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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?

#421

Post by mxey »

alt227 wrote: post #358
lokar wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a bit unfair to say apple threw out backwards compatibility. Each time they had a pretty good emulation story to keep most stuff (certainly popular stuff) working through a multi-year transition period. IMO, this is better then carrying around 40 years of cruft.

Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further. This in turn means you cannot install new software as the applications themselves require the newer versions of the OS. It has been this way on apple hardware for decades, and has laid the foundation of not ever needing to provide backwards compatibility for more than a few years as well as forcing new har…

> Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further.

A new major version of macOS comes out every year. The oldest Mac still supported by the upcoming macOS 26 is from 2019.

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

#422

Post by kube-system »

rollcat wrote: post #276
bsenftner wrote: post #257

Well, there is a major architectural reason why the entire M-series appears to be "so fast" and that is the unified memory, which completely eliminates the buffer-to-buffer data copying that is probably over half of what a non-unified memory architecture chip is doing at any given time. M-series chips have an architecture that completely eliminates data copying, just reference the data where it is, and you're done.

I really like the principles behind AMD's chiplet design, of course they've had different design goals behind it (easier diversification of their product portfolio), but it remains a fact that you can slap a not-so-terrible GPU right next to a CPU core. There's probably a lot still missing: Apple integrated the memory on the same die, and built Metal for software to directly take advantage of that design. That's the…

> Apple integrated the memory on the same die

It's on the same package but not the same die

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

#423

Post by casey2 »

Hardware performance literally doesn't matter if your software doesn't use it. The more soc-like design of the M series essentially results in an easier time for performance developers. x86 vendors are fighting a losing battle until they change their image of what a x86 based computer should look like. you aren't going to beat apple insiders, x86 vendors have a market opportunity here, but they've had it for 2 decades at this point and they have refused to switch, so they are likely incapable and will die. Sad.

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

#424

Post by aurareturn »

Hikikomori wrote: post #399
aurareturn wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"directionally correct"... so you don't know and made up some numbers? Great. I never said it was exactly that size. Apple keeps the sizes of their base, Pro, and Max chips fairly consistent over generations. Welcome to the world of chip discussions. I've never taken apart and M4 Pro computer and measured the die myself. It appears no one has on the internet. However, we can infer a lot of it based on previously know…

Your source is an article based on someone finding a Geekbench result for a just released CPU and you somehow try to say its from AMD itself and its an endorsed benchmark, huh.

Those are AMD's marketing slides.

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

#425

Post by nartho »

shermantanktop wrote: post #404
alt227 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no alternative to a Mac nowadays I need to point this out all the time these days it seems, but this opinion is only valid if all you use is a laptop and all you care about is single core perfomance. The computing world is far bigger than just laptops. Big music/3d design/video editing production suites etc still benefit much more from having workstation PCs with higher PCI bandwidth, more lanes for multip…

Doesn’t Apple have significant market share for pro music and video editing? For studio movies, render farms are usually Linux but I think many workstation tasks are done on Apple machines. Or is that no longer true?

Music production is overwhelmingly Apple. It comes from the fact that Protools was Mac only until the late 2000s and Logic Pro, Apple's DAW and alternative to Protools was also very popular and also Mac only. That left Cubase for windows and a few others like Ableton and less popular DAWs like Reaper, fruity loops etc. Today there are a few more options for Windows like Studio One who is very good though

Add to that the fact that most of the audio interfaces were firewire and plug and play on mac and a real struggle on windows. With windows you also had to deal with ASIO, and once you picked your audio interface it has to be used for both inputs and outputs (still to this day) forcing you to compound interfaces with workarounds like Asio4All if you wanted to use different interfaces, while Mac os just lets you pick different interfaces for input and output

Linux had very interesting projects, unfortunately music production relies on a lot of expensive audio plugins that a lot of time come in installers and are a pain in the butt to use through proton/wine, when it's possible at all. That means that doing music production on Linux means possibly not using plugins you paid and not finding alternatives to them. It's a shame because I'd love to be able to only use Linux

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

#426

Post by hollerith »

alt227 wrote: post #358
lokar wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a bit unfair to say apple threw out backwards compatibility. Each time they had a pretty good emulation story to keep most stuff (certainly popular stuff) working through a multi-year transition period. IMO, this is better then carrying around 40 years of cruft.

Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further. This in turn means you cannot install new software as the applications themselves require the newer versions of the OS. It has been this way on apple hardware for decades, and has laid the foundation of not ever needing to provide backwards compatibility for more than a few years as well as forcing new har…

>Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further.

This is false.

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

#427

Post by aurareturn »

Fluorescence wrote: post #324
aurareturn wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"directionally correct"... so you don't know and made up some numbers? Great. I never said it was exactly that size. Apple keeps the sizes of their base, Pro, and Max chips fairly consistent over generations. Welcome to the world of chip discussions. I've never taken apart and M4 Pro computer and measured the die myself. It appears no one has on the internet. However, we can infer a lot of it based on previously know…

Their "main benchmark"? Stop making things up. It's no more than tragic fanboy addled fraud at this point. That three-year old press-release refers to SINGLE CORE Geekbench and not the defective multicore version that doesn't scale with core counts. Given AMD's main USP is core counts it would be an... unusual choice. AMD marketing uses every other product under the sun too (no doubt whatever gives the better looking…

The industry has moved past Passmark because it does not correlate to actual real world performance.

The standard is SPEC, which correlates with with Geekbench.

https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-...

Every time there is a discussion on Apple Silicon, some uninformed person always brings up Passmark, which is completely outdated.

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

#428

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

maxsilver wrote: post #374

> Why haven’t AMD/Intel been able to catch up? Is x86 just not able to keep up with the ARM architecture? When can we expect a x86 laptop chip to match the M1 in efficiency/thermals?! AMD kind of has, the "Max 395+" is (within 5% margin or so) pretty close to M4 Pro, on both performance and energy use. (it's in the 'Framework Desktop', for example, but not in their laptop lineup yet) AMD/Intel hasn't surpassed Apple…

you can find that processor in the 14" HP Zbook Ultra G1A (which is also Ubuntu certified). There is also the Asus Z13, though I'm not certain it's working well with Linux

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

#429

Post by 0xffff2 »

diggan wrote: post #410
RajT88 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that to say: M1 is pretty fast, but the reason the battery life is better has to do with everything other than the CPU cores. That's what AMD and Intel are missing. Apple is vertically integrated and can optimize at the OS and for many applications they ship with the device. Compare that to how many cooks are in the kitchen in Wintel land. Perfect example is trying to get to the bottom of why your windows lapto…

> Apple is vertically integrated and can optimize > Compare that to how many cooks are in the kitchen in Wintel land. Perfect example is trying to get to the bottom of why your windows laptop won't go to sleep and cooks itself in your backpack So, I was thinking like this as well, and after I lost my Carbon X1 I felt adventurous, but not too adventurous, and wanted a laptop that "could just work". The thinking was "I…

Surprised to hear this. Back in the Surface Pro 4 days, the hardware was great. I made it through college doing 95% of my work on a Surface Pro 4 tablet with the magnetic keyboard and almost always made it through the entire day without having to plug it in.

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

#430

Post by alt227 »

nartho wrote: post #425
shermantanktop wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t Apple have significant market share for pro music and video editing? For studio movies, render farms are usually Linux but I think many workstation tasks are done on Apple machines. Or is that no longer true?

Music production is overwhelmingly Apple. It comes from the fact that Protools was Mac only until the late 2000s and Logic Pro, Apple's DAW and alternative to Protools was also very popular and also Mac only. That left Cubase for windows and a few others like Ableton and less popular DAWs like Reaper, fruity loops etc. Today there are a few more options for Windows like Studio One who is very good though Add to that…

> That left Cubase for windows

When I was at music college doing production courses, they exclusively taught Cubase on windows.

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