Astounding M1X multi-core performance estimates have the Apple Silicon playing in the same ballpark as the Intel Core i9-10900K and Ryzen 7 5800X

[Redaktion]

Estimated multi-core performance results for the expected M1X processor have the upcoming Apple Silicon taking on power-hungry desktop rivals such as the Intel Core i9-10900K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. Speculated Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 scores for the Apple M1X chip are based on it offering 1.77x the performance of the current M1 silicon.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Astounding-M1X-multi-core-performance-estimates-have-the-Apple-Silicon-playing-in-the-same-ballpark-as-the-Intel-Core-i9-10900K-and-Ryzen-7-5800X.527608.0.html

[george]

can someone explain in layman terms how is this possible?

to me it's like i wanna buy a car and salesman tells me they got new model with 1 litre engine which puts out 600 hp and has 3 litres per 100 km mileage..

can't help but be suspicious..

[Tov]

can someone explain in layman terms how is this possible?

to me it's like i wanna buy a car and salesman tells me they got new model with 1 litre engine which puts out 600 hp and has 3 litres per 100 km mileage..

can't help but be suspicious..

It's a difference technology. Like when you wanna buy ICE super cars and the salesman say you can have Tesla model 3 with almost the same drag ability with less power.

[_MT_]

can someone explain in layman terms how is this possible?

I don't know if this is layman enough, but one thing you need to understand is that frequency impacts efficiency. It stems from the relationship between voltage and frequency. The higher the operating frequency, the higher the voltage required to ensure stable operation. Power rises with the square of voltage. That's why this relationship is a very important characteristic of a processor from efficiency standpoint. Firestorm cores operate at a much lower frequency than their x86 counterparts under heavy load. They operate much closer to optimum efficiency point. As a rule of thumb, 3 GHz is roughly considered a knee point for efficiency in modern x86 processors. Meaning that efficiency quickly deteriorates beyond this point. That's why base frequencies of mobile processors are where they are. Running around 5 GHz is definitely not good for efficiency.

There are two basic approaches to increasing performance of a processor. Working faster (frequency) and doing more simultaneously (so called width). Historically, these two approaches were considered mutually exclusive. Modern processors combine them. But they still pull in different directions. M1 is a wider design. Widest on the market. Actually, modern x86 designs are internally not that dissimilar. The challenge is that you've got to feed the core with instructions. In the case of an x86 processor, it means decoding x86 instructions and turning them into internal micro instructions. But the instruction set is very complex. And there is a big complication in the form of variable length of instructions. You don't know where the next instruction starts without looking at the previous instruction. Which complicates the design of decoders. And it makes going as wide more challenging. This is where SMT comes in. By processing two (or more) threads simultaneously, you provide more instructions for the core to chew on, working its magic (like out-of-order execution, optimizing utilization of resources).

Also, the relationship between frequency and performance is not exactly straightforward. A processor is faster than memory. A big factor in performance is how much time you spend waiting for data. The higher the frequency, the more cycles get wasted by waiting. And again, SMT can come to the rescue, masking latency.

Apple's designs are extreme in more ways than one. It's hard to say what's going on if you don't have access to internal information. But those are the two main factors. They are so efficient mainly because they run at such a low frequency compared to x86 processors. And they are competitive because they're very wide yet their frequency isn't too low. There are many little things going on. Consider how Apple focuses on low latency (many benchmarks are latency sensitive). And then there is the fact that Apple uses the most advanced manufacturing process on the market, better than what AMD and Intel are using. Which means higher efficiency and being able to cram more transistors into the same space.

Desktop processors consume 100+ W primarily because they can. Efficiency is more of a consequence of increasing performance rather than a target. Their power budget for a high performance personal computer can be over 500 W. Mobile x86 processors are derivatives of desktop designs (and power saving technologies do trickle back). Here we see the opposite. Designs from highly power-constrained world of mobile phones upscaled into the world of personal computers. A single core in my desktop computer has a higher power budget than an entire iPad. And Apple succeeding in this effort that was considered very difficult if not borderline impossible. And it doesn't look like the design is running out of breath.

[george]

_MT_, thank you so much.
i can't say i understood everything as i am not that bright but probably i'll get there after some pondering.

a few more questions though:

1. is any program run faster natively on M1 because the processor is able to process whatever is thrown at it by design, or you have to cater a program to utilize processor's capabilities? i assume Apple writing its ios/macos to make most use of their hardware, but what about 3d party products, like Adobe, Autodesk etc ?

2. how this will affect the market within next 5 years? will x86 become a niche product for servers etc? will Microsoft and Qualcomm try to deliver a M1-like solution to market? i am kinda curious about the fate of x86 at this point. and even though i admire folks who create Apple chips, i don't like where Apple goes generally, as i see it as they aim to be able to execute total control of your Apple device. your thoughts?

[Reddragon72]

can someone explain in layman terms how is this possible?

to me it's like i wanna buy a car and salesman tells me they got new model with 1 litre engine which puts out 600 hp and has 3 litres per 100 km mileage..

can't help but be suspicious..

Just research risc and cisc.

X86 is cisc and ARM, which apples m chips are based from, are risc.

Funny thing is apple used to run it's Mac os on PowerPC chips a long time ago and those were risc chips from IBM based on pre ARM architecture. They moved to intel x86 and hated every min of it because the os was more unstable on the risc intel chips. Now they want out of the intel game to distance themselves from a a technology that complicates the crap out of simply printing a single red pixel in the screen.

[Reddragon72]

Not risc intel chips cisc intel chips.

[Dirkcoetsee]

What a truly nonsense prediction based on no real world data. This is simply a guess. M1 single core performance is not so high just because of the cores but the unique cache. This estimation is overly simplistic

[Lucas]

The only problem with the new MAC CPUs i that they use RISC instructions which requires a lot of RAM and if the user buys a machine with 8 GB then a lot of data is written to the internal SSD which in turn reduces the lifespan. This is not theorizing, it's being observed on the new laptops as we speak where SSDs wil potentially be used up in 2-3 years.
It would not be a big problem if Apple did not use soldered SSDs so once one dies you need a new laptop.

[Reddragon72]

_MT_, thank you so much.
i can't say i understood everything as i am not that bright but probably i'll get there after some pondering.

a few more questions though:

1. is any program run faster natively on M1 because the processor is able to process whatever is thrown at it by design, or you have to cater a program to utilize processor's capabilities? i assume Apple writing its ios/macos to make most use of their hardware, but what about 3d party products, like Adobe, Autodesk etc ?

2. how this will affect the market within next 5 years? will x86 become a niche product for servers etc? will Microsoft and Qualcomm try to deliver a M1-like solution to market? i am kinda curious about the fate of x86 at this point. and even though i admire folks who create Apple chips, i don't like where Apple goes generally, as i see it as they aim to be able to execute total control of your Apple device. your thoughts?

1. Like I said in the previous post read up on risc and cisc. Good stuff there.

2. Is x86 dead... It was dead when it arrived lol but microsoft with it's dos os kept it alive. Today x86 is not the bigger chip version. Arm chips power more devices today than x86. Where x86 wins is the customization. You cannot run out to a store and buy an arm processor and a motherboard and video card and ram and go home and build it. Arm chips are SOC or system in chip. It is an all in one what you see is ALL you get. X86 you can mix and match till your hearts content and upgrade for years to come by replacing only one part at a time. This is why you have to get a while new phone every time you want a faster cpu. Sucks and is waist full as all get out.

Now does apple want to control to the chip level every aspect of your computer? Well yes and so does Microsoft and the do. There are settings in your bios on X86 machines that allows it to execute code even when the machine seems powered off. You need to read up on that if you think apple wants to do that now.... All oss, even linux does it today.

[Reddragon72]

The only problem with the new MAC CPUs i that they use RISC instructions which requires a lot of RAM and if the user buys a machine with 8 GB then a lot of data is written to the internal SSD which in turn reduces the lifespan. This is not theorizing, it's being observed on the new laptops as we speak where SSDs wil potentially be used up in 2-3 years.
It would not be a big problem if Apple did not use soldered SSDs so once one dies you need a new laptop.

Not exactly right here. ARM processors do more with less ram. Your thinking of old and I mean first gen PowerPC chips. There is a reason Android is popular and that is it is cheap to buy and doesn't require a ton of ram. Today android and iOS use way less ram than windows does and they run more processes in the background than windows. They also have a much smaller and less exercised disk cache or paging cache than windows. RISC instructions today require less cpu and less ram to perform the same task than CISC. Fact I am running a linux distro in my LG phone along side of Android and the linux distro on my phone is faster than my 8 core x86 desktop linux distro. And my phone distro runs everything with only 2gig of shared ram while the desktop chews up 6 of my 16 just for the distro.

ARM would dominate if it were designed like the x86 world and you could mix and match parts to your hearts content.

[Dorby]

can someone explain in layman terms how is this possible?

I don't know if this is layman enough, but one thing you need to understand is that frequency impacts efficiency. It stems from the relationship between voltage and frequency. The higher the operating frequency, the higher the voltage required to ensure stable operation. Power rises with the square of voltage. That's why this relationship is a very important characteristic of a processor from efficiency standpoint. Firestorm cores operate at a much lower frequency than their x86 counterparts under heavy load. They operate much closer to optimum efficiency point. As a rule of thumb, 3 GHz is roughly considered a knee point for efficiency in modern x86 processors. Meaning that efficiency quickly deteriorates beyond this point. That's why base frequencies of mobile processors are where they are. Running around 5 GHz is definitely not good for efficiency.

There are two basic approaches to increasing performance of a processor. Working faster (frequency) and doing more simultaneously (so called width). Historically, these two approaches were considered mutually exclusive. Modern processors combine them. But they still pull in different directions. M1 is a wider design. Widest on the market. Actually, modern x86 designs are internally not that dissimilar. The challenge is that you've got to feed the core with instructions. In the case of an x86 processor, it means decoding x86 instructions and turning them into internal micro instructions. But the instruction set is very complex. And there is a big complication in the form of variable length of instructions. You don't know where the next instruction starts without looking at the previous instruction. Which complicates the design of decoders. And it makes going as wide more challenging. This is where SMT comes in. By processing two (or more) threads simultaneously, you provide more instructions for the core to chew on, working its magic (like out-of-order execution, optimizing utilization of resources).

Also, the relationship between frequency and performance is not exactly straightforward. A processor is faster than memory. A big factor in performance is how much time you spend waiting for data. The higher the frequency, the more cycles get wasted by waiting. And again, SMT can come to the rescue, masking latency.

Apple's designs are extreme in more ways than one. It's hard to say what's going on if you don't have access to internal information. But those are the two main factors. They are so efficient mainly because they run at such a low frequency compared to x86 processors. And they are competitive because they're very wide yet their frequency isn't too low. There are many little things going on. Consider how Apple focuses on low latency (many benchmarks are latency sensitive). And then there is the fact that Apple uses the most advanced manufacturing process on the market, better than what AMD and Intel are using. Which means higher efficiency and being able to cram more transistors into the same space.

Desktop processors consume 100+ W primarily because they can. Efficiency is more of a consequence of increasing performance rather than a target. Their power budget for a high performance personal computer can be over 500 W. Mobile x86 processors are derivatives of desktop designs (and power saving technologies do trickle back). Here we see the opposite. Designs from highly power-constrained world of mobile phones upscaled into the world of personal computers. A single core in my desktop computer has a higher power budget than an entire iPad. And Apple succeeding in this effort that was considered very difficult if not borderline impossible. And it doesn't look like the design is running out of breath.

Wow as a layman this was really helpful, Thanks!  :)

[8&8]

Risc-V and still yet in silicon, notice that already exist carbon nanotube processors in this tech...

[Mate]

#8
In old days computers had RAM in kilobytes. In those times memory footprint of application code was important. Its one of main reasons why we are using CISC based x86 architecture for personal computers. Memory was expensive and RISC CPUs  needed more RAM. Now its not problem anymore. Additionally now instructions are only small part of memory used by program - in consequence difference between memory footprints of CISC(x86) and RISC(ARM)  is significantly smaller  than 20 or 30 years ago.

[LL]

Estimate?! someone guessing is now a estimate?