alt Hacker NewsThe improved efficiency is great!
The Apple Neo was still 2x faster for graphics and around 1.4x faster for single core cpu. And remember the Apple Neo is running an iPhone CPU that is much slower than the M series.
It is strange that this chip is so crazy efficient though. I would love to know the details of exactly why it is? It seems like some new tech or process?
I do want 1.5x battery life for free out of my next laptop. Who wouldn’t?
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Yes, it seems to be a new process, 18A. (18 Ångström, allegedly). Manufactured in North America. If the shiny video they did didn't fool me, it's a two sided wafer process, power grid on one side, then the silicon wafer (with through-silicon vias), then transistors, then signal layers.
The processor is this one: Intel Core 5 processor 320 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/246018/... in the Wildcat Lake series.
>It is strange that this chip is so crazy efficient though.
Its only strange if you believe Apples lies.
The truth is, architecture doesn't matter. Single core performance, Apple was always on par with the best chips. Compute is compute, under the hood moving data costs energy, an you can't get away from that.
The reason for "efficiency" of Apple silicon it is because they spent a long time basically optimizing their chips for their specific hardware while running specific programs. Its like building an ASIC to specifically watch youtube vides. When it came to things that are not pipelinable (i.e a lot of branching), the efficieny/battery life statistics flew out the window.
They have control over the OS and the design of the chip, Intel does not…
> And remember the Apple Neo is running an iPhone CPU that is much slower than the M series.
We really need to get over generalization like "phone CPU". Times have changed. Phone or not really isn't the focus.
Per core the A series (cough phone) isn't that much slower than equivalent M series. It's literally the same family just with some extra features, more power, etc.
Apple has been working ruthlessly on battery efficiency for a long time because of the phones and their tendency to minimize battery sizes on Macs for thinness.
The exact design of the cores, how they’re scheduled, the way background stuff is handled on MacOS. All of it. The chips are made on a fantastic process too, but that alone isn’t it. For example they’ve been putting the ability to drop refresh rate really low when nothing changes to more and more of their machines.
It could be that the Intel chip is close, IDK.
But add in other motherboard components, the screen, the OS, the software and system libraries, all are optimized together to hit those numbers. And any of those alone or in combination could be part of the differences.