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It trounces the majority of either of those - which something a revolutionary product would do.

It's not until you get to the highest end desktop CPUs from Intel or AMD that you see competition with the M1 on a per core basis.

Keeping in mind this is Apple's lowest end, low power, mobile part. It wipes out all but the highest end desktop processors - not just on a core basis, but even a multicore basis - agin for all but the highest end.

Nope, I don't think revolutionary is hyperbole at all. It also makes me wring my hands with glee thinking about what a part designed for the desktop where higher power and cooling are readily available. Where adding more cores makes a lot of sense. How big of a gap is there going to be with that SOC?

The prospects of new hardware are once again exciting. CPUs have been stagnant for a LONG time now. I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to learn my i7-7700K was still not that far off from the latest CPUs - hardware unboxed had a great video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAX1lh985do

At best - on average a 30FPS between my lowly 7700K and the highest end parts? Yeah, newer parts have more cores - but most games are not well optimized for multiple cores. On one had I'm relieved - no need to spend money on upgrades since it just isn't worth it. On the other hand - it isn't worth it to upgrade! And what nerd doesn't like having the latest tech?

So yeah, it's nice to have someone pushing the boundaries and something to be truly excited about. Also stark contrasts like this tends to light a fire under others, if nothing else. Rising tides raising all boats and all that...



> It trounces the majority of either of those - which something a revolutionary product would do.

This isn't even remotely true. Computers are really good at doing more than one thing at a time. I find it mind-boggling that there is such a focus on the performance of a single core. This hasn't been all that relevant for the last 15 years. As for what this matters, the difference for single core isn't all that big regardless (one M1 core performs about the same as one 5980HS thread). When you want to know how powerful the computing power of a CPU is, how about comparing .. you know... what it can do?

And, what it can do when it is asked to do everything it can, I can reiterate that the M1 is nowhere near the competition. The 5980HS mobile CPU will get the same multi-threaded job done in half the time, which is a huge difference. Which is why discussion threads like these feel... chilling. Like as if I stepped in to a cult meeting, where we praise normalcy as revolutionary. It's not even close to the last generation of CPUs in terms of compute power. It just a step up from the Intel CPUs apple used in the previous MBPs.

And, it's not that the M1 is a bad CPU. It's actually pretty good for what it does, and it is exceptionally good at power efficiency. The 5nm and low thread count does contribute significantly to the power performance, so it will be interesting to to see how future M1 processors perform.

Imagine if the M2 doubled core count, and thus doubled multi-core performance compared to the M1. It would then be just as powerful as the current 5980HS. Another revolution no doubt.




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