms, M1 Max is like a car without red line but mileage will be good. Alder Lake has red line when needed but if you stay out of red line mileage will also be good.
The point is that M1 doesn’t need to go over 40 watts to achieve similar results at 115watts or possibly more for Intel Scalderlake.

Intel may eek out higher single core in benchmarks but it will only be for short bursts until the throttle hits and boy oh boy is it going to hit.

I laugh at all of these benchmarks because they just show brute performance but how you get there and can you stay close to your peak frequency under heavy load over time are also extremely important.

In fact one of the biggest gains in M1 over Intel and AMD is architecture and ipc. Both equal better performance and higher efficiency. No one really talks about this.

Why does it matter Intel still beats Apple! Because lower thermal constraints and waste equal better long term sustainable performance while x86 and Intel are better at burst high frequency single core and multi core.

I personally would rather have very good performance with no thermal throttling and longer battery life. You can’t have everything and Apple could have added more cores but heat would be a limiting factor until they get to 3nm then watch out! By the time they release 3nm they will have higher single core scores and frequency. The M2 will not have a lot of ipc gain but will have higher frequencies for sure!
 

Technerd108

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 24, 2021
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Intel is not able to match Apple, but this is a start.

Apple released the M1 in November 2021, over one year ago. Since then, it has released the M1 Pro and the M1 Max, both of which have a similar performance-per-core. It is yet to release the M2, expected to arrive in 2022.

Intel is fighting fiercely. The 12th gen cannot match the M1, but it is an improvement since the release of the 11th gen one year ago. Intel changed its CEO and is investing heavily in improving its CPUs. Windows PCs still run on the x86 architecture and, until that changes, there could be many years.

So, Intel is still the king. Its processors power most computers worldwide. And it has been like this for some time now. Intel did not always have the fastest processors. There was a time when competitors actually existed and left Intel in the dust. Just remember DEC Alpha or Silicon Graphics MIPS or IBM PowerPC or many others. Ultimately, they did not have the scale to beat Intel or Intel just devoured them.

The one who threatens Intel is not Apple. The Mac platform is not a real threat to a market full of Windows PC. The threat is Qualcomm, which powers most smartphones in the world. Just like Apple, Qualcomm can rely on the economics of scale provided by the production of smartphones chips to make processors to equip laptops and desktops. When Qualcomm delivers a PC processor similar to the M-series, then Intel may get into some serious trouble.
Completely agree! Great analysis!
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
6,975
6,354
there
like to report that both my intel mac are not hot, but they are from 2010, 2012 if this means anything.

i personally don't have a horse in the M! VS INTEL breeds cup-war,
but i felt as a citizen of computing, i needed to report this situation.
as you were
 

Shibamigo

macrumors newbie
Oct 12, 2021
3
4
Not sure what the point of the thread is but I will say that playing World of Warcraft on an M1Max with mostly max settings makes the chassis so hot that I can't touch it and the fans are quite loud. ?‍♀️

However with regular use, and playing LoL, Eastward, etc, the laptop is stone cold. It's really amazing and strange at the same time - coming from a gaming laptop that, when just entering Windows, is enough for a 737 engine level audio experience.
I agree. I have a 14" M1 Max 64g mbp. It pretty much runs stone cold (too cold for the winter) except when I am rendering using blender (after 20 min of rendering it gets quite hot). Playing league, editing large photos, compiling java code, watching YouTube 4k 60 HDR, etc cannot even get the fan up.
 
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Freeangel1

Suspended
Jan 13, 2020
1,191
1,755
The M1 Max MacBook book pro will probably be replaced by a 15 inch or 17 inch iPad running the same exact chip.

Touch screen included. :cool: it will definitely start to kill sales of the MacBook.
 

Juicy Box

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2014
7,580
8,920
It's really amazing and strange at the same time - coming from a gaming laptop that, when just entering Windows, is enough for a 737 engine level audio experience.
For the last few years, I have been using a 15" Dell Precision 7520 Workstation laptop, that was maxed out CPU, GPU, and RAM BTO options. It is provided by my work, and is a huge improvement over the crap I had previously.

That said, the fans are constantly ramping up, sometimes from the most basics of tasks, and the battery life is crap. It is also giant, much bigger than my Late 2011 17" MBP.



My son has a gaming laptop, not sure what one or the specs, but I can always tell when he starts to play a game as it sounds like he just started a vacuum cleaner in his room. He wears a headset, but not just for talking to people, I am pretty sure it is to drown out the fan noise.

I assume the MBP with the M1 Max chips also have some fan noise, but probably still lower than most Windows laptops with high performance chips.
 

staypuftforums

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2021
412
855
If there is a point to this thread I have missed it.
Spreading FUD is my best guess. Why OP has decided to do that is another question. Maybe trying to justify a big ticket electronics purchase, similar to how XBOX and PlayStation fans go back and fourth at each other online.
 
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staypuftforums

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2021
412
855
I agree. I have a 14" M1 Max 64g mbp. It pretty much runs stone cold (too cold for the winter) except when I am rendering using blender (after 20 min of rendering it gets quite hot). Playing league, editing large photos, compiling java code, watching YouTube 4k 60 HDR, etc cannot even get the fan up.
I’m running YouTube @ 4K/60 on a 7th gen Pentium. That’s not a very demanding task for any modern processor thanks to the hardware acceleration built into web browsers.
 
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Technerd108

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Oct 24, 2021
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Spreading FUD is my best guess. Why OP has decided to do that is another question. Maybe trying to justify a big ticket electronics purchase, similar to how XBOX and PlayStation fans go back and fourth at each other online.
No just as I have said kind of tired of threads, Intel Alderlake beats M1 Pro and the very intelligent analysis that follows which is that M1 sucks.

There are so many other factors other than a Geekbench 5 result. Of course it matters but run the test on battery or limited to the same wattage constraints as M1 Pro/Max plugged in and I am sure we will see a different story.

Then there is the architecture/ipc gain/ unified everything and ddr5 and lighting fast ssd. What about bandwidth?

Meanwhile Scalderlake is 4th gen 10nm (what happened to tick/tock) x86 with socketed everything. It runs so hot on desktop you literally have to have a liquid cooler to run at peak frequency.

I really would like to see Intel on a true 7nm/5nm process node because even with x86 they could still make some big gains. I have Windows boxes too! Lol
 
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Technerd108

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 24, 2021
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I’m running YouTube @ 4K/60 on a 7th gen Pentium. That’s not a very demanding task for any modern processor thanks to the hardware acceleration built into web browsers.
7th gen pentium watching YouTube 4k content must be an amazing experience with all that acceleration built in the web browser.

I think an A12 iPhone processor would run that content way better???
 
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