[eth0ws]

"When compared to Intel-based systems, it delivers up to 86x faster AI performance"

I'm imagining the engineers responsible for running the tests finely tuning the test suite for days and days so they could get that number into the press release, lol. There's no way that's a coincidence and someone definitely advocated for that line being the way it is.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-unveils-new-14-...

[jdiff]

I'm quite upset I have nobody I know in real life who will appreciate this line.

[bigyabai]

We've come a long ways from insidious-but-clear "I'm a Mac" ads, to groanworthy-and-confusing "86x faster performance" promotional metrics.

[827a]

To be fair: They have the internal metrics on how many people are still on Intel-based Macs, and its very possible that this influences the types of comparisons they choose to make. There's still so many Intel macs out there.

[bigyabai]

The targeted snark isn't the issue. The issue is that even well-informed techies ignore Apple's metrics until they can read the fine-print. And the average Intel Mac owner probably doesn't even know what "x86" means. The target audience is almost nobody.

[jdiff]

I don't think it's meant to be a marketing point, just an in-joke. Like you said, the target audience is quite small.

[Aperocky]

What does AI performance even mean for intel based mac systems.. The last one was like 5 years ago?

[bapak]

Check all the comparisons on their website. They're not comparing their products to the previous gen, they're comparing them to years-old system.

They could sell you a downgrade and still stay 2x M1 Pro performance (it was 4x from last year)

Apple is a marketing company made to sell stuff.

[nielsbot]

> Apple is a marketing company made to sell stuff.

That's like... every company? Are you saying they don't have good tech?

[bigyabai]

> Are you saying they don't have good tech?

I will, yes. If macOS supported Vulkan, then those Intel Macs would have GPU acceleration too, and thus it would be a fair fight comparing it to MPS. Apple's tech stack is so miserly and poor that they never supported the common GPGPU libraries that literally every single OEM is and was shipping.

Apple's tech is appalling. Are you saying they exercise good judgement on behalf of their users?

[nielsbot]

I see this is them following their own differentiation and integration which I'd say is good for their users. (Personally I don't care about Vulkan support for example.)

So saying their tech is "appealing" is a matter of opinion and I'd argue something a small minority of their users care about. But I don't know.

[dimator]

Gp is saying their primary expertise is advertising. It's hard to watch any apple announcement and not notice how utterly hyperbolic they are at touting their own achievements.

Ya sure, you can say that every company must do that, but apple are exceptional at it. Once you start noticing the unlabeled performance charts, the missing baselines, the comparing with ages old models, the disingenuous "86x" metrics, the whole show becomes cringe worthy.

[bapak]

Marketing companies don't sell their own stuff, they sell others' stuff.

[_kidlike]

I've always disliked Apple because of its aggressive marketing..

[XelNika]

> production 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/#footnote-4

So yes, that is compared to a very old 14 nm design, presumably the i7-8557U per Wikipedia.

[zingar]

Your comment implies that it’s obviously not this spec that they compare against. Could you spell it out for the ignorant like me? What about that config makes it definitely not the thing that is 86x slower?

[jdiff]

I don't see anything in the GP that implies that. It's simply a CPU that was released before an entire AI economic bubble was a twinkle in Jensen Huang's eye. Of course it has piss-poor AI performance vs something with hardware dedicated to accelerating that workflow.

It's not that the comparison is incorrect, just that it's a silly and unenlightening statement, bordering on completely devoid of meaning if it weren't for the x86 pun.

[Aperocky]

They'll be the only people running this thing in 2030 so they can produce 286x and 386x and maybe 80286x performance gains by then.

[hyperadvanced]

God bless them if so