Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
Of course. I think it is more a demonstration of the fact that ARM performance is catching up to and/or surpassing Intel in many ways.
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Kind of, yes.
(Apple seems to be well ahead of Intel on single-core performance, especially once you factor in similar TDPs. On multi-core, it's hard to say, because Apple doesn't really offer models with a comparable amount of cores. They do have eight-core CPUs, but half of those operate at low power.)
I just think bringing up core count without introducing a lot of context is journalistically lazy, and frankly, my guess is it's just uninformed. This isn't like "look, this one has more jiggahertz"; it's actually worse: all else being equal, a CPU with a higher clock rate will inevitably run faster, but all else being equal, a CPU with more core will at some point have near-zero returns. An 80-core CPU is way, way beyond that threshold for almost all use cases, at least the way we write software today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
I posted that quote because there are many folks who do not believe that ARM is ready for pro machines due to a lack of performance. But, the performance is there or will be there in quick fashion. Once the puzzle is solved in the lower end of the consumer spectrum, it will be tackled and solved in the pro space as well. It's just a matter of time, and underestimating ARM—and Apple's custom implementations—will be bad for business.
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Yeah, fair enough.
I'm not too worried about Apple's ability to scale this up. They would have a ton of thermal headroom they could add.
Suppose their iPad Pro runs at a TDP equivalent of about 7W. Then take the 10W 2020 MacBook Air. The iPad scores 1118 single and 4622 multi, and the top-of-the-line Air at 1120 and 2904. So basically identical single-core scores even though the Air (presumably) has more thermal headroom, and even though the Pro's CPU is almost two years older. Multi-core is more interesting: the iPad does 59% better, yes, but it also has twice the cores. Now, as I said above, Apple's "Fusion" approach (similar to ARM's big.LITTLE, and apparently something Intel is considering for Alder Lake a year or two from now) means that not all cores are the same. What we're effectively seeing is that the Air, at four cores, gets a speedup of about 2.59 (instead of a theoretical maximum of 4) — and the iPad, at "eight", of 4.13 (instead of 8). So I don't think Apple shuts those cores down entirely, making this a bit hard to compare, unfortunately. But, not a great look for Intel.
And that's with the A12X. Take the A13 (which is also almost a year old by this point!), and you get a single-core score that beats any Mac. All of them. Even the eight-core 2019 iMac is 6.6% slower.
Given nicer thermals, they can almost certainly add a few more cores if they think that's useful. I'm not sure they really need to. They might change the Air to have 2+2 (Fusion) and 4+4 CPU configurations, instead of the current 2 and 4 configs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
Also, keep in mind that Apple is currently selling a system with 28 cores not much different from the Intel chip in the quote.
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True, but I think the Mac Pro would be a worse machine (for most of its buyers) with 80 instead of 28 cores. And I think the article gives the opposite impression.