AppleWes
macrumors 6502a
If it was a true "Neo killer" no one would have to bring up Apple at all and just showcase what their own products can do.
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Intel launches Macbook Neo killer
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Chuckle
" ... , featuring a 17W PL1 (22W maximum boost) and a 35W PL2. It is also available in fanless configurations where the TDP is limited to 11W to maintain thermal stability. Intel claims that these fanless models will remain fully functional without thermal throttling, even in the absence of active cooling. ..."
So it is "without thermal throttling" because set the firmware to run at a lower TDP all the time with no user control. ooh ... OK. Somewhat closer to won't get any more thermal throttling once the parameters lowered (i.e., limited) at boot.
The large 'smoke and mirrors' is going to be when websites start comparing laptops that are not set at 11W performance to the Neo. Indeed later in the article
" ... According to the company, the new chips deliver up to 47% better single-thread performance, 41% better multi-thread performance, and 2.8× higher GPU AI performance compared to five-year-old PCs and previous-generation low-power processors such as the Core 7 150U. ..."
That "up to..." is an implicit indication that this is not the 11W mode. The baseline comparison here is to 5 year old PCs. There is really not much smack talking about the Neo there at all. Why are they avoiding Neo numbers?
Geekbench 6 for Mac 17,5 (Mac Neo)
approx 3500 single 9000 multi.
2080 single 7157 multi.
so about 68% faster single. and 25% mulit. If have lots of multiple threaded workloads and money for a MBA... just get that. The more interesting number is what does Wildcat's multi numbers shrink to when capped at 10W lower than what PL1 power demand is. Might still 'win' , but there is not going to be a huge gap and still loosing at single ( A18 Pro has a 20% lead even before thermal limit the Wildcat option. )
Apple 18Pro (4/5 cores active) ~ 15,568
Core i5 150U (slower than a AMD 740M ** ) so approx 14,800
However, the NEO NPU is same level than WildCat total TOPs (and better than NPU or GPU individually).
Wildcat wins at RAM capacity. However, higher RAM prices pretty much guarantees won't win on system's price.
Intel is to do lots of hand waving that this 'competes' with Neo, but they are really landing in between the Neo and MBA. It is more so competing by not being either one. Pretty unlikely Intel "knew" there was a Neo while they were designing the Wild Cat. More likely they were trying to land under the M-series. Additionally, it was very likely that Qualcomm would have a cheaper options under the M-series also. [ Capturing Neo buzz with a compare is a lot like how Qualcomm tries to gather M-series buzz when it is really Intel/AMD SoCs they are competing with. ]
** Can't find Intel GPU on Geekbench OpenCL list, but AMD 740M is. So constructed a little slower than that is estimate (-1,000).
Low-powered Raptor Lake CPU fails to impress in graphics benchmark — Intel Core 7 150U loses to AMD's CPUs with Radeon 740M graphics
Core 7 150U is a Raptor Lake CPU and is not to be confused with the new Meteor Lake lineup.
P.P.S. The new Intel processors are indexed more on "Wildcat Lake" than on the processor ID in geekbench browser.
approx : 2400 single and 7400 multi. ( that 'up to 41% on multi" that Intel is yapping about must be some really narrow niche case. ) CPU core wise nothing much to brag over the Neo about.
[ NOTE: improvement on older Intel 150U is 320 ( 15%) on single and 243 ( 4%) multiple. Pretty different numbers than Intel's "... up to.." citations.
The major improvement here is probably how well this new on performs when capped at 11-12W versus older implementation. It probably doesn't backslide as badly. ]
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Pacific1972
macrumors regular
Intel is at least years away because there are other companies leading today
(AMD, Apple, NVIDIA, TSMC) and the new chipsets and technologies by
Intel (which offered) are very resource hungry to get "leadership" !
If you told something about technology, you should mention the interaction
between hardware, software and the operating system - all in one breath.
If you are looking to large-scale WIN11 installations (X86 or ARM) and Intels
Chipset or "AI inside technology" you should realize that things haven't been
working out very well for quite minimum half a decade...
The RISC technology is at the beginning - the CISC Technology is at the end !
(everybody which follows computer technology in the past 30 years knows that)
(AMD, Apple, NVIDIA, TSMC) and the new chipsets and technologies by
Intel (which offered) are very resource hungry to get "leadership" !
If you told something about technology, you should mention the interaction
between hardware, software and the operating system - all in one breath.
If you are looking to large-scale WIN11 installations (X86 or ARM) and Intels
Chipset or "AI inside technology" you should realize that things haven't been
working out very well for quite minimum half a decade...
The RISC technology is at the beginning - the CISC Technology is at the end !
(everybody which follows computer technology in the past 30 years knows that)
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Looks like Intel is back now.
Good news for Intel.
www.tomshardware.com
Intel is not going allow the Neo to take over.
Good news for Intel.
Intel stock jumps 28%, setting a record, after it posts strong Q1 with rising forecasts — Intel says yields are improving faster than expected with new nodes
Intel stock jumps 28%, setting a record, after it posts strong Q1 with rising forecasts — Intel says yields are improving faster than expected with new nodes
Intel's results beat forecasts and expectations.
Intel is not going allow the Neo to take over.
Looks like Intel is back now.
Good news for Intel.
Intel stock jumps 28%, setting a record, after it posts strong Q1 with rising forecasts — Intel says yields are improving faster than expected with new nodes
Intel stock jumps 28%, setting a record, after it posts strong Q1 with rising forecasts — Intel says yields are improving faster than expected with new nodes
Intel's results beat forecasts and expectations.
Intel is not going allow the Neo to take over.
the 'hype train' can leave just as fast as it came. There is much frenzy now with the trendy notion that server chips are going outsell GPU chips because agentic AI is software building a whole new planet worth of software. A fair amount of that hype doesn't have much rational thought behind it.
Not sure why "AI" would be beholden to x86. If have thousands of agents to rewrite "everything", then can port code off of x86 just as 'fast'.
For example, Meta just bought access to millions of AWS ARM server chips.
https://www.servethehome.com/meta-b...of-aws-graviton-arm-cores-in-a-cpu-land-grab/
That isn't not going to bring big bonanza to Intel. All the while Meta also committing to by a huge number of server CPU chips directly from Arm also. At some point, their Intel buy is going to decrease (already has, but probably down substantively more). Every large cloud vendor has their own Arm server chip in development/deployment. They are largely going to skip their own (doing cost recovery) and buy Intel?
And Musk's hand waving at Intel 14A and TeraFab ... there are more questions than answers there.
Consumer PC chips are likely going to get screwed by rapid shift in RAM/NAND prices. Plus even higher competition there also for Intel. As long as it is a "rob Peter to pay Paul" situation with datacenter eating RAM/NAND supply by taking it away from PC side of market, Intel has business on both sides. One side robbing the other isn't going to get an aggregate rise.
Intel isn't going bankrupt anytime soon. But worth more than when they pragmatically had a monopoly? They could screw it up pretty good in a couple of year if take their eye off the ball.
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It doesn’t matter how powerful these machines are or how good the batteries are. They will, until Microsoft get its act together in debloating Windows and properly optimising it always be hampered by a resource hogging OS.Chuckle
" ... , featuring a 17W PL1 (22W maximum boost) and a 35W PL2. It is also available in fanless configurations where the TDP is limited to 11W to maintain thermal stability. Intel claims that these fanless models will remain fully functional without thermal throttling, even in the absence of active cooling. ..."
So it is "without thermal throttling" because set the firmware to run at a lower TDP all the time with no user control. ooh ... OK. Somewhat closer to won't get any more thermal throttling once the parameters lowered (i.e., limited) at boot.
The large 'smoke and mirrors' is going to be when websites start comparing laptops that are not set at 11W performance to the Neo. Indeed later in the article
" ... According to the company, the new chips deliver up to 47% better single-thread performance, 41% better multi-thread performance, and 2.8× higher GPU AI performance compared to five-year-old PCs and previous-generation low-power processors such as the Core 7 150U. ..."
That "up to..." is an implicit indication that this is not the 11W mode. The baseline comparison here is to 5 year old PCs. There is really not much smack talking about the Neo there at all. Why are they avoiding Neo numbers?
Geekbench 6 for Mac 17,5 (Mac Neo)
approx 3500 single 9000 multi.
2080 single 7157 multi.
so about 68% faster single. and 25% mulit. If have lots of multiple threaded workloads and money for a MBA... just get that. The more interesting number is what does Wildcat's multi numbers shrink to when capped at 10W lower than what PL1 power demand is. Might still 'win' , but there is not going to be a huge gap and still loosing at single ( A18 Pro has a 20% lead even before thermal limit the Wildcat option. )
Apple 18Pro (4/5 cores active) ~ 15,568
Core i5 150U (slower than a AMD 740M ** ) so approx 14,800
However, the NEO NPU is same level than WildCat total TOPs (and better than NPU or GPU individually).
Wildcat wins at RAM capacity. However, higher RAM prices pretty much guarantees won't win on system's price.
Intel is to do lots of hand waving that this 'competes' with Neo, but they are really landing in between the Neo and MBA. It is more so competing by not being either one. Pretty unlikely Intel "knew" there was a Neo while they were designing the Wild Cat. More likely they were trying to land under the M-series. Additionally, it was very likely that Qualcomm would have a cheaper options under the M-series also. [ Capturing Neo buzz with a compare is a lot like how Qualcomm tries to gather M-series buzz when it is really Intel/AMD SoCs they are competing with. ]
** Can't find Intel GPU on Geekbench OpenCL list, but AMD 740M is. So constructed a little slower than that is estimate (-1,000).
Low-powered Raptor Lake CPU fails to impress in graphics benchmark — Intel Core 7 150U loses to AMD's CPUs with Radeon 740M graphics
Core 7 150U is a Raptor Lake CPU and is not to be confused with the new Meteor Lake lineup.
P.P.S. The new Intel processors are indexed more on "Wildcat Lake" than on the processor ID in geekbench browser.
approx : 2400 single and 7400 multi. ( that 'up to 41% on multi" that Intel is yapping about must be some really narrow niche case. ) CPU core wise nothing much to brag over the Neo about.
[ NOTE: improvement on older Intel 150U is 320 ( 15%) on single and 243 ( 4%) multiple. Pretty different numbers than Intel's "... up to.." citations.
The major improvement here is probably how well this new on performs when capped at 11-12W versus older implementation. It probably doesn't backslide as badly. ]
I know MacOS isn’t in the greatest place right now and I don’t like beefing on Windows because there are apps I prefer on that side (notably AutoCAD) but faced with a cold choice at anything below £1000 you’d be a fool not to but aMac
Yeah. What he said. Period. End of discussion. 😎
Pacific1972
macrumors regular
AMAZON & APPLE strikes back (no student version) -
... look at the 512GB + Touch ID version (prices from 25/04/2026) !
... the two seem to have taken a liking to the price war over winning customers !
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