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You’re not the only one — but just curious where this skepticism comes from.

This is M4 — Apple has now made four generations of chips and each one were class leading upon release. What more do you need to see?




> Apple has now made four generations of chips and each one were class leading upon release.

Buying up most of TSMC's latest node capacity certainly helps. Zen chips on the same node turn out to be very competitive, butAMD don't get first dibs.


It’s more like Apple fronts the cash for TSMC’s latest node. But regardless, in what way does that detract from their chips being class-leading at release?


Because the others can't use that node, there are no others in that same class. If there was a race, but one person is on foot, and the other is in a car, it's not surprising if the person in the car finishes first.


Eventually Apple moves off a node and the others move on.

People pretend like this isn’t a thing that’s already happened, and that there aren’t fair comparisons. But there are. And even when you compare like for like Apple Silicon tends to win.

Line up the node, check the wattages, compare the parts. I trust you can handle the assignment.


I have some sympathy with this view because it's in no way mass market.

Nevertheless, product delivery is a combination of multiple things of which the basic tech is just one component.


I disagree with the wording "AMD don't get first dibs". It's more like "AMD won't pay for first dibs"


I don’t think a lot of people fully understand how closely Apple works with TSMC on this, too. Both in funding them, holding them accountable, and providing the capital needed for the big foundry bets. It’s kind of one of those IYKYK things, but Apple is a big reason TSMC actually is the market leader.


If that's all we cared about we wouldn't be discussing a Geekbench score in the first place. The OP could have just posted the statement without ever mentioning a benchmark.

I was just curious if people had experience with how reliable Geekbench has been at showing relative performance of CPUs lately.


I don’t think they are skeptical of the chip itself. Just asking about the benchmark used.

If I was reviewing cars and used the number of doors as a benchmark for speed, surely I’d get laughed at.


Right but we keep repeating this cycle. A new M series chip comes, the geekbench leaks and its class leading.

Immediately people “but geEk BeNcH”

And then actual people get their hands on the machines for their real workloads and essentially confirm the geekbench results.

If this was the first time, then fair enough. But it’s a Groundhog Day style sketch comedy at this point with M4.


I blame it on the PC crowd being unconsciously salty the most prestigious CPU is not available to them. You heard the same stuff when talking about Android performance versus iPhone.

There is a lot to criticize about Apple's silicon design, but they are leading the CPU market in terms of mindshare and attention. All the other chipmakers all feel like they're just trying to follow Apple's lead. It's wild.


I was surprised and disappointed to see that the industry didn’t start prioritizing heat output more after the M1 generation came out. That was absolutely my favorite thing about it, it made my laptop silent and cool.

But anyway, what is it you see to criticize about Apple‘s Apple Silicon design? The way RAM is locked on package so it’s not upgradable, or something else?

I’m kind of surprised, I don’t hear a lot of people suggesting it has a lot to be criticized for.


It was wild to see the still ongoing overclocking Ghz competition, while suddenly one could use a laptop with good performance, no fans, no noise and while using it mobile.


The lack of multiple display support early on. The M2 generation produced much more heat than the M1, but that could be the new Macbook Air. GPU weakness with the bigger chips.


By the way, have you heard about the recent Xiaomi SU7 being the fastest 4-doors car on the Nurburgring Nordschleife?

It has 4 doors! It’s all over the shitty car news medias. The car is a prototype with only one seat though.


In power efficiency maybe, but not top performance


Literally yes top single core performance. (And incidentally also efficiency)



I don’t see the M4 on any of these charts


Why would that be necessary to prove the series has top performance?


As demonstrated by the M1-M3 series of chips, essentially all of that lead was due to being the first chips on a smaller process, rather than to anything inherent to the chip design. Indeed, the Mx series of chips tend to be on the slower side of chips for their process sizes.


Show your work.

Most people who say things like this tend to deeply misunderstand TDP and end up making really weird comparisons. Like high wattage desktop towers compared to fan-less MacBook Airs.

The process lead Apple tends to enjoy no doubt plays a huge role in their success. But you could also turn around and say that’s the only reason AMD has gained so much ground against Intel. Spoiler: it’s not. Process node and design work together for the results you see. People tend to get very stingy with credit for this though if there’s an Apple logo involved.




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