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

Post by davsti4 » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #186

ben-schaaf wrote: post #101

Battery efficiency comes from a million little optimizations in the technology stack, most of which comes down to using the CPU as little as possible. As such the instruction set architecture and process node aren't usually that important when it comes to your battery life. If you fully load the CPU and calculate how much energy a AI340 needs to perform a fixed workload and compare that to a M1 you'll probably find s…

Hell, Apple CPU's are even optimized for Apple software GC calls like Retain/Release objects. It seems if you want optimal performance and power efficiency, you need to own both hardware and software. Looks like general purpose CPUs are on the losing train. Maybe Intel should invent desktop+mobile OS and design bespoke chips for those.

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

skeezyboy wrote: post #326

brokencode wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arm licenses their designs to everybody. They are okay, but you are never going to make market leading processors by using the Arm designs.

The M1 and M2 were beating the best-in-class i7 when they were relased IIRC

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

jonwinstanley wrote: post #185

ben-schaaf wrote: post #101

Battery efficiency comes from a million little optimizations in the technology stack, most of which comes down to using the CPU as little as possible. As such the instruction set architecture and process node aren't usually that important when it comes to your battery life. If you fully load the CPU and calculate how much energy a AI340 needs to perform a fixed workload and compare that to a M1 you'll probably find s…

A huge reason for the low power usage is the iPhone. Apple spent years incrementally improving efficiency and performance of their chips for phones. Intel and AMD were more desktop based so power efficiency wasnt the goal. When Apple's chips got so good they could transition into laptops, x86 wasn't in the same ballpark. Also the iPhone is the most lucrative product of all time (I think) and Apple poured a tonne of t…

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 2:55 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #165

qcnguy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly Apple had to buy enormous numbers of CNC machines in order to build laptops that way. It was considered insane by the industry at the time.

Yup. The original article is gone, however there is the key excerpt in an old HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532257 Apple, unlike a lot, if not all large companies (who are run by MBA beancounter morons), holds insanely large amounts of cash. That is how they can go and buy up entire markets of vendors - CNC mills, TSMC's entire production capacity for a year or two, specialized drills, god knows w…

Post by goneri » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #282

prmoustache wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a fairly common issue on Linux to be missing hardware acceleration, especially for video decoding. To be fair, usually the linux itself has hardware acceleration available but the browser vendors tend to disable gpu rendering except on controlled/known perfectly working combinations of OS/Hardware/Drivers and they have much less testing in Linux. In most case you can force enabling gpu rendering in about:confi…

The only browser I’ve ever had issues with enabling video acceleration on Linux is Firefox. All the Blink-based ones just work as long the proper libraries are installed and said libraries properly detect hardware support.