Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Intel Alder Lake Chips for Desktops Faster Than M1 Max in Benchmarks, But Use Much More Power

4jasontv said:
LOL. You got there by inflating pricing and adding supplemental parts.

But just for fun, I built PC using name-brand equipment that met the specs listed above with current pricing. Heck, I even added a 4K monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, and an extra fan since you were so keen on including them. But, as a reminder to anyone else that reads this that PC building allows for parts to be moved from one build to another, so many of these parts would be no cost since they can be salvaged from an exisiting build. But we include them here in case this happens to be someones first computer.

The total price for a liquid cooled i9-12900K with a RTX-3090, motherboard, 128 GB ram, 2 x 4 TB SSD, case, powersupply, extra fan, 28 inch 4k monitor, wireless keyboard and monitor with scalper pricing:

$5596.80.

You could do better if you shopped around or were willing to change brands.

That's $502.20 cheaper than a maxed out 16" M1 Max. So while an argument can be made to pay $500+ for the portablity or accepting lower performance for the portablity, but to ask both really highlights the difference between the best Apple has right now and the best one can do with Intel. If you need price, Intel wins (OK, AMD does but Intel is 2nd). If you need top performance Intel wins (with AMD trading 1st and 2nd based on task).

View attachment 1904166
Click to expand...
And $5600 is WELL below $6090? Thanks for proving my point. And in such detail.

Not to mention. You are still comparing apples to oranges.

Also the 1 budget fan, an AIO… and only for the cpu, 2666 ram, a bronze psu, budget 10 dollar mouse and keyboard combo, and lack of any cables is making me chuckle. Especially after you were so mad at my pricing.
 
Last edited:
elmateo487 said:
Not to mention the 12900k is sold out everywhere too… unless of course you buy it for the price I said.
Click to expand...
Funny, local dealer has it in stock for the price. Tons of shops in Europe have it too. Subtract VAT off price, have it shipped on monday and you'll have it tuesday/wednesday latest and not just one if you want. But of course you're going to claim that's waiting too long.

Others have already showed you how wrong you are. You got your butt whipped, now keep rambling if you will. I would suggest learning about a few things like fill rates and compute performance on GPUs, but my neighbours cat would do a better job, so I won't bother. ;)
 
4jasontv said:
$500? That's 9%. So yeah, it's well below.
Click to expand...
No. No it is not. When was the last time you saw a 9% off sign and said “WOW THAT IS WELL BELOW THE ORIGINAL PRICE”

Not to mention you did it by having..

Only 1 budget fan, an AIO… and only for the cpu, a terrible case for these hot components, 2666 ram, a bronze psu, the budget 10 dollar mouse and keyboard combo is especially making me chuckle. Especially after you were so mad at my pricing. Rofl.

And you still are comparing a desktop to a laptop.
 
Last edited:
elmateo487 said:
No. No it is not.

Not to mention you did it by having..

Only 1 budget fan, an AIO… and only for the cpu, a terrible case, 2666 ram, a bronze psu, budget 10 dollar mouse and keyboard combo, and lack of any cables is making me chuckle. Especially after you were so mad at my pricing. Rofl.
Click to expand...
Well, someday you might build one yourself and understand.

  1. That keyboard is going to be better than the MBP built-in, so I saw no reason to spend more.
  2. The fan is unnecessary but you seemed to want an extra one added.
  3. Apple doesn't indicate their RAM speed so I assume 2666 is already faster than what is in the MBP.
  4. The bronze status of the psu isn't relevant.
  5. The case and power supply include all the necessary cables.
The only issue I had with your pricing was that it was fabricated out of thin air in order to be intentionally misleading.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: jdb8167
For many people the fun of building a Frankenstein PC from carefully selected new and left over old parts is priceless, so all this talk about parts prices is missing the point. :p

If you want to build an Alder Lake system right now you pay an early adopter premium due to the relatively high prices of the Z690 motherboards and DDR5 RAM (although you can also use DDR4). And of course graphics card prices are bonkers due to crypto hype and supply shortages. The wise can wait a few months and save hundreds, but then you miss the fun of being the first one on the block with the new CPU.
 
4jasontv said:
Well, someday you might build one yourself and understand.

  1. That keyboard is going to be better than the MBP built-in, so I saw no reason to spend more.
  2. The fan is unnecessary but you seemed to want an extra one added.
  3. Apple doesn't indicate their RAM speed so I assume 2666 is already faster than what is in the MBP.
  4. The bronze status of the psu isn't relevant.
  5. The case and power supply include all the necessary cables.
The only issue I had with your pricing was that it was fabricated out of thin air in order to be intentionally misleading.
Click to expand...
So even going as cheap as possible, with every single component buying it today. You could only eek out 500 dollar savings.

Thanks. You keep proving my point over and over and over.
 
elmateo487 said:
You want to compare a PSU vs a mobile laptop power supply? Rofl.
Click to expand...
I want to know the efficiency of the Apple bricks. Again, this is simple physics or rather electrical engineering. You can measure this. The fact that you evade is proof enough that you don't know neither how efficient they are or how to measure it. Just like you don't know how a GPU works, what fill rate is for and also don't understand the difference between compute and visualization.

I'm genuinely interested in the efficiency of the Apple bricks, I have not measured them yet. I'd have to wait until next week or the week after when I'm back in the lab for the equipment. It isn't primarily the reason I asked, the primary reason I asked was a head fake and for that I must apologize. The intention here was with you throwing around things, to show you can't answer simple questions because you don't understand how this stuff works.
 
Last edited:
Rigby said:
The wise can wait a few months and save hundreds, but then you miss the fun of being the first one on the block with the new CPU.
Click to expand...
The first one, not only on the block, but ideally anywhere doesn't care. The first one makes an unboxing and benchmark video, puts it on YouTube and makes $100k off it, so it pays for itself. ;)

The unboxing/benchmarking video thing happens to work particularly well for the hardcore Apple crowd.
 
GrumpyCoder said:
I want to know the efficiency of the Apple bricks. Again, this is simple physics or rather electrical engineering. You can measure this. The fact that you evade is proof enough that you don't know neither how efficient they are or how to measure it. Just like you don't know how a GPU works, what fill rate is for and also don't understand the difference between compute and visualization.

I'm genuinely interested in the efficiency of the Apple bricks, I have not measured them yet. I'd have to wait until next week or the week after when I'm back in the lab for the equipment. It isn't primarily the reason I asked, the primary reason I asked was a head fake and for that I must apologize. The intention here was with you throwing around things, to show you can't answer simple questions because you don't understand how this stuff works.
Click to expand...
Once again. Off topic and rambling. I’ve been building computers for 20 years…

I know how it all works without having to “go to the lab”.

I also know when it’s useless to compare a laptop to a desktop. Or a desktop PSU vs a laptop PSU.
 
elmateo487 said:
So even going as cheap as possible, with every single component buying it today. You could only eek out 500 dollar savings.

Thanks. You keep proving my point over and over and over.
Click to expand...
It's nice that you think you have a point.

I didn't go as 'cheap as possible' but whatever. And $500 is a significant saving.
 
Last edited:
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: GrumpyCoder and elmateo487
elmateo487 said:
I know how it all works without having to “go to the lab”.
Click to expand...
Ah, sure you do. ? That's why you got performance wrong, fill rate wrong, compute wrong and so on and so on.
You have to use equipment to measure, but of course you won't know how to measure. The last time I measured an Apple brick it was in the low 80%, which is where Bronze rating PSUs are. This is from a PSU point of view, it doesn't matter what it's used for, it could be a power supply for a TV, radio, cell phone, etc. Anyone in the first semester studying EE would know this of course.

Then again, if building PCs is what you do, you won't need to understand things, you don't need the education. Building PCs is simple, a six year old can do that.

But don't worry, you showed everyone already you don't understand this stuff, so that's ok. Keep plugging stuff together, it's like Lego after all. It can be very relaxing. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: rezenclowd3
elmateo487 said:
I’ve been building computers for 20 years…
Click to expand...
Really? You really had me fooled. Based on what you were saying it seemed like you were just arguing to argue. Which is fine, I guess, because it forces people to think through the understandings that they take for granted. But, now that we know that you have 20 years of experience we can all agree that Apple's hardware, while impressive, doesn't match up with the 12th gen Intel chips.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rezenclowd3
semiaccurate.com

Intel’s Alder Lake is needless complexity

Intel’s drawn out drip feed of Alder Lake details ends today with a whimper not a bang.
semiaccurate.com semiaccurate.com

Alder Lake is not a good chip, it's outrageously inefficient. If AMD decided to bin and clock the 5950X in the same TDP I have no doubt it would still be number one.

Intel's 10nm process or whatever they've renamed it to is a failure of a node and the big.LITTLE idea doesn't translate that well to desktop chips.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Unregistered 4U
ColdShadow said:
I’m just saying for 90% of ordinary customers a Macbook/iMac is just a brand of computer and they will compare it to whatever model is available from Dell,HP,MS etc for similar price range
I personally only use Mac and moved on from Windows over a decade ago.
Click to expand...
90% of ordinary customers aren’t looking at top end performance numbers, though. They already know that whatever they buy can do what they want it to do (primarily Facebook, email, etc.) because they haven’t even come CLOSE to the limits of the system they’re migrating from. Anyone considering buying a Mac might be swayed for MANY reasons, but it’s not likely to be because there’s some processor they’ll never buy that’s outperforming some OTHER processor they’ll never buy.
 
Keymaster said:
This is obviously the only choice for a comparison now, as Apple has not released the desktop version of their processors.
Click to expand...
They did. These are the destkop versions too.

1. They already put the basic m1 into the mac mini and imac.
2. Nothing in the naming of m1 pro and max indicates a mobile version.
3. The best chip is called max, which is by definition the max.
4. Cook is a supply chain manager, having three chips with multiple options is already more than I've hoped for.

They can have higher clock speeds in desktops, but I wouldn't hope for separate chips.
 
4jasontv said:
Really? You really had me fooled. Based on what you were saying it seemed like you were just arguing to argue. Which is fine, I guess, because it forces people to think through the understandings that they take for granted. But, now that we know that you have 20 years of experience we can all agree that Apple's hardware, while impressive, doesn't match up with the 12th gen Intel chips.
Click to expand...
All because I am not dumb enough to compare 240 watt desktop chips to 60 watt laptop SOCs?

You got me there. Apple laptop SOCs don’t compare to Intels high end consumer desktop chips.

What a revelation. A desktop and monitor that are 20-30 times the size of a laptop are different?! Gasp!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jon9091
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back