[eadz]

For me it's more the hardware. I don't think AMD or Intel can compete at all with M1 Pro.

The performance per watt is insane, and given the ML/AI thing has blown up recently, I'm happy to have the neural engine.

The Apple screen is likely still much better ( colors, variable refresh rate ), the trackpad and it's integration.

[idlehand]

It's an interesting world we live in where Apple is the choice for performance. For years and years everyone talked about how Macs were underpowered compared to their price tag.

[smoldesu]

Not really. Apple Silicon has good battery life, but it's performance is actually fairly pathetic compared to last-gen x86 chips. Like, compare the M1 to the Ryzen 7 4800u, a chip that was like 9 months old when Apple Silicon hit shelves. Both processors have competitive single-core and multi-core performance, and the GPUs are even pretty close in terms of performance profile. The real kicker? AMD's chip put up competitive performance on TSMC's 7nm node, whereas Apple was fighting with 5nm.

Honestly, if AMD had access to the same silicon Apple does, there probably wouldn't be any comparison. I'd argue their processes are half a generation ahead of Apple's designs.

[diroussel]

That’s just peak performance, and ignoring the energy efficiency.

[smoldesu]

So, compare the power efficency. M1 idles at ~6w + 2-5 watts for the display. The 4800u idles ~10w + 2-4 watts for the display. A simple node bump would close the efficiency gap between the two chips, at least on paper.

[dagmx]

Unless you’re comparing perf per watt as a curve, idle wattage is largely not representative of real world use. Similarly for peak performance if you’re excluding the wattage or throttling at those levels.

[smoldesu]

It's impossible to compare either of these CPUs because one is heterogeneous and the other is big.LITTLE. It's still fair to analyze their power consumption as a black-box machine though.