[treekogreen]

I'll have to dig around and find relevant phoronix benchmarks later for you. But I think it's somewhat of a hive-mind assumption that Intel has generally higher performance all round. A majority of benchmarks show that Intel is generally better in single threaded benchmarks whereas ARM CPU's are better in multicore, multi-threaded applications with a lower TDP and leagues better efficiency. Heck the Surface Pro X that Microsoft brought out has performance on par with an Intel i5 with at least 1.5x the battery life of its Intel counterpart and without needing an internal fan whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple will make the switch to ARM for all but their highest spec MacBook pro's.

[jeroenhd]

I will immediately believe them when you interpreted "outperforming" as "better performance per watt".

However, I can also see their chips outperforming Intel in sustained workloads. Apple has a history of crippling Intel performance by allowing the CPU to only run at full speed for a short while, quickly letting it ramp up the temperature before clocking down aggressively. Some of that is likely because of their power delivery system, some of it is because they choose to limit their cooling capacity to make their laptops make less noise or with fewer "unattractive" airholes. Either way, put the same chip in a Macbook and in a Windows laptop and the Windows laptop will run hotter but with better performance.

However, with a more efficient chip, Apple could allow their CPU to run at a higher frequency than Intel for longer, benefiting sustained workloads despite the IPC and frequency being lower on paper. This is especially important for devices like the Macbook Air, where they didn't even bother to connect a heatpipe to the CPU and aggressively limit the performance of their Intel chip.

I'd even consider the conspiracy theory that Apple has been limiting their mobile CPU performance for the last few years to allow for a smoother transition to ARM. If they can outperform their current lineup even slightly, they can claim to have beaten Intel and then make their cooling solution more efficient again.

[dijit]

Everything you said is echoed in this LTT video from yesterday[0].

It does appear to be a very poor thermal design, but you can see that most of the issues appear to be from trying to make the user not feel the heat.

It feels a bit icky to leave performance on the table like that; since you paid for a CPU and are getting a marginal performance from it. But I remember Jobs giving a talk before about how "Computers are tools, and people don't care if their tools give them all it can, they care if they can get their work done with them well"

That's not a defense of a shitty cooling solution, but it is a defence of why they power limit the chips. When I got my first (and only) Macbook in 2011, it had more than twice the real battery life of any machine on the market. That meant that I was _actually_ untethered. That's what I cared about at the time much more than how much CPU I was getting.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlOPPuNv4Ec

[unpossible]

> Either way, put the same chip in a Macbook and in a Windows laptop and the Windows laptop will run hotter but with better performance.

The Windows laptop can't possibly run hotter than a Macbook, all of which reach the throttle temperature (~100 °C) almost instantly.

I actually agree to the artificially limited performance, artificially worsened thermals theory. The Macbook Air design is extremely fishy.

[dx034]

The laptop can be hotter if it dissipates more heat to the case. The reason Macbooks reach 100C fast is because they don't give off a lot of heat so that the case doesn't burn your skin.

[m463]

I think all of that is because of "the triangle".

the vertices would be power, heat and perf.

Apple just hasn't shipped an arm chip with high power and "excessive" cooling.