Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?

hackaday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 208 posts

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

#171

Post by pclmulqdq »

lostmsu wrote: post #158
dimask wrote: post #79

Nice and organised work! My only reservation wrt the core of it is that it tests the cpus on a matrix operations task, and power efficiency in this case refers specifically to doing matrix operations. This is fine if that's the kind of task one wants to optimise for, but it does not necessarily translate to general energy efficiency for a broader spectrum of tasks that most people may do most of the time. And thus, i…

When you test matmul these days you want bf16 max. FP64 is a niche workload 100% unused by 95%+ users.

AI is not the only thing in the world. The rendering of this webpage involves a lot of FP64 work.

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

#172

Post by kvemkon »

aryonoco wrote: post #76

Intel’s low end SoCs are such an undervalued gem. A couple of years ago I got tired of dealing with OpenWRT and various Tomato based firmware or hunting down compatibility between ARM and MIPS based routers. I finally took the plunge and bought myself a mini pc with an Intel N100. The thing has 4 cores (no SMT), a 6W TDP and boosts to 3.4 GHz and can support 16GB of ram. The mini pc I bought cost me $200, includes th…

> bought myself a mini pc with an Intel N100

Instead of Raspi I've got a N100 uATX mainboard with N100 (120 EUR). Fortunately it does work with normal 32GB DIMM (55 EUR, those were the days!). But I'm still missing a pico-PSU, which can be powered directly from 220V (for reasonable costs).

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

#173

Post by testing22321 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #119
aurareturn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I think you’re being mid leading here Jeff. You almost make it sound like YT actually came up with the title.

For anyone that is not a YouTuber, Jeff wrote three different titles himself, then YouTube ran an A/B test and just kept the one that resulted in the most watch time.

Jeff consciously chose to write a click bait title, he could equally have chosen not to.

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

#174

Post by testing22321 »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #147
aurareturn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because this title did the best doesn't make it not misleading. If you are a serious reviewer, it wouldn't have been an option in the first place. You can make an even more outlandish title and get even more views. Doesn't make it right.

since it's too much to paste in here, here's 10 recent tech review videos from each of the top 10 most viewed tech youtubers: https://pastebin.com/4PZe9iTf Here's a few of them: - Humane AI Pin Review: The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed - I Tested the World's Craziest Smartphone - Do NOT Buy These Fake Tech Products! - This Is Not a Normal Laptop... - Unboxing the $10,000 Mystery Tech Box - Don't Make This PC Build…

Sounds like you’re trying to justify kicking dogs because everyone in the industry goes around kicking dogs. Say it ain’t so.

Just because lots of people are doing something that sucks does not make it OK.

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

#175

Post by dimask »

lostmsu wrote: post #158
dimask wrote: post #79

Nice and organised work! My only reservation wrt the core of it is that it tests the cpus on a matrix operations task, and power efficiency in this case refers specifically to doing matrix operations. This is fine if that's the kind of task one wants to optimise for, but it does not necessarily translate to general energy efficiency for a broader spectrum of tasks that most people may do most of the time. And thus, i…

When you test matmul these days you want bf16 max. FP64 is a niche workload 100% unused by 95%+ users.

That's probably gonna run in gpu anyway. There is a lot of data work that involves double (or single) precision arithmetic, outside of ML, LLMs etc. It is definitely also worth testing 32 bit floats too, though.

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

#176

Post by dimask »

geerlingguy wrote: post #90
dimask wrote: post #79

Nice and organised work! My only reservation wrt the core of it is that it tests the cpus on a matrix operations task, and power efficiency in this case refers specifically to doing matrix operations. This is fine if that's the kind of task one wants to optimise for, but it does not necessarily translate to general energy efficiency for a broader spectrum of tasks that most people may do most of the time. And thus, i…

Can you please post an issue on the repo? Long on my todo list has been trying to get the Mac tests more repeatable/consistent and optimized (always easier on Linux).

Will def do!

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

#178

Post by GeekyBear »

mr_toad wrote: post #131
GeekyBear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is one thing. Efficiency and performance is another. We've long known that pushing clock speeds results in diminishing efficiency, so it's about time we see Intel stop pushing the clocks (and power) so hard that the chip melts down and the battery drains quickly.

“But they can’t match Intels performance” used to be the rejoinder of the Intel crowd. Now we’ve come full circle.

Until Intel is capable of making a fanless laptop chip that also has industry leading single core performance, they aren't in the same ballpark.

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

#179

Post by GeekyBear »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #136
GeekyBear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is one thing. Efficiency and performance is another. We've long known that pushing clock speeds results in diminishing efficiency, so it's about time we see Intel stop pushing the clocks (and power) so hard that the chip melts down and the battery drains quickly.

Intel's actual problem was that their process fell behind TSMC's. That meant competing on performance per watt was out of the question and the best they could do was turn up the clock speed and try to stay on top for performance. If they've managed to fix their process then they don't have to do that anymore.

They have finally prioritized buying leading edge Fab technology over stock buybacks, so their design team finally has a chance.

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

#180

Post by tremon »

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 laptop was loaned to me for a couple weeks

> this was not sponsored in any way

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? For what purpose was the laptop loaned to you, and by whom? I'd consider a review loan a kind of sponsorship, even if you weren't paid to come to a specific conclusion.

Post reply on HN