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0 pointsrayiner9y ago0 comments

Recently, Apple has been about a year ahead. Compare the A9 (which shipped in the 6s in fall 2015) with the Snapdragon 810 (which shipped in the Nexus 6p at the same time).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9837/snapdragon-820-preview/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-iphone-6s-and-i....

Heck, in many cases the A9 leaves the Snapdragon 820 behind, and that hasn't even shipped in a Nexus phone yet (the Pixel will probably have the 821).

0 comments

dman9y ago

Wish apple was as enthusiastic about processor specs for the mac lineup as they are for the iphone lineup.

maxsilver9y ago

Especially since there's not much effort from Apple needed to keep the Mac lineup modernized. Intel does much of the work for them.

Apple could just drop new Intel chips into their existing MacBooks as they get released, and easily be getting improved speed + efficiency each year. The new Kaby Lake chips even do hardware 4K video and VP9. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/intel-unveils-kaby-la...

sigh

swolchok9y ago

Really? do they all use the same CPU socket? no updates required to motherboard? EFI? Apple's custom SMC firmware? power management? kernel work? etc.

1 more reply

st3v3r9y ago

Isn't that what they were doing for a while? And then Intel slipped the date on the Kaby Lake chips?

tptacek9y ago

They have a lot more control over the mobile processors. The laptop processors have to maintain compatibility with all the software that people run on their laptops; effectively, that means they're stuck with other people's processors.

pcwalton9y ago

That's not really true. x86 emulation is a solved problem at this point, and Apple has shown willingness to use emulation to bridge an ISA transition in the past.

I think the real reason is some combination of (a) ARM isn't competitive (or only recently became competitive) at the high power/high performance point that Intel CPUs excel at; (b) the Mac line generates so much less revenue and operates at so much smaller of a scale than iOS devices that it isn't worth developing CPUs in-house for them, not to mention the fixed costs associated with undergoing a transition.

2 more replies

AsyncAwait9y ago

The problem is, they're not even keeping up with the other people's processors.

criddell9y ago

You might get what you are wishing for. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple dump Intel chips.

atourgates9y ago

I would - only because of the investment required. Over the past few years, Apple's been very involved in its iOS ecosystem, while investing comparatively little in its Mac lineup.

Dumping Intel chips would take a ton of effort and resources, in an area where Apple isn't interested in making an effort or investing resources.

2 more replies

MBCook9y ago

The A10 smokes it even worse. The best Android phones are competitive in multi-core performance only because they have 2x many cores as Apple.

blktiger9y ago

Even then, you're going to be paying in battery performance.

gcp9y ago

You can't say this without knowing how much the respective cores use.

bitmapbrother9y ago

The only metric in which the A9 is really better than the 820 is single core performance. Multi-core and GPU metrics are about the same.

acdha9y ago

Single core performance is still the single most important metric for most users, especially since things like web browsers tend bottleneck on single thread performance and browsing is one of the most common things people use phones for, especially given how commonly native apps use embedded web views.

Measuring browser performance is hard because there's a lot of different functionality but notice how routinely we see reviews where the device the Android flagship phones are trying to beat is the iPhone 6 or even 2013's 5S:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/iPhon... https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/iPhon...

(from https://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/iphone-7-and-7-plus-re...)

Some of that reflects the considerable amount of work which Apple has put into Mobile Safari but a lot of that is going to come down to single thread performance.

chetanahuja9y ago

"Single core performance is still the single most important metric for most users,"

This is an empty statement backed by no data. The only evidence you provide to the superiority of single core perf is browser performance. Except,

1) browser usage is now a mostly insignificant part of time spent on mobile (http://flurrymobile.tumblr.com/post/127638842745/seven-years... )

and

2) The bottleneck in mobile apps which depend on the network (including browsing the web) is rarely the CPU, it's the network.

1 more reply

x0x09y ago

which is the most important metric. see, eg, industry-wide struggles to effectively write parallel software.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

dman9y ago

Wish apple was as enthusiastic about processor specs for the mac lineup as they are for the iphone lineup.

maxsilver9y ago

Especially since there's not much effort from Apple needed to keep the Mac lineup modernized. Intel does much of the work for them.

sigh

swolchok9y ago

Really? do they all use the same CPU socket? no updates required to motherboard? EFI? Apple's custom SMC firmware? power management? kernel work? etc.

1 more reply

st3v3r9y ago

Isn't that what they were doing for a while? And then Intel slipped the date on the Kaby Lake chips?

tptacek9y ago

pcwalton9y ago

That's not really true. x86 emulation is a solved problem at this point, and Apple has shown willingness to use emulation to bridge an ISA transition in the past.

2 more replies

AsyncAwait9y ago

The problem is, they're not even keeping up with the other people's processors.

criddell9y ago

You might get what you are wishing for. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple dump Intel chips.

atourgates9y ago

I would - only because of the investment required. Over the past few years, Apple's been very involved in its iOS ecosystem, while investing comparatively little in its Mac lineup.

Dumping Intel chips would take a ton of effort and resources, in an area where Apple isn't interested in making an effort or investing resources.

2 more replies

MBCook9y ago

The A10 smokes it even worse. The best Android phones are competitive in multi-core performance only because they have 2x many cores as Apple.

blktiger9y ago

Even then, you're going to be paying in battery performance.

gcp9y ago

You can't say this without knowing how much the respective cores use.

bitmapbrother9y ago

The only metric in which the A9 is really better than the 820 is single core performance. Multi-core and GPU metrics are about the same.

acdha9y ago

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/iPhon... https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/iPhon...

(from https://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/iphone-7-and-7-plus-re...)

Some of that reflects the considerable amount of work which Apple has put into Mobile Safari but a lot of that is going to come down to single thread performance.

chetanahuja9y ago

"Single core performance is still the single most important metric for most users,"

This is an empty statement backed by no data. The only evidence you provide to the superiority of single core perf is browser performance. Except,

1) browser usage is now a mostly insignificant part of time spent on mobile (http://flurrymobile.tumblr.com/post/127638842745/seven-years... )

and

2) The bottleneck in mobile apps which depend on the network (including browsing the web) is rarely the CPU, it's the network.

1 more reply

x0x09y ago

which is the most important metric. see, eg, industry-wide struggles to effectively write parallel software.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse