[modeless]

Obviously you can choose not to aim for the best possible performance in order to reduce costs. But for the companies that are competing for the absolute best performance at any cost, which doesn't include Qualcomm, by far the biggest factor determining that performance is the fabrication technology.

[throw34]

That’s an interesting take given this thread because Apple has explicitly stated they don’t prioritize performance, they prioritize performance per watt, which is not the same thing. And that also shows there’s a whole design space here and just focusing on one dimension, process node, is overly simplistic.

[modeless]

Top end performance is power limited, so optimizing for performance per watt is almost the same thing as optimizing for performance.

[throw34]

I’m not sure what point you’re arguing anymore.

I’m arguing against this statement. I don’t think it’s true.

“ You're looking in the wrong place. The magic comes from TSMC, not Apple.”

My point is a good process is necessary but not sufficient to make a part competitive with Apple on performance per watt. There’s a lot of “magic” to go around.

[xyzzy_plugh]

I think the argument is that Apple would have significantly less magic were it not for TSMC, which seems to be correct regardless of process or design (vertical integration).

[fomine3]

Yes. Now every computers tend to be power limited (or say heat limited).