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Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

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Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#111

Post by Groxx »

15155 wrote: post #101
Groxx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got laptops with modular USB-C ports that solve this effectively perfectly. An audio one would be even simpler. The only reason you don't see it everywhere is because they're being outrageously hostile to repairs, and choosing to charge you hundreds of dollars for repairs on a part that they know is easily broken.

Why is anything modular a good solution over a USB-C DAC-containing dongle cable?

Modular ports are a physical disconnect between "thing that routinely experiences stresses and has a relatively short expected lifespan under heavy use" and "extremely expensive and long-lived motherboard", usually a separate circuit board connected by a ribbon cable. They serve a completely different purpose from a dongle that converts a common port to a less common one.

Framework laptops have another decent strategy, where you've got on-motherboard ports that have relatively few usage cycles, and are protected from most forces because the easily-replaceable custom-dongle-squares are held in place quite securely. They take the damage, protecting the motherboard. And as long as the motherboard ports are still good, you can even forego the modular thing and just plug in directly if needed.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#112

Post by denismi »

aurareturn wrote: post #108
anticorporate wrote: post #6

Rather than the Hackaday article, which doesn't add anything to the original, here's Jeff's actual video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2B7oI0FYqo and post: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/excited-for-intel-eff...

Did Jeff Geerling get paid to post misleading headlines and reviews on Intel vs Apple? He's basing this on his own "super computing benchmark" measuring only FP64 performance. Meanwhile, any normal person using these $600 laptops will never run FP64 supercomputing tasks on the CPU. He also only showed perf/watt in this one benchmark but skipped the fact that Apple Silicon is significantly faster. Obviously, all this…

> This is like saying my Intel Pentium 3 matches Apple M5 in perf/watt

... if it was within orders of magnitude of being true, perhaps.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#113

Post by geerlingguy »

aurareturn wrote: post #108
anticorporate wrote: post #6

Rather than the Hackaday article, which doesn't add anything to the original, here's Jeff's actual video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2B7oI0FYqo and post: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/excited-for-intel-eff...

Did Jeff Geerling get paid to post misleading headlines and reviews on Intel vs Apple? He's basing this on his own "super computing benchmark" measuring only FP64 performance. Meanwhile, any normal person using these $600 laptops will never run FP64 supercomputing tasks on the CPU. He also only showed perf/watt in this one benchmark but skipped the fact that Apple Silicon is significantly faster. Obviously, all this…

No, this laptop was loaned to me for a couple weeks (it's boxed up and ready to ship back now), and I fully disclose any and all sponsorship (this was not sponsored in any way); see my policies here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/youtube#sponsorships

Further, I'm basing my opinion on a number of benchmarks and power measurements besides just HPL. I just favor that because it's one of the few that push a CPU hard, fills system memory, and can't easily be gamed/made irrelevant with new architecture.

The main point of my blog post is to say this is the first Intel chip that's even punched in the same weight class as any Apple Silicon, wrt efficiency. It quite surprised me.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#114

Post by aurareturn »

geerlingguy wrote: post #113
aurareturn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Jeff Geerling get paid to post misleading headlines and reviews on Intel vs Apple? He's basing this on his own "super computing benchmark" measuring only FP64 performance. Meanwhile, any normal person using these $600 laptops will never run FP64 supercomputing tasks on the CPU. He also only showed perf/watt in this one benchmark but skipped the fact that Apple Silicon is significantly faster. Obviously, all this…

No, this laptop was loaned to me for a couple weeks (it's boxed up and ready to ship back now), and I fully disclose any and all sponsorship (this was not sponsored in any way); see my policies here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/youtube#sponsorships Further, I'm basing my opinion on a number of benchmarks and power measurements besides just HPL. I just favor that because it's one of the few that push a CPU hard, fi…

This is your actual headline:

  "Intel just matched Apple Silicon. Seriously."
You're basing the headline on a single FP64 test for a $600 laptop. Come on man.

If your headline was being honest, it'd say "Apple A18 Pro is still 3-4x more efficient and significantly faster than Intel's low end chip in common tasks".

If this isn't an undisclosed sponsored review, then it's just misleading clickbait for Youtube views. It's clearly working for you.

You can do better.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#115

Post by geerlingguy »

therealmarv wrote: post #105

In Germany the Dell XPS 13 2026 is 56% more expensive (over 1000 Euros) than the MacBook Neo (below 700). So the claim does not hold World wide, maybe only in US on local prices.

Yeah, not sure why Dell has such a spread on US vs rest-of-world pricing here.

I know some have mentioned the $699/$599 price could also change a bit in the US come November. The internal assembly and parts seem like they'd cost Dell a little more than Apple's cost building the Neo, so maybe in the US they're selling them closer to at cost, and subsidizing it with the Windows exclusivity and price elsewhere? Not sure, but it stinks the price only applies here. It's a good deal at $699. Harder to justify at $1,000+.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#116

Post by geerlingguy »

pertymcpert wrote: post #98
geerlingguy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These tests were done on the CPU cores, not on the GPU. In every test I ran the A18 chip blew past Intel's Core 5 on GPU performance. There were a series of other benchmarks too, but the Hackaday article only highlights HPL as that was the benchmark that changed my perspective on Intel a bit. This was the first X86 chip to trade blows in efficiency (and idle power draw) with Apple's M3/M4 (I don't have any M5 to test…

I really think you should use a more representative benchmark. Heck, even just take Chrome and run some browser benchmark on it like speedometer.

I run a large number of benchmarks; the Hackaday article of course focuses on the headline findings, but you can see the rest here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/sbc-reviews/issues/111

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#117

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aurareturn wrote: post #108
anticorporate wrote: post #6

Rather than the Hackaday article, which doesn't add anything to the original, here's Jeff's actual video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2B7oI0FYqo and post: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/excited-for-intel-eff...

Did Jeff Geerling get paid to post misleading headlines and reviews on Intel vs Apple? He's basing this on his own "super computing benchmark" measuring only FP64 performance. Meanwhile, any normal person using these $600 laptops will never run FP64 supercomputing tasks on the CPU. He also only showed perf/watt in this one benchmark but skipped the fact that Apple Silicon is significantly faster. Obviously, all this…

Getting performance per watt out of the smaller CPUs is actually more impressive because they can't amortize the non-CPU power draws in the system over as much performance. Increasing the performance while maintaining that performance per watt is then entirely straightforward because you just use more of the same cores.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#118

Post by aurareturn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #117
aurareturn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Jeff Geerling get paid to post misleading headlines and reviews on Intel vs Apple? He's basing this on his own "super computing benchmark" measuring only FP64 performance. Meanwhile, any normal person using these $600 laptops will never run FP64 supercomputing tasks on the CPU. He also only showed perf/watt in this one benchmark but skipped the fact that Apple Silicon is significantly faster. Obviously, all this…

Getting performance per watt out of the smaller CPUs is actually more impressive because they can't amortize the non-CPU power draws in the system over as much performance. Increasing the performance while maintaining that performance per watt is then entirely straightforward because you just use more of the same cores.

Except Intel's Core 5 320 is almost certainly bigger than the A18 Pro CPU.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#119

Post by geerlingguy »

aurareturn wrote: post #114
geerlingguy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this laptop was loaned to me for a couple weeks (it's boxed up and ready to ship back now), and I fully disclose any and all sponsorship (this was not sponsored in any way); see my policies here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/youtube#sponsorships Further, I'm basing my opinion on a number of benchmarks and power measurements besides just HPL. I just favor that because it's one of the few that push a CPU hard, fi…

This is your actual headline: "Intel just matched Apple Silicon. Seriously." You're basing the headline on a single FP64 test for a $600 laptop. Come on man. If your headline was being honest, it'd say "Apple A18 Pro is still 3-4x more efficient and significantly faster than Intel's low end chip in common tasks". If this isn't an undisclosed sponsored review, then it's just misleading clickbait for Youtube views. It'…

I had three YouTube titles, this one got about 2x the watch time as the other two, so I let YT pick it.

For technical readers, I write my blog posts. I don't have to (I lose money hosting that thing and all it's mostly just free training data for Anthropic, OpenAI, et all), but I enjoy writing, so I do it anyway. If you don't like the YT game, please subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. I much prefer text over video.

Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

#120

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aurareturn wrote: post #118
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting performance per watt out of the smaller CPUs is actually more impressive because they can't amortize the non-CPU power draws in the system over as much performance. Increasing the performance while maintaining that performance per watt is then entirely straightforward because you just use more of the same cores.

Except Intel's Core 5 320 is almost certainly bigger than the A18 Pro CPU.

They both have 2 P-cores and 4 E-cores.
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