Intel Downplays Apple's M1 Chip With 'Carefully Crafted' Benchmarks

[Maximara]

may be it is different in europe:

https://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/laptops/neu-xps-13/spd/xps-13-9310-laptop/cn93227
: 2299€

https://www.apple.com/de/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-zoll-space-grau-apple-m1-chip-mit-8‑core-cpu-und-8‑core-gpu-512gb#
: 2599€

2 513,08 € in Luxembourg, 2 635,71 € in another country, and I think you get the point. The import duties are royally messing up the prices.

"16 gb M1 is on par with a 32 gb Intel machine" -- wishful thinking - probably the contrary is the case (read cisc vs risc)

An iPhone outperforms an Android with twice the memory and they both use ARM (ie RISC).
More over remember the M1 has a memory compressor built into the CPU which reduces the writing to the SSD which makes using the SSD for long term Paging viable (not doing this shortens the life of the SSD). Finally the MacOS is Unix (it has been UNIX 03-compliant since 2007) which has had since 1971 to improve its paging (swapping), Window's paging is...there. In fact, an unfragmented drive can result in a Windows system chronically using much more memory than its total physical memory. If that carries over to SSD...you have a problem.

 

[Maximara]

The bear case is strong, true. But the company has new leadership and the involvement of a famous activist investor (who is pressuring for "strategic alternatives.") The company is at a juncture ... much like Apple was 25 years ago except Intel is in a much stronger financial position than Apple was at that time. It is extremely unlikely that the company goes bankrupt any time soon.

I don't think anyone is realistically thinking Intel will go bankrupt but they have two problems Apple didn't have 25 years ago: an insanely large company that is going to take time (and money) to change direction and loads of back software they are effectively stuck with supporting. What Mac user asks about running 24-bit code on Big Sur? None and yet there is a little thing on how to run 16-bit code on windows 10.

Back compatibility is one thing but to expect support for code that old (32-bit appeared in the 1980s) is beyond insane. Just have an emulator running on top of the modern OS.

 

[chucker23n1]

Reduced instruction set processors offload some processes to the application

What is that even supposed to mean?

What Mac user asks about running 24-bit code on Big Sur? None and yet there is a little thing on how to run 16-bit code on windows 10.

Well, if you read closely, that component only runs on 32-bit Windows. If you’re on 64-bit Windows (and you probably should be), it won’t run. NTVDM can run Win16 in Win32, but but in Win64.

 

[happyprozak]

AMD is a short term threat. OEMs using Arm with blessing and support from Microsoft is the greater long term threat.

We can't say that one way or another. Microsoft has been trying to push people away from traditional Windows for many years now and people aren't budging. They have had several experiments including Windows S and now they are working on Windows 10x. Microsoft already has Windows on arm processors and it isn't popular at all. They may eventually succeed or they may continue to fail with their experiments.

We also don't know how Intel and AMD will respond to the current ARM threat. They may engineer themselves out of it but I don't think anybody truly knows.

It's also possible that nobody will challenge Apple's silicone development so Windows will continue to rely on Intel and AMD.

 

[MacBH928]

Why is Intel worried?
Its not like Apple will sell M1 chips to Windows machines... or will they?

 

[cmaier]

We can't say that one way or another. Microsoft has been trying to push people away from traditional Windows for many years now and people aren't budging. They have had several experiments including Windows S and now they are working on Windows 10x. Microsoft already has Windows on arm processors and it isn't popular at all. They may eventually succeed or they may continue to fail with their experiments.

We also don't know how Intel and AMD will respond to the current ARM threat. They may engineer themselves out of it but I don't think anybody truly knows.

It's also possible that nobody will challenge Apple's silicone development so Windows will continue to rely on Intel and AMD.

I think I’ll trust my experience in the semiconductor industry and knowledge of the difference between silicon and silicone.

 

[09872738]

Why is Intel worried?
Its not like Apple will sell M1 chips to Windows machines... or will they?

Probably not. But Apple shows what is possible, others may now follow suit, what of course threatens Intel‘s business model

 

[Maximara]

Most business still use Windows applications and drivers and since you can't even run VM with Windows inside. I can use intel MBP for business, but I can't use M1 for business.

Rosetta 2 says "huh?" Translating that x86 code is what I do.

 

[Maximara]

Let's just say ARM becomes the new norm. What's stopping Intel from getting a design/license from ARM to make their own chips? Forget about Apple Silicon, that's staying solely with Apple. All this discussion about Intel eventually going to die off but you're going to have to replace one architecture with another and you need a company or multiple companies to supply the demand of the rest of the market that isn't captured by Apple which is a lot.

I don't know much so maybe the answer isn't so simple.

The problem is the other companies can do what Apple did - have someone else do the chip manufacturing. In fact, one of the rumors is Intel itself is looking at that option. Intel could easily become like IBM who by the time they woke up to just how much the market had changed became an also ran who has a fraction of the dominance they once had. Things got do bad that IBM dropped out of the PC market entirely and goes with high-end computers that run AIX (their version of Unix), minicomputers and mainframes.

 

[startergo]

Rosetta 2 says "huh?" Translating that x86 code is what I do.

Can you elaborate? I thought Rosetta 2 is only on the development platform (the Mac mini requested back by Apple)

 

[theotherphil]

Can you elaborate? I thought Rosetta 2 is only on the development platform (the Mac mini requested back by Apple)

Nope, it comes with all Apple Silicon Macs and will do for the foreseeable future.

 

[startergo]

Nope, it comes with all Apple Silicon Macs and will do for the foreseeable future.

But still the issue is those apps have to be executed in the Windows environment, which in this case is ARM Windows. So they will not probably even run on ARM Windows or will be buggy at most.

 

[chucker23n1]

But still the issue is those apps have to be executed in the Windows environment, which in this case is ARM Windows. So they will not probably even run on ARM Windows or will be buggy at most.

You’ll virtualize Windows on ARM and then use its x86 emulator. It’s not as good as Rosetta, but it’s likely to improve in the coming years.

 

[SantaFeNM]

So are you saying that tribalism is okay with tech? I feel all tribalism is bad, as all it does is divide people. It's backward thinking, and has no place in humans in 2021. I would even go as far as saying that any type of tribalism shows a basic lack of humanity.

No, I'm not saying that.

 

[startergo]

You’ll virtualize Windows on ARM and then use its x86 emulator. It’s not as good as Rosetta, but it’s likely to improve in the coming years.

but it’s likely to improve in the coming years.

Hopefully so. Where is the x86 emulator?

 

[chucker23n1]

Hopefully so. Where is the x86 emulator?

It’s built into Windows on ARM.

 

[theotherphil]

But still the issue is those apps have to be executed in the Windows environment, which in this case is ARM Windows. So they will not probably even run on ARM Windows or will be buggy at most.

And that is up to MS to fix.

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

Company‘s benchmarks show their product to be better than the competition. More news at 11.

Right? We were expecting Intel's benchmarks to show what we already all knew, which is that the M1 smokes Intel chips. Then they'd unceremoniously admit defeat and curl up and die...

Or in the real world, where every company does this, it really isn't that shocking. Apple is one of the kings of hyperbole and overstatements. Intel's just trying to be geeky about it. Problem is, facts are harder to fake than grand and vague statements about magic and snappiness.

 

[jeanlain]

Or in the real world, where every company does this, it really isn't that shocking.

Not every company does this.

 

[leman]

While I agree with most of the comments here about Intel getting beat for battery and performance, at the end of the day Macs only make up, at most, about 9% currently of the personal computer market. Historically, it's hovered around 5%. Now, I'm sure Intel would like to keep Apple as a customer, but losing Apple really isn't that big a deal when Apple is selling so few machines that require a CPU that Intel could provide.

It kind of is a big deal when you consider that Apple only uses high-end (=expensive) Intel CPUs. Apple probably accounts for less then 5% CPUs sold by Intel, but I wound't be surprised f they grabbed at least 20-30% of Intel CPUs sold for $300 or more

For all you claiming that Intel is worried, what is Intel worried about?

They are obviously worried — otherwise why release this manipulative comparison in the first place?

That a sea of Windows users are going to go buy Apple devices and learn a completely new environment to theoretically get a 20% performance gain on MS Office or web surfing or streaming? Oh, and while paying a lot more money for that Apple laptop or desktop.

A lot of people don't really care much about the OS itself — baseline software runs everywhere. They care about convenience, ergonomic and battery life though. These new Macs have a rally good value proposition when you compare them to similarly priced Windows laptops. We are not talking about the budget machines for under $700 — people who buy those will continue buying those. But we are looking at folks interested in quality business-class laptops like Dell XPS, Lenovo X1, Microsoft Surface Book and others — those laptops retail for over $1000 and are easily outclassed by a M1 portable that costs the same or less. In the Windows world, you still have to make a choice. Do I want a good battery? Do I want a good screen? Do I want good casual gaming performance? Apple Silicon delivers all of these for a very compelling price.

Everybody is missing a crucial point between the two platforms. Intel's chips are CISC (complicated instruction set) vs Apple's RISC chipset (reduced instruction set).

Reduced instruction set processors offload some processes to the application enabling the processor to complete an instruction in a single cycle. Complicated Instruction set processors handle all tasks, requiring several cycles to complete an instruction.

Please stop with this nonsense already. RISC vs. CISC discussion was relevant twenty years ago, it's not relevant today. All high-performance modern CPUs are RISC internally (via microcode) — not that it matters anyway with all the out-of-order execution and register renaming going behind the scenes. And the ARM64 ISA is in some regards more CISC than x86. I mean, they have addressing modes that auto-increment registers and they can store or load multiple registers with a single instruction. There is nothing "RISC" about that.

 

[Maximara]

We can't say that one way or another. Microsoft has been trying to push people away from traditional Windows for many years now and people aren't budging. They have had several experiments including Windows S and now they are working on Windows 10x. Microsoft already has Windows on arm processors and it isn't popular at all. They may eventually succeed or they may continue to fail with their experiments.

We also don't know how Intel and AMD will respond to the current ARM threat. They may engineer themselves out of it but I don't think anybody truly knows.

It's also possible that nobody will challenge Apple's silicone development so Windows will continue to rely on Intel and AMD.

AMD already has an ARM chip: the Opteron A-Series which is aimed at datacenter.

I have been told that Intel has an ARM chip somewhere in its CPU lineup but if it has been stated what it is called or what it is used in I missed it.

 

[chucker23n1]

I have been told that Intel has an ARM chip somewhere in its CPU lineup but if it has been stated what it is called or what it is used in I missed it.

They used to. See StrongARM and XScale. They’ve since sold most of that off to Marvell.

 

[Maximara]

They used to. See StrongARM and XScale. They’ve since sold most of that off to Marvell.

So basically for Intel to catch up they would either have to buy back what ARM tech they sold off to Marvell or start from next to scratch. Neither of those are really good options. There are times Intel's efforts read like a bad comic (yes that is a pun on the name of who they sold much of their ARM designs to. )

 

[chucker23n1]

So basically for Intel to catch up they would either have to buy back what ARM tech they sold off to Marvell or start from next to scratch. Neither of those are really good options. There are times Intel's efforts read like a bad comic (yes that is a pun on the name of who they sold much of their ARM designs to. )

At this point, it might make more sense to derive from RISC-V.

Either way, moving archs historically isn’t their strong point. They keep going back to x86.

 

[Abazigal]

For all you claiming that Intel is worried, what is Intel worried about? That a sea of Windows users are going to go buy Apple devices

I feel that Intel should be worried about other PC OEMs eventually adopting the integrated processor approach that Apple has.

In the short run, it’s easy to argue that the majority of people are still going to be using windows PC, which means that Intel still has a captive market however lacklustre their chips are in terms of performance and battery life.

In the long run, if Intel continues to fail to deliver, and the gap between their processors and Apple’s MX chips grows to the point where we see more people switching to Macs for the superior performance, the PC manufacturers themselves may be forced to respond in kind.

Can you imagine Microsoft researching and manufacturing their own M1 chip variant, and releasing their own PC offerings utilising these chips? Can you picture Dell, HP, Razer all doing likewise (be it independently or as a collab?).

What happens when every PC company is shipping their own in-house processors and the only companies using Intel chips are smaller OEMs selling low-end laptops who lack the resources? Intel’s earnings fall, which mean they lack the resources to invest in R&D and innovate, so they continue to fall behind even more, which leads to fewer people using their processors, and so on.

Blackberry didn’t fall in a day, but it was quickly apparent that they had no way of competing with Apple and their demise was simply a matter of time.