[peoplefromibiza]

> Intel's TDP is 2-4 times bigger under full load

Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today.

EDIT: the author forgot that the tested system is an M2 Ultra a desktop class system with a TDP of 90 watts

The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W

which is just 1.2x

[MBCook]

> The i9-13900T and i7-13700T come in at a max turbo power of just 106W

Now add in the GPU. Because the Apple number combined both.

[markemer]

Yep - the total TDP of the comparison is like 600W. The Pro is also for people with strange PCIe card needs - the Mac Studio delivers this performance in a tall MacMini form factor and nearly silent operation. Not that there aren't things to complain about, but Apple Silicon architecture is impressive for what it is. The GPU suffers more for its uncommon architecture that is similar to a phones but is harder to optimize for. Adobe, Logic, and the like will make that effort. I doubt game engines will. But that's why I also have a power hungry windows laptop.

[MBCook]

I think Epic could get Unreal to run just fine. Unfortunately they don’t have a great relationship with Apple (I can’t remember why but I think it was something Apple did).

The Mac Pro makes sense for only a few true professionals who need those PCI slots for non-GPU things. But those people are have BIG budgets to spend and are good customers.

Maybe the future Pros will improve, this one is a bit odd. But it has a purpose for those who truly need it.

[wtallis]

> even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today.

When has Intel's real, advertised, or specified CPU power consumption or TDP ever been 20x that of the i9-13900KS?

[peoplefromibiza]

Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E)

so an average of 6.25 watts per core

which is less than a Pentium 90, a 1994 CPU running at 90Mhz

in absolute is not a 20x worse TDP, but it is relatively to the gain in frequency and performances (more than 20x actually)

[wtallis]

> Core i9-13900KS consumes 150W with 24 cores (8P+16E)

No, the 13900KS has a nominal "TDP" of 150W. That's a marketing number, not a measurement and not even a control target parameter for the default boost management settings. Out of the box, a 13900KS in a typical desktop motherboard will happily draw more than twice that, indefinitely, if you can cool it and have a workload that can actually keep all of those cores busy: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/18728/13900KS%20Power%20Gr...

If you want to compare per-core power, you either have to use a power number for a workload that's actually loading all the cores, or divide the measured power by the number of cores actually in use.

[daneel_w]

> "Never been a problem, even when Intel TDP was 20x worse than today."

Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

[peoplefromibiza]

> Economically and environmentally it's absolutely a problem.

[citation needed]

Economically the Intel CPU of the 90s that had a very bad perf/watt compared to today's standards have been awesomely worth it

Environmentally, CPU have been getting better and better, the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim.

[daneel_w]

Citation needed? Do you live in some alternate reality?

> "... the difference of a few 10s of watts doesn't really make any difference, unless you have numbers to back up your very strong claim."

We have a billion power-hungry PCs running on the planet. Power-efficiency matters for economy and for environment, because power isn't free and only a tiny speck of the world runs on clean energy. It always mattered.

[peoplefromibiza]

> We have a billion power-hungry PCs running

Let's do some math.

According to [1] Human production of energy is even lower at an estimated 160,000 TW-hr for all of year 2019 (a COVID year)

Let's hypothesize the difference is on average 10watt/hour (rather large for the average device), the difference for a billion devices would be 10GW/hour.

Which is exactly 1/16,000,000th of the total.

Assuming every Apple computer consumes 100watts less than the equivalent non Apple, assuming there are 20 million new low power Apple computers (probably there are much less), assuming the CPU are 100% of the time in sustained mode (of course on average CPU do not run at 100% of the power all the time continuously, but let's assume they all do in this example) it would mean 2GW/hour saved, which corresponds to a 1/80,000,000th of the total.

It would allow, maybe, to shutdown an average power plant (the largest one produces 23GW/hour)

Unfortunately there are over 65,000 power plants in the World, 2,500 of which run on coal.

Unfortunately the energy saved could come from renewables, so the difference on emissions would be even less relevant than it already is.

Economically those 2GW even at the Denmark prices ($0.50/KW) would cost one million dollars (2GW = 2,000,000KW). AKA nothing.

As you can see the difference must be quite large to make a real measurable difference.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget

[locustous]

Most of those systems sit at idle, when they are on at all. Idle power is not the same as TDP. The idle difference is not so great that it's a big deal.

[MBCook]

Do you have a source showing idle numbers? I’ve never seen a comparison. The ones I’ve seen are always about max power.

[locustous]

It's not apples vs apples. Literally and figuratively. The I/O or board features on PC boards will eat power. So you will end up with a 15-30 W idle vs probably 5-8 for the Mac. I doubt the PCIe on the pro does much to the power unless there is an extra I/O die on system, you need active chips to eat power. That is vs Intel.

AMD will add a bunch more watts to the idle number as their multi CCX CPUs just eat more power at idle. You'll be closer to 30-45 W idle. This is a guess, it's widely acknowledged but not really quantified that I've found.

AMD monolithic dies are more in line with Intel. IE the laptop/mini PC line will be nice and low.

The difference is vastly diminished when you add the display that's using 80 Ws. So that's 85 vs 100 W total system power? 15% difference that gets bigger when you peg your processor.

Apple numbers are better in pretty much every way on power. But we're talking a handful of watts. Even at really high power rates it isn't going to add to up much.

Sources: I have a Mac mini and an Intel raptor lake desktop. I take measurements. And I have read various sources. This is my best information.

[daneel_w]

Whataboutism.

[tester756]

Yea, sure you can argue for the sake of arguing

but yea it makes difference if the difference is

0.001% 0.01% 0.1% 1% 10% 1000%