So what are the power numbers for this chip? Sure anything can beat M series chips if it uses more power. Hell, Apple can make a kickass SoC if they didn't care about how much power and heat it created. If they can match or even beat Apple unplugged from the wall and keep the same battery life as any MacBook product then it's impressive. If it uses a shit ton of power, spins the fans on max all the time and has shit battery life then it's not really all that impressive at all.
Bragging rights in spec wars like this are truly meaningless.
The AMD chips will live in machines running an operating system that has necessarily been designed to run on a panoply of processors with endless variations of attached memory and hardware configurations. The M2 exists within in a finite variety of hardware configurations and will be running an OS that specifically caters to those limited variables and the M2's design.
As a result, the AMD chip, no matter how fast it is, must waste a not-insignificant portion of that speed and power on bloatware and off-the-shelf standardization, while the M2 benefits from the bespoke customization possible when hardware and operating systems are designed together.
Speed is/was never an issue with Apple devices so who cares?
Speed IS an issue if you need NVidia GPU levels of power, which the highest end Apple Silicon processors don't have. So yes, speed is an issue for those who need the top end of the scale, and there are quite a number of people who do care, even if you don't.
Edit: and for clarification's sake, I'm not referring to 'power per watt' like Apple's graphs highlight, I'm talking max power regardless of watt, of which Apple falls short.
Is anyone really deciding their OS based on the chips, though? If you love Mac OS why on Earth would you settle for Windows just because the chips were closer performing? I'm sure it makes sense to the chipmakers but it's a non-starter for most actual end users.
Everyone knows that an x86 chip can outperform and m1 or m2 series chip if it’s clocked high enough snd is fed enough electricity to run hard. And hot.
It’s also a given that high end video cards can outperform Apples integrated GPUs - sometimes by a massive amount.
So it’s also a given that combining these items into. An SOC, much like Apple is doing, this sort of having an integrated GPU based on a high end AMD or Nvidia GPU, clocked high enough and fed enough juice, that it would beat Apple M series in performance.
But does it actually win out while doing that in battery life and thermals also? Doubtful. But we will know for certain soon enough.
What is also on the table are desktop specific versions of Apple Silicon. Chips that aren’t constrained by restrictive thermal envelopes and energy requirements.
When you take a desktop part and face off against a mobile part, it’s a given that the desktop part should perform higher, since it has much less restriction placed on it. That’s why m series is so impressive since it heats msny desktop parts.
But when apple takes the shackles off - say for a Mac Pro, iMac Pro, etc. with a D or X series, that would be a whole new ball game.
So yes AMD MIGHT POSSIBLY have something to rival a long in the tooth Apple SOC, but it will only be in a key area. Not as a total package. Intel has already done this, minus integrating the top of the line GPUs they benchmarked with. So AMD may look a little better than Intel in mobile SERVICE Cs, simply by not failing as badly as Intel in the efficiency and thermal arenas, while getting close to the performance numbers.
good thing somone pushed lazy intel to get off their A and start builing decent processors again i hope AMD can give them a good fight controlling 90% of the market was never a good thing, Intel got sloppy and are now paying the price
Is anyone really deciding their OS based on the chips, though? If you love Mac OS why on Earth would you settle for Windows just because the chips were closer performing? I'm sure it makes sense to the chipmakers but it's a non-starter for most actual end users.
It does make a difference even if people don't realize it.
For example, I know people that switched to Windows during the later PowerPC Mac days because Macs were no longer within a reasonable lag that it was hurting production. Even if macOS (nee Mac OS and Mac OS X) can save you money by being more efficient and even if you've already purchased cross platform apps or even if you have to learn a different one there is a point at which it simply makes sense to not stick with a system whose HW performance isn't good enough.
Competition is good and it will keep Apple on its toes. I would have been more worried if this was a ARM based chip because that is really the future of PCs. That AMD is still focusing on X86 chips shows they do not understand that. I wonder what the cost difference will be. Apple can put M2 chips into relatively cheap units. Will this new AMD chip be that cost effective?
I'm alway blown away at the performance of my M1 powered MBP especially on battery. M2 is nearly at the end of its life cycle so how much more faster will the M3 be?
Does Windows run on ARM these days? I’m asking because I don’t follow the Windows side of the universe. But if not, or not fully or not well, then there’s the answer.
Is anyone really deciding their OS based on the chips, though? If you love Mac OS why on Earth would you settle for Windows just because the chips were closer performing? I'm sure it makes sense to the chipmakers but it's a non-starter for most actual end users.
It does make a difference even if people don't realize it.
For example, I know people that switched to Windows during the later PowerPC Mac days because Macs were no longer within a reasonable lag that it was hurting production. Even if macOS (nee Mac OS and Mac OS X) can save you money by being more efficient and even if you've already purchased cross platform apps or even if you have to learn a different one there is a point at which it simply makes sense to not stick with a system whose HW performance isn't good enough.
This is true. I’m actually considering moving back to Windows after more than a decade Mac. The reason is that I’m now doing a lot of AI related research for the company and many, if not all, requires CUDA (Nvidia) without the option to re-compile to leverage Metal.
Many people aren’t aware, but Nvidia is really a front-runner in that field and they’ve created strong ties between their R&D + software products to their hardware. I can no longer get around that.
It's good to see AMD trying to be competitive. When they compare themselves to Apple Silicon they've effectively acknowledging that Apple Silicon is the leader in this space. As others have mentioned, Apple Silicon does scale well. Where is the comparison to the M2 Pro or M2 Max for example? Further, the Cinebench benchmark is very much cherry picking as it's the one example of a commercial application that is actually able to make heavy use of Intel's Hyperthreading (SMT). Also, the M2 is a SoC, not just a CPU. Where are the media encoding / decoding tests that anyone doing video editing would benefit from? Finally, anything just being announced now will very realistically be competing with the M3 (due out in a couple months). The M3 is expected to have a new CPU and GPU design and also be built on the leading edge 3nm process.
To me it looks like if you compare on TDP that the new AMD processor should be compared against the M2 Pro rather than the plain M2 (at least a couple sources I found put the M2 Pro at about the same 28 Watts maximum) - and then the performance is more comparable as well.
On a consistency note…..at least twice in the story the 7840u is referred to as the 7860u….. No need to rush the proofread on such non-event story surely?
Thanks for pointing that out, it’s fixed now. As an Apple person, it is *really hard* to keep track of the myriad and unmemorable random chip name/number combos Intel and AMD come up with. I love that Apple has an M1 followed by an M2 — makes it really easy to guess what the next chip in the series will be.
So what are the power numbers for this chip? Sure anything can beat M series chips if it uses more power.
As mentioned in the article, the 7840u was designed for “thin and light” notebooks, ergo machines comparable to the MacBook Air (only with a fan or two). We won’t know stuff like power consumption and fan noise until this chip goes into an actual production model, but AMD is already writing cheques it may not be able to cash in terms of claims about potential performance, because some factors in any real-world comparison are going to rely on machines built by other companies.
I'm confused. This is comparing against the 10-core M2, not the Pro or the Max variants?
Can this new AMD processor be seamlessly united with a second processor to increase the performance like Apple has for the M-series?
1. Correct. Just the base M2, as mentioned a few times in the article.
2. We don’t know, but AMD has other chips in this particular “family” that are more powerful either in CPU or integrated GPU — but those are not designed for thin and light notebooks.
Here's an initial performance per watt comparison using the Ryzen Z1 Extreme (equivalent to the 7840u, but targeted to handhelds) in the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme.
I should add, the TDP values I used in those numbers are based on this:
Power Mode
Quiet
Performance
Turbo/with PSU
Manual/with PSU
SoC SPL (= PL1)
9 Watts
15 Watts
25 / 30 Watts
15 / 30 Watts
SoC sPPT (= PL2)
14 Watts
20 Watts
30 / 43 Watts
20 / 43 Watts
SoC fPPT (= PL4)
17 Watts
25 Watts
35 / 53 Watts
25 / 53 Watts
fPPT being the peak for that setting (very short bursts), so the actual sustained Watts would be lower than the numbers I used in my calculations for each power setting's score. Meaning, the real Points / Watt should be even higher.
Here's an initial performance per watt comparison using the Ryzen Z1 Extreme (equivalent to the 7840u, but targeted to handhelds) in the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme.
Here's an initial performance per watt comparison using the Ryzen Z1 Extreme (equivalent to the 7840u, but targeted to handhelds) in the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme.
Comments
The AMD chips will live in machines running an operating system that has necessarily been designed to run on a panoply of processors with endless variations of attached memory and hardware configurations. The M2 exists within in a finite variety of hardware configurations and will be running an OS that specifically caters to those limited variables and the M2's design.
As a result, the AMD chip, no matter how fast it is, must waste a not-insignificant portion of that speed and power on bloatware and off-the-shelf standardization, while the M2 benefits from the bespoke customization possible when hardware and operating systems are designed together.
Edit: and for clarification's sake, I'm not referring to 'power per watt' like Apple's graphs highlight, I'm talking max power regardless of watt, of which Apple falls short.
Can this new AMD processor be seamlessly united with a second processor to increase the performance like Apple has for the M-series?
i hope AMD can give them a good fight
controlling 90% of the market was never a good thing, Intel got sloppy and are now paying the price
For example, I know people that switched to Windows during the later PowerPC Mac days because Macs were no longer within a reasonable lag that it was hurting production. Even if macOS (nee Mac OS and Mac OS X) can save you money by being more efficient and even if you've already purchased cross platform apps or even if you have to learn a different one there is a point at which it simply makes sense to not stick with a system whose HW performance isn't good enough.
2. We don’t know, but AMD has other chips in this particular “family” that are more powerful either in CPU or integrated GPU — but those are not designed for thin and light notebooks.
ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme Specifications:
AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme
16 GB LPDDR5-6400 (Dual-Channel)
512 GB NVMe PCIe 4.0
Devices:
ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme (Z1 Extreme)
Apple MacBook Pro 13 2022 (M2)
Power consumption comparison using Cinebench R15 / Multi 64Bit (looped):
Z1 Extreme: 2397 @ 53 Watts [Turbo Mode (plugged in) setting] = 45 Points / Watt
Z1 Extreme: 2153 @ 35 Watts [Turbo Mode (battery) setting] = 61 Points / Watt
Z1 Extreme: 1727 @ 25 Watts [Performance Mode setting] = 69 Points / Watt
Z1 Extreme: 1180 @ 17 Watts [Quiet Mode setting] = 69 Points / Watt
M2: 1229 @ 19 Watts = 64 Points / Watt
Source: Notebookcheck
EDIT: Fixed link
EDIT 2: Important detail...
I should add, the TDP values I used in those numbers are based on this:
fPPT being the peak for that setting (very short bursts), so the actual sustained Watts would be lower than the numbers I used in my calculations for each power setting's score. Meaning, the real Points / Watt should be even higher.
That fan better be NON-EXISTENT... that's all that matters...
your source link is broken! but that's phenomenal if true.
I'll edit the original post as well.