[timschmidt]

The same can literally be said about M1/M2 Macs. Graphics performance compared to anything discrete is terrible. My 3090Ti wipes the floor with an M2, despite being last generation's model. M2's CPU performance only looks good when divided by power consumption. Whole categories of Intel and AMD chips outperform it, just at higher power usage.

[solardev]

It's way better than other integrated GPUs though. And performance per watt matters a lot for heat and noise. I eventually gave up my gaming PC because it was so loud and hot, switching to Geforce Now instead.

[timschmidt]

I own an M1 and like it. But loading it up feels like loading up any other NUC style machine. I'm not sure on what axis it's better. Folks talk up the memory bandwidth, but in Apple's design, neither CPU, GPU, or NPU have access to full memory bandwidth. Not even close. Apple's caches are fast at 3 cycles, but AMD's are 10x larger. Apple's GPU claims further complicated given that they want everyone to use Metal as opposed to OpenGL, Vulkan, or DirectX on their platform. And compatibility and speed suffer as a result. Heat and noise are indeed important, from my perspective it simply seems that Apple's chosen a particular spot on the curve with an attractive outcropping thanks to early integration of on-package DRAM, but otherwise nothing special. Other manufacturers will ship on-package DRAM. AMD and NVIDIA have been shipping on-package HBM to the datacenter for an age.

If anything, it seems that Apple's much larger product - the iphone - had a lot more to do with M1/M2 design than high end desktop equipment. On package DRAM is common in cell phones to reduce board size. And M1 is a scaled up A series SoC. I think it's a great product for Apple. But as someone who's supported Mac, Linux, and Windows machines at a university for a decade, it doesn't feel appreciably different from Intel NUCs over that timespan. AMD's 7840U is setting a new standard for power and performance on the PC side right now. And the two will continue to leapfrog.

[solardev]

I have trouble finding objective flops/watts or similar tests, but subjectively, Apple Silicon is fast, quiet, and long-lasting in a way that no laptop has ever been for me. It's a dramatic upgrade in performance, noise, battery life, and heat vs all the previous laptops I've ever owned or used, including Intel MacBooks, ThinkPads, Surface Books, Chromebooks, small biz machines, gaming machines, and countless others.

"Sweet spot" is exactly right. It's not the best at anything but the best balanced that I've ever used, by a huge margin.

I don't think it's magic either and I hope that Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia etc. can deliver a similar package in a future laptop. For now though they seem hopelessly behind, at least among the products I've used.

Also, among those companies, Nvidia is the only one I'd trust to do a decent end user experience. Maybe Google to some degree, but they'd end up sunsetting the product after a generation or two.

Microsoft tried to do the same with the Surface line, but every single one I've used sucks. The tablets are way too heavy and clunky. The laptops overheated and couldn't even charge while playing games. Windows has a ton of ads.

Apple's integration of all the things really makes it a standout in today's commoditized and enshittified world, IMO. It's not just tech specs but how the product feels to use at the end of the day.

[timschmidt]

I used my M1 Mac Mini (16gb / 512gb) for a month, then switched back to my 5800X3D / 3090Ti system and even the desktop seemed to be twice as fast. Applications screamed. Code compiled 5x faster. Probably an unfair comparison. Not much difference in what I paid though.

My most recent laptop purchase was a $300 AMD Ryzen 3 to which I added 64gb of ECC DRAM for another $300ish. Zero complaints. It's faster than the M1 at every game the two can both play.

I run Linux on both. I'm not really tied to platform - if I can run Linux on it and it performs better, I'm game.

[solardev]

Sure, but performance isn't the primary (or at least only) consideration for many users. M1/M2 was never top at performance, just balancing it for perf/watt.