Apple MacBook Neo Beats Every Single x86 PC CPU For Single-Core Performance (notebookcheck.net) 329
Early benchmarks show the A18 Pro-powered MacBook Neo beating every current x86 CPU in single-core Cinebench performance, including chips from Intel and AMD. Notebookcheck reports: We have performed a couple of benchmarks and were particularly impressed by the single-core performance. Not in the short Geekbench test, but in Cinebench 2024, where a single-core test takes about 10 minutes. The A18 Pro consumes between 3.5-4 Watts in this scenario and scores 147 points. This means it is faster than every other x86 processor in our database, including the two desktop processors Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This also means the MacBook Neo beats every modern mobile processor from AMD, Intel and also Qualcomm, even though the upcoming Snapdragon X2 chips should be a bit faster. The A18 Pro is also slightly faster than Apple's own M3 generation in this scenario. Further reading: ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is 'Shock' to PC Industry
X86 CPUs (Score:2)
"including chips from Intel and AMD. Notebookcheck reports:"
Who else would they be from? Terrible reporting.
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:4, Informative)
If they're being thorough, Snapdragon, Mediatek and Ampere (server) SoCs are also being sold in traditional PC forms.
I might be interested if this thing could run Linux and had Thinkpad-grade input devices, but as it is, it's just a web terminal that's locked to Apple's ecosystem instead of Google's. That's just not very compelling.
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Asahi has been stalled for a long time, now.
It still doesn't run on an M3. I do hope it moves forward- I'd love to upgrade my M1 MBA.
Re: X86 CPUs (Score:3)
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:4, Insightful)
Asahi kept up with Apple Silicon releases until the M2. When the M3 was released, they stopped progressing.
There's no magic to reverse engineering (especially when you have access to an OS that isn't trying to hide what it's doing from you- i.e., it's easy to use macOS to see what it's doing).
I do very much get the impression that you've been doing this longer than I have, but I'm at 20 years in a linux-only shop with hundreds of servers across a half dozen or so datacenters.
I've seen the transitions from X to Wayland, and SysV init to systemd.
They're not bad.
In fact, systemd, on the whole, has been a boon. Wayland, I've been pretty agnostic about, but it can't be denied that X's model is insecure as shit, and fixing it simply isn't going to happen, and in the meantime, we have features in Wayland now that- simply put- will never come to X (like HDR)
Re: (Score:3)
> we have features in Wayland now that- simply put- will never come to X (like HDR)
12-bit HDR (it already has 10 bit) would be trivial to put into X, there's nothing about the architecture that precludes it.
The issue is the Wayland devs made a display system with no compelling advantages over X11 and quite a few disadvantages, and so are refusing to work on X11 and add features like the above.
Security would be slightly more complex, but it's been possible to force applications to have unique identifiers
Re: (Score:3)
12-bit HDR (it already has 10 bit) would be trivial to put into X, there's nothing about the architecture that precludes it.
Wrong.
10bpc is not HDR. 12bpc is not HDR. HDR is the transfer function used to turn the color space into pixels. X needs to be improved to understand different color spaces, and how to apply the appropriate transfer functions for the GL buffers. It does not. Nobody is volunteering to fix that. So no HDR in X. Period.
The issue is the Wayland devs made a display system with no compelling advantages over X11 and quite a few disadvantages, and so are refusing to work on X11 and add features like the above.
Incorrect.
How can you hope to have an informed opinion if you don't even understand the basics of the discussion?
Security would be slightly more complex, but it's been possible to force applications to have unique identifiers (which was the sticking point) since cgroups was added in the 2000s that they can then send to an X server, it's just the Wayland devs convinced themselves it was impossible based on pre-2000s Unix. They're not very bright.
It's not the complexity, it's that nobody is stepping up to fucking do it.
I c
Re: (Score:3)
Linux on a chromebook is a terrible experience.
Re: (Score:2)
Linux on a chromebook is a terrible experience.
The early Chromebooks didn't do Linux too badly, but that changed.
Re: (Score:2)
Odd, Linux of the not-Plasma versions runs just fine on a 2014 Mac mini which also has 8 GB of RAM.
Chromebooks must be thoroughly messed up.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple never really locked down its Macs and there where always enough of them that people where prepared to put the effort into reverse engineering the hardware. Chromebooks.... weird things. Locked down in strange ways that I dont think anyone could be bothered to figure out.
I'm not sure what the stall has been with the Arm macs. I guess a lot of people are enjoying the Apple flavor of unix?
Re: (Score:3)
Apple never really locked down its Macs
Depends on what you mean by locked down. Since Intel days, Apple incorporated a security chip into their Macs. With the M series, the chip is built-in as opposed to a separate chip. I think that if you turned on full security, the Mac would be locked down. It would make third repairs difficult.
Re: (Score:3)
Chromebooks that have removable cases can be easily "jailbroken" with a jumper, a soldering iron, or a crumpled-up piece of aluminum foil jammed into the jumper socket.
Re: (Score:3)
https://developer.apple.com/do... [apple.com]
"Apple platforms diverge from the standard 64-bit ARM architecture in a few specific ways. Apart from these small differences, iOS, tvOS, and macOS adhere to the rest of the 64-bit ARM specification. For information about the ARM64 specification, including the Procedure Call Standard for the ARM 64-bit Architecture (AArch64), go to https://developer.arm.com./ [developer.arm.com]"
https://www.techradar.com/comp... [techradar.com]
Fun fact: you don't have to ask Apple to run Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, you have
Re: (Score:3)
Apple is an ARM founder and primary shareholder. Why would they have to pay big bucks?
Apple helped cofound ARM, but it is not a subsidiary of Apple. It is a public company that whose majority owner is SoftBank group. As a shareholder, owning a percentage of a company's stock does not necessarily automatically grant a license to the IP from that company. If I own Microsoft stock, does that mean I do not need to buy Office/Windows software?
Even if they did, they would get much of it back.
How? ARM does not share finances with Apple. Apple sees no money from ARM directly other than benefits as a stockholder. From what I can tell, Apple does g
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not sure it is fair to describe this as no better than a Chromebook. This machine is running macOS. You can put Homebrew on it, and install many applications that way (including many open source applications). I use Geany, Octave, Maxima, R, and a whole other host of applications on my Mac, which I use mostly at work. Most of the applications I use on my Debian desktop are available on Homebrew. If you're concerned about Homebrew for security reasons, you can usually install packages directly from the application website.
I totally understand people saying they don't want to run macOS because of various reasons, but the "walled garden" description of macOS is not fair in my opinion (it is completely fair for iPhones and iPads). I'm able to install the software I want on my Mac at work. While the security settings of macOS make you jump through some additional hoops, I don't think it's an overwhelming burden.
I have heard this machine described as being on par with an M1 Macbook Air. My wife uses that machine on a daily basis, and it works well. My daughter is using an M1 Pro machine, and does not want to upgrade for college because she feels it is unnecessary.
I think we need to do a better job of going after Mac for the real issues it has: cost of upgrades, lack of repairability, and inability to install Linux on the machine.
Re: (Score:2)
but the "walled garden" description of macOS is not fair in my opinion (it is completely fair for iPhones and iPads)
It is very much a walled garden. Apple is in control of every app you are able to install. You can bypass this, but on modern MacOS this process involves:
1. Rebooting into recovery mode.
2. Running a command to completely disable System Integrity Protection - an action that has serious consequences for security in MacOS doing things such as affecting user access permissions to files.
3. Rebooting.
At this point people may be tempted to stop, but it's highly recommend that after you install any software that ha
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:5, Informative)
None of your three steps are required to run un-signed apps on macOS. I am happily running many unsigned apps with SIP still on. All that is necessary is to approve the app in the security pane of the System Preferences. Not even a reboot needed.
The real steps:
1) try to run unsigned app.. get an error
2) launch system settings, go to security page. Approve the recently denied app (will probably need your login password)
3) launch the app again.
This is well documented.
https://support.apple.com/en-c... [apple.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Can you turn off all the protections and have it be like a regular old fashioned unix box?
Re: X86 CPUs (Score:3)
Im not sure what you were going on about as on Mac I just see a popup that something brand new is trying to run, then I go to system privacy and there is a simple button that says launch anyway and I click yes and enter my password to bless the binary.
Quit pushing lies.
Re: (Score:3)
It is very much a walled garden. Apple is in control of every app you are able to install. You can bypass this, but on modern MacOS this process involves:
So you're saying I can't install Homebrew ( /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.... [githubusercontent.com])" ), and then install nmap ( brew install nmap ) without going through those steps you listed?
And, I can't download a binary from whever and run it, without going through the steps you listed?
Because I've done both, today. You're wrong. SIP protects system files, kexts, and a few other thing. Having SIP enabled does not prevent you from downloading, compiling, or running unsigned software. You may be thi
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah install all that on a chromebook with a 16 or 32gb eMMC disk. Been there done that and sleep didn't work and sound only worked after seeing one single reddit post on how to modify the kernel. Sound did work afterward but setting the volume beyond 10% was painfully loud and distorted. That and to even flash the firmware required me to disassemble the chromebook, remove the battery, power it up, run the flash program, and then put it all back together. All that to find out you can't use half the hardware
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:4, Informative)
I might be interested if this thing could run Linux and had Thinkpad-grade input devices, but as it is, it's just a web terminal that's locked to Apple's ecosystem instead of Google's. That's just not very compelling.
You can run VMs, Wine, compile your own software, etc. The only limiting factor is the 8gb of ram and, as I have said repeatedly, 8gb for most users is not that big a deal.
"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
Re: (Score:2)
"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
In hindsight that quote has not aged well, but I would argue at the time that wireless was a terrible requirement given the state of WiFi in 2001.
Re: (Score:2)
iOS - yes, and I can't really think of a good use of an iPad for me. But the Mac is an open machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Those are all Arm systems, not x86.
There are Qualcomm Windows laptops [lenovo.com] being sold right now. They run a variant of Windows11 on ARM. From what I know the performance has been acceptable with x86 emulation usable for many but not all use cases.
A MacBook Neo can run Xcode (Score:2)
A MacBook Neo can run Xcode, as Sam Henri Gold reminds us in "This Is Not the Computer for You" [samhenri.gold]. What can a Chromebook run that's remotely similar?
Re: (Score:2)
MacOS is a third-rate *nix that can run MS Office, but so is ChromeOS. Should I be excited that I suddenly have the option to run Photoshop on a $600 device with as much RAM as the phone I had in 2018, but still can't control the size of system fonts on the desktop? Or is it just a more expensive way to run a browser and an SSH to something I'd rather be using?
I'll give you a hint: It's the second one.
is it really fair to down mod this because it's critical of macs?
Re: (Score:2)
and ill take this opportunity to go completely off topic to say the modding system is completely unfair. just my opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ChromeOS doesn't run MS Office. It runs the crippled web version of MS Office called "Microsoft 365" in its web browser.
Re: (Score:3)
No. You should downmod it because it's idiotic and wrong.
- There are numerous chromebooks in the $400-700 price range, still with less capabilities or features.
- This more powerful than the Macbook Air M1s from 5 years ago and more capable than the base M3 Macbook Airs from 2 years ago.
- As a "*nix", is the the only one with a properly consistent windowing environment. Objectively, it has a superior filesystem (albeit slower for metadata by a lot) to any Linux distribution. Architecturally, it's far better
Re: (Score:3)
MacOS is a third-rate *nix that can run MS Office, but so is ChromeOS. Should I be excited that I suddenly have the option to run Photoshop on a $600 device with as much RAM as the phone I had in 2018, but still can't control the size of system fonts on the desktop? Or is it just a more expensive way to run a browser and an SSH to something I'd rather be using?
I'll give you a hint: It's the second one.
is it really fair to down mod this because it's critical of macs?
By itself, no, but the claim that macOS is a "third rate *nix" is what probably earned it the downmod. Given that it's one of the only surviving Unixes left (since Linux is not Unix), and it's unclear from his post whether there is anything about either XNU or FreeBSD userland that makes it "third rate"
Re:X86 CPUs (Score:5, Interesting)
Should I be excited that I suddenly have the option to run Photoshop on a $600 device with as much RAM as the phone I had in 2018
Whether you are excited is your preference. The fact of the matter is if $600 might get Windows laptop that has the same RAM. With Windows laptops, there might be sales for cheaper or better specs, but the world today is that RAM and storage is expensive.
but still can't control the size of system fonts on the desktop?
That's an oddly specific requirement but I am not sure why you think you cannot do that on a Mac. A simple search [apple.com] shows you how to do that.
Or is it just a more expensive way to run a browser and an SSH to something I'd rather be using? I'll give you a hint: It's the second one.
What you do with your own hardware is up to you. I think the rest of the world can and will do more with a Neo. Multiple online reviews showing people using a Neo to do 4K video and photo editing. Their conclusion: Yes it is fine to do those things. It would be faster to do them on the Air or Pro. So if you make a living doing those things, get a faster laptop whether it be Windows or Mac. For the average person, a Neo is more than enough.
Re: (Score:3)
Zhaoxin (Chinese market)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Zhaoxin continues VIA's cpu business.
DM&P (known for Vortex86 cpus) continues SiS' cpu business (SiS55x cpus). SiS previously bought Rise (known for its mP6 cpu).
Re: (Score:2)
Who else would they be from? Terrible reporting.
Did you read the whole summary: ". . . and also Qualcomm, even though the upcoming Snapdragon X2 chips should be a bit faster."
This will be amazing! (Score:2)
Re:This will be amazing! (Score:5, Interesting)
For the legions of people who run Cinebench on a single core only.
... and on a laptop.
Slashdot never fails to disappoint with the headlines:
slashdot: Apple MacBook Neo Beats Ever Single x86 PC CPU For Single Core Performance
actual article title: MacBook Neo offers more single-core performance than any mobile processor from AMD, Intel or Qualcomm
Guess which one is accurate. Slashdot didn't simple drop the "mobile" out of the sentence; they added "x86 PC CPU", painting it as a comparison to all desktop CPU's. In their defense, that got me to view the comments, lol.
Re: (Score:3)
For the legions of people who run Cinebench on a single core only.
For the average consumer, single core describes most of their workloads. It would been helpful to show multicore but anyone interested in that is not the target market.
Re: (Score:2)
I always found it weird how most CPU benchmarks target video editing. Doesn't video editing software use the GPU anyway?
Ever so subtle? (Score:4, Funny)
Apple MacBook Neo Beats Ever Single x86 PC CPU For Single-Core Performance
Is this how we signal "Not written by AI"? Or just "I slept through high school English class." ;-)
Re: Ever so subtle? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably ... YES. Not intentionally, but I've seen quite a few posts over the last months where I said "surely this isn't AI" (and by AI I mean what mostly everyone mean by "AI" nowadays, these LLM autocomplete). We got to the point where the AI stuff is coherently crafted from beginning to end while the "human" posts are what the average human (that's a really low bar) would do, possibly drunk or on drugs.
Speculative execution attacks (Score:3)
Do they beat Intel in this respect, too?
Re: (Score:2)
How good are mitigations to speculative execution attacks (Spectre, Meltdown) on the new Apple processors? Do they beat Intel in this respect, too?
I'm speculating here, but the bad news is they might be vulnerable.
The good news is, at 8GB RAM you're gonna notice after the third browser tab chokes on a pop-up.
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is, at 8GB RAM you're gonna notice after the third browser tab chokes on a pop-up.
I guess it is bad news that most people won’t notice that on a Neo? People who have tested it say multiple tabs on a browser even Chrome is not the "sky is falling" issue detractors describe. They have been able to edit 4K video with multiple tabs open. Yes 8GB is a limitation overall but the target market is not going to notice.
If memory with dozens of tabs becomes a problem, the easy solution has been to close some tabs. I had a boss with an older Mac and over 50 tabs open. He did not notice issues
Re: (Score:3)
How good are mitigations to speculative execution attacks (Spectre, Meltdown) on the new Apple processors?
Do they beat Intel in this respect, too?
Who cares? You're not sharing this laptop in a VM with others. The entire Speculative Execution attacks are completely meaningless to anyone other than datacentre operators concerned that a user may use it to escape the confines of their VM.
The only successful speculative execution attacks have been shown in a lab controlled environment, one that requires up front knowledge of a system that only software with admin privileges is privy too. Otherwise speculative execution attacks would be limited to thrashin
performance (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I often end up with browser tabs taking a gig, sometimes two. MacOS needs its share, so add in some heavy browser tabs and 8 gb might be tight, at least for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on what the "average user" does. If we admit that it's primarily a consumption device then sure. I'll admit that the average user only really uses a PC to consume media, or generate a word document. But the reality is even basic activities in content creation chug with such a limited amount of RAM these days. That includes something like running Adobe Lightroom on a Mac.
Re: (Score:3)
But the reality is even basic activities in content creation chug with such a limited amount of RAM these days. That includes something like running Adobe Lightroom on a Mac.
Multiple reviewers have shown that they can edit 4K editor on a separate monitor at the same time as having a browser open with multiple tabs. One review also was scrubbing photos in Lightroom with those two other tasks. I think basic content creation will be fine on a Neo.
Re: (Score:2)
Having only 8 GB of RAM means you can't have a bunch of big Electron-based clients for chat platforms, such as Slack and Discord, running at once. You have to pick one and make yourself uncontactable through others.
Relevance? (Score:2)
So? How much single threaded rendering does anyone actually do?
I understand why in some cases single threaded performance is important, but not for the vast majority of use cases.
I don't like Apple products (Score:3)
"Unified memory" (Score:2)
Slot for a RAM disk (Score:2)
It'd still be nice if some MacBook had an SODIMM or CAMM slot to act as a RAM disk for a swap file, so that swap doesn't have to sit on the SSD's SLC intake buffer and wear it out.
Re:Misleading Apple hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
Large numbers of people buy Macs to run photoshop. So Apple selling a machine that is fast at Photoshop is somehow bad?
Re: (Score:2)
The article is about GENERAL performance, but then the contents are only about Photoshop performance. Supporting misleading claims is as bad as people who support the telling of outright lies by politicians.
Re: Seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you point on the doll where Steve Jobs hurt you?
Re: (Score:2)
It's just drinkypoo being drinkypoo.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They ragebaited us with this bullshit as usual.
why are you upset about an article? can you not regulate your emotions?
speak for yourself, child.
HAHAHHAH posting that as AC is rich! And what upset you so about someone venting that you had to get involved? FYI, it reads like you're responding to yourself, child (as if anyone with a login here is still a child, lol).
Also, to clarify, drinkypoo didn't refer to the article as the source of ragebait; they said, "... same thing Slashdot did here with this story. They ragebaited us ..."
It irritates me as well that Slashdot manipulated the title and post the way they did. The article didn't say, "beats ever
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah but to be clear most of those single thread workloads are not remotely accelerated in the way Cinebench is. That's the problem with benchmarks. They demonstrate what the answer is to a very unique problem.
If you have a benchmark that can compare many different laptops, go ahead and use it. Cinebench is one benchmark; there are others like Geekbench.
The problem here is a use case mismatch. Cinebench is a very useful benchmark for e.g. workstations. Workloads benefits greatly from the equivalent of advanced CPU instructions such as AVX2 (and it's more powerful successors). It's precisely the kind of workload zero people would buy the cheapest MacBook for.
I am not sure why you think Macbooks have an advantage in AVX2 workloads when Apple Silicon does not support AVX2 or AVX512. Your statement is nonsensical. That's like saying Radeon wins benchmarks that heavily favor DLSS (exclusive to NVidia).
The answer between extremes is always in the middle. Yeah the A18 is a great processor. Yes it will perform fantastically for the people who purchase this. This should not be in question. But the benchmark applied here is unrealistic for any purpose you would buy this laptop for.
If you have a better benchmark, post it. So far your reasoning for why people should not accept it is flawed at best or di
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And what makes this a bad thing? The fact that Apple has control over iOS and macOS makes this laptop a great laptop for the intended market. Because Intel and AMD can't do this (your words) just makes Windows (because that's what we're talking about, right?) an average OS for average hardware. Let's face it: Microsoft has to support a shitload of processors and chipsets and whatnot used in a shitload of computers from a shitload of manufacturers. That alone makes Windows not perform optimally and the same goes for the hardware. It's a choice Microsoft has made and it's a different one than Apple has made. It doesn't mean it's Apple hype.
Yeah - his was a strange post. I consider it an anti-flex. Apple's choices result in products I want. If as he seems to claim, Apples M-chips are specifically designed to run Photoshop, then that's a good thing.
But they run everything very nicely. And You might be generous calling Windows an average OS. By the time my last digital communication classes were finished, and we paused it to recover - pervious classes had everyone running after 2 sessions on Windows 10 (W7 before that) We spent the entire time
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My students want the next session to explore Linux, because they understood that W11 is not a stable OS, and the majority express hatred for it now.
im sure that has nothing to do with your apparent complete unfamiliarity with windows and complete bias against it. why would you teach anything about windows when you dont even use it and apparently hate it. good luck sending those kids to the real world when their employer plops an AD connected dell in front of them because the company actually needs to manage systems and get shit done. rude awakenings all around.
If someone is intelligent enough to explore Linux AND realize the fact that they're also operating in a Windows environment, then I'm going to assume that person is in fact intelligent and capable enough to operate the OG Windows with a UI designed for fucking toddlers.
Stop pretending the average user is going to do FUCK-ALL with AD other than log into it.
Re: (Score:2)
Saying that a CHIP is faster, not as a special purpose chip, but for general use would make "in Photoshop" a misleading indicator of CPU performance. General purpose chips vs. special purpose chips. ARM vs. x86 is a valid comparison, but when you start looking at custom chips and then only being focused on performance in specific applications that take advantage of those custom chips, that eliminates the true, "which is the better overall processor, which has the best single threaded performance or mult
Re: (Score:3)
When Apple first started making their own chips, one of the big features were accelerators for various tasks. This makes the Apple chips less of a general purpose processor and more of a product with specific market focuses. The fact that Apple has control over iOS and MacOS also allows Apple to really push their accelerators and support for them in a way that Intel and AMD could not.
When you see the performance of Photoshop on one of these new Macbooks, you see the results of having an ecosystem somewhat dedicated to making it perform better.
Seriously - what is that supposed to mean? I have an M4 mini, and it flies on the Adobe Suite. I have not found one program that it doesn't run faster than my Windows laptop that cost around 2.5 times as much.
Are those grapes not sour? I like my computers to run things quickly. I do not give a rats ass about benchmarks. If my mini runs the Adobe suite and my other programs not only well, but faster - well, that's my benchmark.
Re:Misleading Apple hype (Score:5, Informative)
There are no magic "Apple accelerators" at play here.
Vector instructions are being used, but equivalents are used on Intel/AMD (AVX2) as well.
Apple Silicon has maintained a sizeable lead over all of x86 in general computing since the M1.
It accomplishes this by doing something Intel and AMD aren't very interested in- burning silicon.
Reorder buffers are larger, memory bus is wider, page size is larger.
Re: (Score:2)
If a program wants to take advantage of newer CPU features it either becomes incompatible with any earlier CPU, or requires multiple code paths to handle different processors. Or you can use a Linux distribution like Gentoo and compile everything with the matching -mcpu flag.
Most publishers or binary software don't want to maintain multiple code paths, don't want to cut off potential customers with older hardware (even if the performance sill suck). At most they might do multiple code paths for specific per
Re: (Score:3)
"without special Apple accelerators"
This is just flat out not true.
But... even if it were the main reason, why would fault Apple for making something that makes it's user's lives better? Your whole argument sounds like "Well, Tommy can only win the race because he runs every day and works out and I don't. If he didn't work out he wouldn't beat me." Your argument is just childish.
Re: (Score:2)
So, you're arguing that it's bad that a computer does a good job of doing the things you want it to do?
Re: (Score:2)
"When Apple first started making their own chips, one of the big features were accelerators for various tasks."
This is true of every processor sold into desktop and laptop products. Heck, most of the die area on a consumer grade processor is giver over to GPUs and a lot of the rest is giver over to other display tasks, like video decoding and DisplayPort/HDMI. (FYI, when playing a video from disk you can power gate *all* the CPU cores. One wakes up every ms or so just to see if there's been any user input.)
Re: (Score:2)
When Apple first started making their own chips, one of the big features were accelerators for various tasks. This makes the Apple chips less of a general purpose processor and more of a product with specific market focuses. The fact that Apple has control over iOS and MacOS also allows Apple to really push their accelerators and support for them in a way that Intel and AMD could not.
Can you list these accelerators? From what I know Apple incorporated hardware encoding/decoding in the computer of things like h.264, h.265, and now AV1. Apple also incorporated hardware support of their format ProRes. Guess who else put in h.264, h.265, and AV1? Everyone: AMD, Intel, Nvidia, even Qualcomm.
Re: (Score:3)
No reason to worry! Back in the 90s, it looked like x86 would be eclipsed by myriad RISC challengers - MIPS and Alpha for Windows (NT), PowerPC for Mac OS and OS/2, Sparc and PA/RISC for Unix and so on. But at least on the Windows front, not running x86 natively turned out to be a major issue, which ended up killing MIPS and Alpha, when it came to running Windows applications.
I do agree that Arm will completely oust x86 in the Chromebook space, where most of the apps are really Android apps. As far as
Re: (Score:2)
In the 90s those RISC processors had a huge performance advantage, but they came at a serious price premium and were typically only available from a single vendor. ARM is widely available, affordable, and covers the whole price/performance range.
A lot of software these days is delivered as webapps which are platform agnostic.
Mobile didn't really exist in the 90s but is huge now, mobile is already dominated by ARM.
Emulation / dynamic recompilation has improved a lot if you need to run legacy binaries.
A lot o
Re:As a repair tech... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm no fan of Apple, but that's what's different about the Neo. I saw a video of a teardown of a Neo, and there is no glue attaching anything. The motherboard is really small: the bulk of the real estate is taken over by the battery. Only thing about this is that the RAM is not upgradable, but I don't think many Apple laptops are, unless one is prepared to de-solder the existing DIMMs and solder in new DIMMs
I do hope there is at some point an Arm equivalent of the Hackintosh movement, so that one can take a Framework system w/ an Arm CPU (should they make one), install macOS on it and configure it however they like
Re: (Score:2)
They are not DIMMs, it's the actual RAM chips.
You can look for dosdude1 videos on YouTube if you want to see how it's done. It takes better fine motor skills than I have.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that, they don't recycle, all is thrown away, it is more expensive to recycle or repair than to build a new one. and why is so expensive to recycle/repair? because it was design to be so, glued parts, components that only work in THAT device, all solder-in components in just one board. Framework proves that you can build a modular laptop, easy to repair and where you can reuse older parts without any problem, but elites like apple because of it's status and do not care about the rest
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
still the same problem, everything is fine while it works... when something fails, it is e-waste... with a few minor changed, it CAN be repaired or reused.
We dig mountains, we pollute rivers and the air, we poison people and animals to produce all those components and while many can be reused many times, we are throwing much of then in landfills
Re: (Score:2)
Re: As a repair tech... (Score:2)
Logo is from a dude named dell and not a fruit. Win by default for them.
Re: (Score:2)
and why is so expensive to recycle/repair? because it was design to be so, glued parts, components that only work in THAT device, all solder-in components in just one board.
Can we assume you're in love with this new MacBook Neo then? There are no glued down parts (aside from some tacky tape on one ribbon cable that easily peels up), and everything is screwed down with standard torx screws. If you haven't, you should check out a tear down video. It's pretty impressive, to be honest.
If their next full sized MacBook is like this, it might be enough to tempt me into getting one. Doubly so if they leave room for an optional component or two (seeing the speakers get removed made me
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look, working as designed, I can't fix my own thing, but I shouldn't have to care as long as I give Apple money to pay for any work.
it is a shame (Score:2)
that is your consumerist mind, you win, everybody loses, but you still don't care!
yes, you get a new device, great for you... your previous device is now e-waste, can't be repaired, can't be reused, it is just trash. Cost a lot (money and environment) to refine all the ingredients, even more to build each components, all throw away to trash, with little or any component recycled because they are too expensive break apart and recycle. Human labor and environment cost are huge, but they are far away, you don
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot has had a long running hatred of Microsoft products in general. I'd imagine that anything that helps loosen their grip on the sub $1,000 laptop OS monopoly would be cheered around here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Retool please make it a static image if we have to endure it on every page, it is wasting MYelectricity. Oh wait they are pushing AI so that's par for the course.
Re: Too bad its crippled (Score:2)
Apparently you do not have much experience with macOS. I have my gripes about it, but I have yet to find the perfect desktop operating system. I still have gripes about the Linux ecosystem, too, they are just different.
The only OS that really fits your description is Windows. What a piece of garbage.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying Apple didn't contact to you learn what your needs are when they designed the Neo? You're right, I can see how that means they've made a terrible mistake.
Apple used x86 in 2005-2020 (Score:2)
In 2005, Mac computers used Intel Core Duo x86 processors. From 2006 through 2020, Mac computers used Intel x86-64 processors. starting with Core 2 Duo. macOS on x86-64 could still run x86 applications until macOS 10.15 "Catalina Wine Killer", released in June 2019.
What CPU architecture were you using on the desktop from 2008 through 2020, if not x86 or x86-64?