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

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

#291

Post by vient »

gettingoverit wrote: post #245
akho wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x12 and x6 do not seem plausible. Something is very wrong.

My CPU is at over 5GHz, 1% load and 70C at the moment. That's in a "power-saving mode". If nothing would be wrong, it'd be at something like 1.5GHz with most of the cores unpowered.

Something is wrong with power governor then. I have an opposite experience, was able to tune Linux on a Core Ultra 155H laptop so it works longer than Windows one. Needed to use kernel 6.11+ and TLP [0] with pretty aggressive energy saving settings. Also played a bit with Intel LPMD [1] but did not notice much improvement.

[0] https://github.com/linrunner/TLP

[1] https://github.com/intel/intel-lpmd

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

#292

Post by rollcat »

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #116

Backward compatibility. Intel provides processors for many vendors and many OS. Changing to a new architecture is almost impossible to coordinate. Apple doesn't have this problem. Actually in de 90s Intel and Microsoft wanted to move to a RISC architecture but Compaq forced them to stay on x86.

Apple: m68k -> PowerPC (32), OS 9 -> OS X, PowerPC (32, 64) -> x86 (32, 64) -> Arm. They've dragged giants like Adobe (kicking and screaming) thru most stages.

Windows NT has always been portable, but didn't provide any serious compat with Windows 4.x until 5.0. At that time, AMD released their 64-bit extension to x86. Intel wanted to build their own, Microsoft went "haha no". By that time they've been dictating the CPU architecture.

I guess at that point there was very little reason to switch. Intel's Core happened; Apple even went to Intel to ask for a CPU for what would become the iPhone - but Intel wasn't interested.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I think it's complacency. Apple remained agile.

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

#293

Post by t-3 »

gettingoverit wrote: post #245
akho wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x12 and x6 do not seem plausible. Something is very wrong.

My CPU is at over 5GHz, 1% load and 70C at the moment. That's in a "power-saving mode". If nothing would be wrong, it'd be at something like 1.5GHz with most of the cores unpowered.

What p-state driver are you using?

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

#294

Post by ChrisGreenHeur »

brokencode wrote: post #274
skeezyboy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and Apple poured a tonne of that money into R&D and taking the top engineers from Intel, AMD, and ARM, building one of the best silicon teams. how much silicon did Apple actually create? I thought they outsourced all the components?

Outsourced to who? The only companies with the engineers you’d need are the other CPU makers like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. And none of them make a CPU as efficient as Apple does.

Arm exists, it is unknown how much tech apple gets from Arm.

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

#295

Post by akho »

loudmax wrote: post #270
akho wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x12 and x6 do not seem plausible. Something is very wrong.

These figures are very plausible. Most Linux distros are terribly inefficient by default. Linux can actually meet or even exceed Window's power efficiently, at least at some tasks, but it takes a lot of work to get there. I'd start with powertop and TLP. As usual, the Arch wiki is a good place to find more information: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management

Those numbers would imply 50W consumption at idle (for typical battery capacities). That's insane.

I've used Linux laptops since ~2007, and am well aware of the issues. 12x is well beyond normal.

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

#296

Post by weighterjsk »

omnimus wrote: post #170
chvid wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs today are not designed to be easily repairably but instead to be lighter and otherwise better integrated - I believe that is consequence of consumer preferences and not shady business practices. As for the services - it is a bit off topic as I believe Apple makes a profit on their macs alone ignoring their services business. But in general I have less of a problem with a subscription / fee-driven services busine…

Macbooks are one of the heaviest laptops you can buy. I think they are doing it for the premium feel - it is extremely sturdy. I recently got some random lenovo YOGA for linux to go along side my macbook and it weighs less, is as thin and even has dedicated gpu - while having 2 user replaceable M.2 slots. It is also very sturdy but not as sturdy Macbooks. What i am saying is that Apple could for sure fit replaceable…

>Macbooks are one of the heaviest laptops you can buy.

I don't think this is even close to true. My last laptop from 2020 weighed at ~2.6kg and it's 2025 counterpart is still at 2.1kg, while my work m1 mac is at 1.3kg

>. I think they are doing it for the premium feel - it is extremely sturdy

It's not merely a feel; I've succesfully thrown it to the pavement more than once from ~1.5 meters and it's continued working well, whereas none of my previous laptops have gotten away scot free before from even one drop

Apple does practice very hard repairability which I agree should be made much more accessible.

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

#297

Post by vient »

aurareturn wrote: post #251
Fluorescence wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite being ~1.5x bigger than the M4 Pro Where are you getting M4 die sizes from? It would hardly be surprising given the Max+ 395 has more, and on average, better cores fabbed with 5nm unlike the M4's 3nm. Die size is mostly GPU though. Looking at some benchmarks: > slightly more MT. AMD's multicore passmark score is more than 40% higher. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/6345vs6403/Apple-M4-Pro... > worse ef…

Where are you getting M4 die sizes from? M1 Pro is ~250mm2. M4 Pro likely increased in size a bit. So I estimated 300mm2. There are no official measurements but should be directionally correct. AMD's multicore passmark score is more than 40% higher. It's an out of date benchmark that not even AMD endorses and the industry does not use. Meanwhile, AMD officially endorses Cinebench 2024 and Geekbench. Let's use those.…

> TFLOPs are not the same between architectures.

Shouldn't they be the same if we are speaking about same precision? For example, [0] shows M4 Max 17 TFLOPS FP32 vs MAX+ 395 29.7 TPLOFS FP32 - not sure what exact operation was measured but at least it should be the same operation. Hard to make definitive statements without access to both machines.

[0] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m4_max_16_cp...

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

#298

Post by phkahler »

zipityzi wrote: post #284
BirAdam wrote: post #250

First, Apple did an excellent job optimizing their software stack for their hardware. This is something that few companies have the ability to do as they target a wide array of hardware. This is even more impressive given the scale of Apple's hardware. The same kernel runs on a Watch and a Mac Studio. Second, the x86 platform has a lot of legacy, and each operation on x86 is translated from an x86 instruction into RI…

This seems mostly misinformed. 1) Apple Silicon outperforms all laptop CPUs in the same power envelope on 1T on industry-standard tests: it's not predominantly due to "optimizing their software stack". SPECint, SPECfp, Geekbench, Cinebench, etc. all show major improvements. 2) x86 also heavily relies on micro-ops to greatly improve performance. This is not a "penalty" in any sense. 3) x86 is now six-wide, eight-wide,…

>> x86 is now six-wide, eight-wide, or nine-wide (with asterisks) for decode width on all major Intel & AMD cores. The myth of x86 being stuck on four-wide has been long disproven.

From the AMD side it was 4 wide until Zen 5. And now it's still 4 wide, but there is a separate 4-wide decoder for each thread. The micro-op cache can deliver a lot of pre-decoded instructions so the issue width is (I dunno) wider but the decode width is still 4.

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

#299

Post by weighterjsk »

spankibalt wrote: post #63
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #12

I considered getting a personal MBP (I have an M3 from work), but picked up a Framework 13 with the AMD 7 7840U. I have Pop!_OS on it, and while it isn't quite as impressive as the MBP, it is radically better than other Windows / Linux laptops I have used lately, battery life is quite good, ~5hr or so, not quite on par with the MBP but still good enough that I don't really have any complaints (and being able to up up…

> "[...] battery life is quite good, ~5hr or so [...]" You call five hours good?! Damn... For productivity use, I'd never buy anything below shift-endurance (eight hours or more).

Highly dependent on workload, using my older work laptop with 100Wh battery it lasted maybe ~40min if you put some real work on it. Browsing the web or managing tickets on Jira is completely different

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

#300

Post by naasking »

zipityzi wrote: post #284
BirAdam wrote: post #250

First, Apple did an excellent job optimizing their software stack for their hardware. This is something that few companies have the ability to do as they target a wide array of hardware. This is even more impressive given the scale of Apple's hardware. The same kernel runs on a Watch and a Mac Studio. Second, the x86 platform has a lot of legacy, and each operation on x86 is translated from an x86 instruction into RI…

This seems mostly misinformed. 1) Apple Silicon outperforms all laptop CPUs in the same power envelope on 1T on industry-standard tests: it's not predominantly due to "optimizing their software stack". SPECint, SPECfp, Geekbench, Cinebench, etc. all show major improvements. 2) x86 also heavily relies on micro-ops to greatly improve performance. This is not a "penalty" in any sense. 3) x86 is now six-wide, eight-wide,…

> 2) x86 also heavily relies on micro-ops to greatly improve performance. This is not a "penalty" in any sense.

It's an energy penalty, even if wall clock time improves.

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