Apple's A17 Pro Within 10% of i9-13900K, 7950X in Single-Core Performance

Post by kaba0 » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 7:23 AM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #34

nixpulvis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But it does make it functionally a non-general purpose CPU. I suppose you can load your own programs if you have a dev account or jailbreak right?

Yes. And a dev account is like $100/year. It’s bad that they can gatekeep like this, I agree. I should just be able to put whatever on the hardware I buy. But the expense in practical terms, immediate pragmatic terms, is negligible compared to what it unlocks.

Post by kaba0 » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 7:25 AM UTC

Pufferbo wrote: post #30

gary_0 wrote: post #11

I find articles like this really vexing because this isn't a general-purpose CPU, it's just a chip meant to run the software that Apple allows on the App Store. Most of the software I use day-to-day can't run on it by design. It's kind of depressing that the most advanced mobile CPU technology (that can only be fabbed by a single company in a far-away country) is monopolized by a company that heavily restricts the so…

I’m glad someone else feels this way. I absolutely hate those YouTube videos talking about the “4K 30min total render” bs. Show me a M-chip MacBook that doesn’t balk when running Docker, or chug when opening a fat codebase in WebStorm. Sure the chips are fast when they run the stuff Apple designed for it, but they don’t seem any faster to me in my work. I will give them efficiency though. I love not having to carry t…

Post by kaba0 » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #21

satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they're bringing AAA games like Resident Evil 4 Remake and Assassin's Creed Mirage to the iPhone, complete with raytracing support, so it looks like it'll be a golden age of Apple gaming soon enough.

Games made with a controller in mind are miserable experiences on a touchscreen. Phones are awkward and uncomfortable to hold like a controller, the lack of physical buttons provides no tactile feedback on where to press, the lack of shoulder buttons means overloading your thumbs with even more inputs, and your fingers obscure half the screen. And if the implication is that they'll port those iOS games to Mac, then I…

Post by diffeomorphism » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 7:40 AM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #81

gary_0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the same thing. An instruction set is an inherent aspect of a CPU; you can't have a CPU without one. Also, you can emulate or translate instruction sets between general-purpose CPUs, or in most cases just recompile the higher-level source code. The underlying logic will be executed regardless.

Tada, there is ish, so you can run whatever on an iphone emulated by an x86 layer! That is, you have a general purpose CPU. Sure, apple suck at sideloading, hopefully the EU ruling will make it a possibility, but then say that instead.

Post by 011021 » Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 8:52 AM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #38

slaw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 scored 1490 in the single-core > Apple’s A16 Bionic chipset scored 1879. Both on the same 4nm TSMC process.

There are different benchmarks one can pick depending on the article they want to write. Geekbench 6 favors Apple CPUs more that Geekbench 5, which was already better on Apple CPUs than say Antutu. Antutu CPU - A16 248335, SnapDragon 8 Gen2 268542 Antutu GPU - A16 394336, SnapDragon 8 Gen 2 580101 If You look at Geekbench 5 scores for A16 and SD8G2, A16 is ahead by less than 10%.