Intel launches Macbook Neo killer

[Non-Euclidean]

Most every other laptop sold in the last few years has a faster SSD in it. 1500MB/s is two generations old PCI Express 3.0 speed. That was the point.

Edit: PCIE USB 3.2 gen2 in the A18 Pro. 10 Gbit/s.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

<...>
What's actually great about this ... is now that Apple has to make macOS work with the iPhone ... and use old iPhone chips to be repurposed for the Neo ... Apple might start doing some interesting magic under the hood in iPhones moving forward. Maybe it'll eventually push Apple to 16 GB iPhones as well.

I have had quite enough "magic" in the latest GUI.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

Even better, $499 at BestBuy right now. Comparing to the Neo, this also has far more ports, including USB-A and C, SD card reader and HDMI. WiFi 7 instead of WiFi 6, and it also has TWO SSD slots (both removable unlike Neo's forever soldered tiny SSD) and SSD's that are 3x faster than Neo. Oh, and a back-lit keyboard.

Sure, the A18 Pro is faster at single core benchmarks, but what do so many people here say about the Neo -- "the people who are buying this don't care". Same -- the people buying lower-end PC laptops don't care either as it does everything they need.

Right you are.

The people who will care are the relative who serves as tech support and ends up muttering @#$%#$% Windows!

 

[hybrid_x]

How can an unreleased chip be a "killer" of a released consumer product?

By the time this is packaged into a product for sale, the Neo will already be on its second generation.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3X, Snapdragon® X X1-26-100,

Even better, $499 at BestBuy right now. C

Windows has appeared on non-Intel architectures before. (MIPS, Alpha, PPC IIRC. Probably others in the lab.) It looks like it might stick this time. If not, Qualcomm is getting native Linux going. Requires re-flashing, so, I'm not sure if dual-boot is workable? I hate to see a good system stuck running Windows only.

 

[Populus]

PCIE 3.2 in the A18 Pro.

Do you know, by any chance, if the A19 Pro has a faster PCIe specification?

 

[Non-Euclidean]

Do you know, by any chance, if the A19 Pro has a faster PCIe specification?

I corrected the earlier post, I should have said USB 3.2, not PICE 3.2. I think its the same in the A19 Pro. They probably felt that adequate for a phone now and put the improvements everywhere else (speed/cores/memory/bus speed/etc.).

 

[bapegg]

Intel isn't, unfortunately, in the business of making phone chips or ARM chips. Snapdragon is, and that's where we look.

FWIW, I see lots of videos of people trying to cool the A18 Pro in the Neo since Apple decided it didn't need any sort of heatsink and now they discovered it throttles when pushed for any length of time. So "heat management" is throttling with the Neo.

I won't argue that point as I have watched those videos too. But I don't push my Neo hard enough for it to throttle. I don't push my Dell laptop with the Ryzen 7 5700U or my desktops with the I7-13500T or Ryzen 9 8945HX hard enough to throttle either.

Again the Neo is better than the I5-5700U in both single and multi core scores. The Neo beats the I7-13500T and Ryzen 9 8945HX at single core. No surprise that both beat the Neo on multi core since they have 14-16 cores to the Neo's 6 cores. The A18 Pro uses less power and produces less heat.

As you mentioned, Intel doesn't make phone chips. And so far I am not veery impressed with W11 Arm version compared to W11 X86 version or MacOS. W11 Arm has a ways to go yet.

There are always trade offs when it comes to TDP, thermal throttling and battery life.

 

[bapegg]

Windows has appeared on non-Intel architectures before. (MIPS, Alpha, PPC IIRC. Probably others in the lab.) It looks like it might stick this time. If not, Qualcomm is getting native Linux going. Requires re-flashing, so, I'm not sure if dual-boot is workable? I hate to see a good system stuck running Windows only.

I use to deal with Windows Embedded years ago on non X86 architecture and it was never as good as Windows for X86.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

I use to deal with Windows Embedded years ago on non X86 architecture

"The horror! The horror!"

That said, it should be doable to make Windows stick on ARM. It will "just" take commitment on the part of Microsoft. But, in a world of this quarter's results, commitment is difficult.

 

[bapegg]

"The horror! The horror!"

That said, it should be doable to make Windows stick on ARM. It will "just" take commitment on the part of Microsoft. But, in a world of this quarter's results, commitment is difficult.

Microsoft has always treated Windows versions for non X86 architecture as the preverbal red headed step child. Hopefully things will change with Windows for Arm. But I won't hold my breathe waiting.

 

[ph001bi]

In my experience, anyone using the term "xxx killer" is peddling clickbait garbage.

The killer **** started with iPod killer and it's been fail after fail ever since.

 

[NewOldStock]

I just hope we are not stuck on only Ilaptops for the next few years because all the data center build outs.
And when laptops come back again they will look very over priced and Ilaptops will be all we can afford.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

The killer **** started with iPod killer and it's been fail after fail ever since.

It's much older than that.. I remember reading article calling Internet Explorer a "Netscape killer" back in the 90s, but yea, the iPod really made it popular, and obnoxious, phase.

I just hope we are not stuck on only Ilaptops for the next few years because all the data center build outs.
And when laptops come back again they will look very over priced and Ilaptops will be all we can afford.

What is an Ilaptop?

 

[Astuces iOS]

Intel's new Core Series 3 is its answer to the MacBook Neo

Intel has launched the Core Series 3, a mobile processor arguably designed to provide cheaper consumer laptops. But early pricing from a Chinese vendor, Honor, doesn't look especially promising.

www.pcworld.com

Bro, it doesn't run macOS... just that

 

[Unregistered 4U]

This is a good thing. Apple absolutely needs competition; competition is the only thing preventing Apple turning more into "Fat Elvis" than it already has.

Apple’s only competition is what they shipped previously. No one is even close.

 

[cjsuk]

Late to the party on this one but I can only say

Bahahahahahahahahaha like hell that's a response to it. I mean it'll be less bad for a PC but it's still a PC with the associated problems like a steaming pile of trash for the default OS and an architecture built on several decades of crappy hacks slapped on top of an 8080.

 

[Icelus]

Let's us wait again for the interesting and creative commercials like five years ago /s

 

[Royksöpp]

Macbook Neo Killer? Are we in 2010 again? No one is killing anything Apple, they never did and never will.

 

[deconstruct60]

Actually starting with panther lake, intel has been crushing in terms of performance and power efficiency. Their integrated gpu in panther lake has been rivaling discrete gpu performance. You can actually gain on these processors.

What Intel just introduced is technically not Panther Lake. It is Wildcat Lake. Both code name use the same basic micro-archtectural elements. However, the dies are substantially different and scope of the I/O (and memory. ) even more so.

P-cores are 'Cougar Cove' and E core varaints are Darkmont derivatives. But the number of care is very substantially different. "rivaling discrete GPU prerformance?" is not something Wildcat can 'spin'.

 

[Skwoodge]

Macbook Neo Killer? Are we in 2010 again? No one is killing anything Apple, they never did and never will.

It's kind of like Communism. "It'll work this time!"

 

[capamac]

Panther Lake impresses me. Glad to see Intel more or less keeping up with the competition. If a competitor leads the field too greatly you get a "Fat Elvis."

 

[deconstruct60]

It is true that Panther Lake is a big advancement for Intel chips.

These chips are Wildcat Lake; not Panther Lake. It is a separate set of dies aimed at a substantively different market.

However, I wouldn’t get one of this because they include a decent NPU. The same thing that I look forward on a Mac is something to avoid on a Windows platform.

Wildcat Lake has a NPU but it does not qualify for "Copliot PC+" ( just 17 TOPs versus A18 Pro 36 TOPs). If hoping that certain Windows Copilot features will 'turn off' because the NPU is 'too weak'. These will meet that specs. However, the rest of the cheap is relatively weaker than Panther Lake also.

There are at best just two P-cores. (there is a 1 P-core option at the bottom of the line up). There are zero regular E cores. There are 4 LP-E cores. There are at best just two 2 Xe GPU cores ( there are ALU units in the Xe 'core' ). In single threaded stuff it is beat by the A18 Pro. In multithread work it is better than A18 Pro.

But this is not a upscale GPU performance offering. It is trying to be better than a N300 / Intel / old-school Celeron class GPU. The GPU maxes out at 20 AI TOPs on the top end and sags all the down to 9 TOPs on the low end. None of those is match the NPU of the A18 Pro. Graphics workloads probably not particularly far apart because , if recall correctly, the memory is slower on the WildCat than A18 Pro. The better upside for the WildCat is supporting far more memory. So a game that has a sizable RAM footprint will probably run better if memory handling is about the same on both platforms ( compression techniques , etc. ).

there is 2 Thunderbolt ports versus at best 10Gbps USB 3 for A18 Pro. There are just 6 PCI-e lanes on the Wlld-cat so after attaching a x4 SSD they are about in the same 'boat' (if ignore the TB ports ).

 

[deconstruct60]

IIRC the Core Series 2 was a decent improvement over the first Core Series and is competitive with AMD now. If Core Series 3 is efficient I'd love to slap it in a server with ECC.

There isn't really a 'dual use' design chip like the N100/N200/N300 series was. There are only x6 PCI-e lanes. By the time you have attached a x4 SSD, it is basically done. The N300 has x9 lanes.

there are some Linux drivers with 'in-band' EDAC support. ( Ark.intel.com doesn't say much though. Not even a caveat. )

Iintel could possibly do another package with a different PCH/IO chiplet that tosses Thunderbolt for more PCI-e . But this package is far more skewed toward laptops than the old N-series stuff was.

 

[1BadManVan]

Do you know, by any chance, if the A19 Pro has a faster PCIe specification?

Well ssd speed tests on the 17 pros show the ssd speeds are double that of the 16 pro so i would say so