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Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

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Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#41

To all the commenters: This is claimed on a power adjusted basis: https://mobile.twitter.com/witeken/status/147844103741682893...

If I'm reading this right, it's saying that when M1 Max is at peak performance (at 35W), the I9-12900HK is beating this performance while at the same wattage.

I'm a bit skeptical this is true

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought arm was a lot more open than x86 based tech?

No. x86 has its roots in the PC, which was an open and relatively standardised platform. ARM's rise to popularity came later, and there are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of different SoCs with an ARM core, which have nothing in common but the core. All the locked-down mobile devices are in this category, and their SoC manufacturers have been extremely reluctant to release much in the way of documentati…

> x86 has its roots in the PC, which was an open and relatively standardised platform.

x86 was and is proprietary (ARM's ISAs and designs are as well). The wider x86 platform is somewhat standardized, but that doesn't mean it's open any more than Apple computers using Thunderbolt or PCI or USB or DDR standards mean they are open.

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#44

They're specifically talking about the mobile part here. But it's not hard to believe that it will outrun the M1 Max in multithreaded benchmarks, and likely even single-threaded benchmarks. Intel's latest desktop parts are already faster than an M1 Max by a not-insignificant amount, and this is just a lower-power version. Intel's Alder Lake desktop parts are already surprisingly power efficient (ignoring the heavily…

I have an M1, M1 Pro, and Core i7-12700K on my desk. The Intel part is the fastest on single and multi-threaded workloads I care about, and it does not come with the rosetta nonsense that makes it difficult to manage your compilers and libs on macOS. It does come with a different kind of nonsense, namely that Linux doesn't know what to do with the efficiency cores of the Intel part, so you have to either disable them or manually manage process and IRQ placement. Oh, and I can put however much memory and SSDs into the PC as I can afford, unlike the Macs.

Currently using the M1 mini as a display head with VSCode connected to the PC over Thunderbolt, as a backend. Seems like the best of worlds. M1 Pro is probably going to get sold.

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#45
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're thinking of FJCVTZS, which is intended to accelerate a common operation in JavaScript engines? That's not unique to M1, though; rather added to a relatively recent ARM ISA revision. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25422168 I think there may be other optimizations related to Apple's reference counting and type tagging models for Objective-C and Swift.

FJCVTZS I read that out loud, thinking I was back at the optometrist.

Hey I recognize this Strongbad song.

Everybody to the limit! The cheat is to the limit! Everybody FJCVTZS!

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#46

They're specifically talking about the mobile part here. But it's not hard to believe that it will outrun the M1 Max in multithreaded benchmarks, and likely even single-threaded benchmarks. Intel's latest desktop parts are already faster than an M1 Max by a not-insignificant amount, and this is just a lower-power version. Intel's Alder Lake desktop parts are already surprisingly power efficient (ignoring the heavily…

I agree, it's definitely not unbelievable that Intel can beat Apple under load. Especially as many workloads will be optimised for x86 (for now). Idle definitely seems to be Intel's Achilles heel, although I guess the e-cores will help once good OS support is there as Intel mobile chips seem to be pretty decent at saving power once they go into the lower c-states.

I think a lot of the Apple efficiency gains also come from the all-in SoC design (i.e. memory etc. all in the same chip). I guess Intel is trying to make the same play here but I'm sceptical they'll have as much success in the near term simply because they're reliant on OEMs to pretty much redesign their products around that so it could be several years before all the manufacturers cycle their product lines around. Not to mention many PC fans _like_ the fact they can upgrade the RAM in their laptops SODIMM slots.

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#47
post #9

But at what thermal, power and monetary price? Edit: @deepnotderp[1] found the power adjusted basis: https://mobile.twitter.com/witeken/status/147844103741682893... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29802359#29803502

Exactly. The M1 is awesome not because of raw horsepower, but because of efficiency.

I love my fanless M1 Air primarily because it's fanless.

The 14" pro looks great, but can anyone using it tell me whether the fan ever turns on?

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#48
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - show me an ambiently-cooled Intel laptop with the same performance as a MacBook Air M1, available for purchase in the market, metric-for-metric. It doesn’t exist.

Based on Intel’s graph it looks like they be able to beat the M1 Max in performance at 35 watts. And that would be great. But laptops shouldn’t need to draw 35 watts minimum. If it can’t scale down when idle I think I’d pass.

I have an i9-12900K (same gen desktop chip) that is self-reporting ~15W idle. I would be pretty surprised if their mobile chip didn't scale lower than that.

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#49

Apple has already won. Even if Intel catches up in efficiency, it doesn't matter. Even if they're 30% faster, it doesn't matter. Apple is in charge of their own destiny with Apple Silicon. That's invaluable.

Maybe not at 10% but if Intel was 30% faster, I think it would raise some eyebrows.

Re: Intel claims new i9 is faster than M1 Max

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always within 1 minutes of a charger. My i9 MacBook still dies on me all the time. Get to 5% and go to the bathroom? Oops, it died, and I can’t join my next meeting on time. Start a call at 10% battery? Will definitely have to interrupt to go plug in. I want performance and battery.

I like my work M1 macbook air, but when battery gets below 10% it seems to get very unhappy... Requires sitting on the charger for a while before it will even start up properly

I may be wrong, but I suspect this is because macOS fibs at/about low power to accommodate hibernation. (I see similar behavior on my intel MBP, so I doubt it’s platform specific.)
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