Apple Announces The Apple Silicon M1: Ditching x86 - What to Expect, Based on A14
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 10, 2020 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Apple
- Apple A14
- Apple Silicon
- Apple M1
Apple Shooting for the Stars: x86 Incumbents Beware
The previous pages were written ahead of Apple officially announcing the new M1 chip. We already saw the A14 performing outstandingly and outperforming the best that Intel has to offer. The new M1 should perform notably above that.
We come back to a few of Apple’s slides during the presentations as to what to expect in terms of performance and efficiency. Particularly the performance/power curves are the most detail that Apple is sharing at this moment in time:
In this graphic, Apple showcases the new M1 chip featuring a CPU power consumption peak of around 18W. The competing PC laptop chip here is peaking at the 35-40W range so certainly these are not single-threaded performance figures, but rather whole-chip multi-threaded performance. We don’t know if this is comparing M1 to an AMD Renoir chip or an Intel ICL or TGL chip, but in both cases the same general verdict applies:
Apple’s usage of a significantly more advanced microarchitecture that offers significant IPC, enabling high performance at low core clocks, allows for significant power efficiency gains versus the incumbent x86 players. The graphic shows that at peak-to-peak, M1 offers around a 40% performance uplift compared to the existing competitive offering, all whilst doing it at 40% of the power consumption.
Apple’s comparison of random performance points is to be criticised, however the 10W measurement point where Apple claims 2.5x the performance does make some sense, as this is the nominal TDP of the chips used in the Intel-based MacBook Air. Again, it’s thanks to the power efficiency characteristics that Apple has been able to achieve in the mobile space that the M1 is promised to showcase such large gains – it certainly matches our A14 data.
Don't forget about the GPU
Today we mostly covered the CPU side of things as that’s where the unprecedented industry shift is happening. However, we shouldn’t forget about the GPU, as the new M1 represents Apple’s first-time introduction of their custom designs into the Mac space.
Apple’s performance and power efficiency claims here are really lacking context as we have no idea what their comparison point is. I won’t try to theorise here as there’s just too many variables at play, and we don’t know enough details.
What we do know is that in the mobile space, Apple is absolutely leading the pack in terms of performance and power efficiency. The last time we tested the A12Z the design was more than able to compete and beat integrated graphics designs. But since then we’ve seen more significant jumps from both AMD and Intel.
Performance Leadership?
Apple claims the M1 to be the fastest CPU in the world. Given our data on the A14, beating all of Intel’s designs, and just falling short of AMD’s newest Zen3 chips – a higher clocked Firestorm above 3GHz, the 50% larger L2 cache, and an unleashed TDP, we can certainly believe Apple and the M1 to be able to achieve that claim.
This moment has been brewing for years now, and the new Apple Silicon is both shocking, but also very much expected. In the coming weeks we’ll be trying to get our hands on the new hardware and verify Apple’s claims.
Intel has stagnated itself out of the market, and has lost a major customer today. AMD has shown lots of progress lately, however it’ll be incredibly hard to catch up to Apple’s power efficiency. If Apple’s performance trajectory continues at this pace, the x86 performance crown might never be regained.
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KarlKastor - Monday, November 16, 2020 - link
@techconcDo you think a 4 Core Zen2 was different than a 8 Core Zen2. Yes it is much different. Zen 1 was even much inhomogenous with increasing core count.
Apple can't just put 8 big cores in it and is finished. All cores with one unified L2 Cache? The core interconnect will be different for sure. The cache system too, I bet.
M1 and A14 will be much similar, yes.
But you can't extrapolate from a single thread benchmark to a multi thread practical case. It can work, but don't have to.
The cache system, core interconnect, memeory subsystem, all is much more important with many cores working at the same time.
Kangal - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
Hi Andrei,I'm very disappointed with this article. It is not very professional nor upto Anandtech standards. Whilst I don't doubt the Apple A14/A14X/M1 is a very capable chipset, we shouldn't take Apple's claims at face-value. I feel like you've just added more fuel to the fire, that which is hype.
I've read the whole thing, and you've left me thinking like this ARM Chipset is supposedly similar to the 5W TDP we have on iPhones/iPads, and able to compete with 150W Desktop x86 chipsets. While that possible, it doesn't pass the sniff test. And even more convoluted, is that this chipset is supposed to extend the battery life notably (from 10hrs upto 17hrs or 20hrs) by x1.7-x2.0 factor, yet the difference in the TDP is far greater (from 5W compared to 28W) in x4.5-x6.0 difference. So this is losing efficiency somewhere, otherwise we should've seen battery life estimates like 45hrs to 60hrs. Both laptops have the same battery size.
Apple has not earned the benefit of the doubt, instead they have a track-record of lying (or "exaggerating"). I think these performance claims, and estimates by you, really needed to be downplayed. And we should be comparing ACTUAL performance when that data is available. And by that I mean running it within proper thermal limits (ie 10-30min runtime), with more rounded benchmarking tools (CineBench r23 ?), to deduce the performance deficits and improvements we are likely to experience in real-world conditions (medium duration single-core, thermal throttling multi-thread, GPU gaming, and power drain differences). Then we can compare that to other chipsets like the 15W Macbook Air, the 28W MacBook Pro, and Hackintosh Desktops with Core i9-9900k or r9-5950x chipsets. And if the Apple M1 passes with flying colours, great, hype away! But if they fail abysmally, then condemn. Or if it is very mixed, then only give a lukewarm reception.
So please follow up this article, with a more accurate and comprehensive study, and revert back to the professional standards that allow us readers to continue sharing your site with others. Thank you for reading my concerns.
Kangal - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
I just want to add, that during the recent announcement by Nvidia, we were lead to believe that the RTX 3080 has a +100% performance uplift over the RTX 2080. Now that tests have been conducted by trustworthy, professional, independent reviewers. Well, it is actually more like +45% performance uplift. To get to the +70% -to- +90% performance uplift requires us to do some careful cherry-picking of data.My fear is that a similar case has happened with the Apple M1. With your help, they've made this look like it is as fast as an Intel Core i9-9900k. I suspect it will be much much much much slower, when looking at non-cherry picked data. And I suspect it will still be a modest improvement over the Intel 28W Laptop chipsets. But that is a far cry from the expectations that have been setup. Just like the case was with the RTX-3000 hype launch.
Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
@Kangal - Personally, I'm very disappointed in various commenters' tendency to blame the article authors for their own errors in reading the article.Firstly, it's basically impossible to read the whole thing and come away with the idea that M1 will have a 5W TDP. It has double the GPU and large-core CPU resources of A14 - what was measured here - so logically it should start at somewhere around 10W TDP and move up from there.
To your battery life qualms - throw in some really simple estimates to account for other power draw in the system (storage, display, etc.) would get you to an understanding of why the battery life is "only" 1.7X to 2X their Intel models.
As for Apple's estimates being "downplayed" - sure, only they provide *actual test data* in here that appears to validate their claims. I don't know why you think CineBench is more "rounded" than SPEC - the opposite is actually true; CineBench does lots of one thing that's easily parallelized, whereas SPEC tests a number of different features of a CPU based on a large range of workloads.
In summary: your desire for this not to be as good as it *objectively* appears to be is what's informing your comment. The article was thoroughly professional. In case you're wondering, I generally despise Apple and their products - but I can see a well-designed CPU when the evidence is placed directly in front of me.
Kangal - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
@SpunjjiFirst of all, you are objectively wrong. It is not debatable, it is a fact. That this article CAN (could, would, has) been read and understood in a manner different to yours. So you can't just use a blanket statement like "you're holding it wrong" or "it's the readers fault". When clearly there are things that can be done to mitigate the issue, and that was my qualm. This article glorifies Apple, when it should be cautioning consumers. I'm not opposed to glorifying things, credit where due.
The fact is Andrei, who representing Anandtech, is assuming a lot of the data points. He's taking Apple's word at face value. Imagine the embarrassment if they take a stance such as this, only to be proven wrong a few weeks later. What should have been done, is that more effort and more emphasis should have been placed on comparisons to x86 systems. My point still stands, that there's a huge discrepancy between "User Interface fluidity", "Synthetic Benchmarks", "Real-world Applications", and "Legacy programs". And also there's the entire point of power-draw limitations, heat dissipation, and multi-threaded processing.
Based on this article, people will see the ~6W* Apple A14 chipset is only 5%-to-10% slower than the ~230W (or 105W TDP) AMD r9-5950x that just released and topped all the charts. So if the Apple Silicon M1 is supposed to be orders of magnitude faster, (6W vs 12W or maybe even more), then you can make the logical conclusion that the Apple M1 is +80% -to- +290% faster when compared to the r9-5950x. That's insane. Yet it could be plausible. So the sensible thing to do is to be skeptical. As for CineBench, I think it is a more rounded test. I am not alone in this claim, many other users, reviewers, testers, and experts also vouch for it. Now, I'm not prepared to die on this hill, so I'll leave it at that.
I realised the answer to the battery life question as I was typing it. And I do think a +50% to +100% increase is revolutionary (if tested/substantiated). However, the point was that Andrei was supposed to look into little details like that, and not leave readers thinking. I know that Apple would extend the TDP of the chip, that much is obvious to me even before reading anything, the issue is that this point itself was never actually addressed.
Your summary is wrong. You assume that I have a desire, to see Apple's products to be lower than claimed. I do not. I am very unbiased, and want the data as clean as possible. Better competition breeds better progress. In fact, despite my reservations against the company, this very comment is being typed on an Early-2015 MacBook Pro Retina 13inch. The evidence that's placed in front of you isn't real, it is a guesstimate at best. There's many red-flags seeing their keynote and reading this article. Personally, I will have to wait for the devices to release, people to start reviewing them thoroughly, and I will have to think twice about digesting the Anandtech version when released. However, I'm not petty enough to boycott something because of subjective reasons, and will likely give Anandtech the benefit of the doubt. I hope I have satisfied some of your concerns.
*based on a previous test by Anandtech.
Spunjji - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
@Kangal - The fact that a reader *can* get through the whole thing whilst imposing their own misguided interpretations on it doesn't mean it's the author's fault for them doing so. Writers can't spend their time reinventing the wheel for the benefit of people who didn't do basic background reading that the article itself links to and/or acknowledge the article's stated limitations.Your "holding it wrong" comparison is a funny one. You've been trying to chastise the article's author for not explicitly preventing people from wilfully misinterpreting the data therein, which imposes an absurd burden on the author. To refer back to the "holding it wrong" analogy, you've tried to chew on the phone and are now blaming the phone company for failing to tell people not to chew on it. It's not a defensible position.
As it stands, he assumes nothing - nothing is taken at face value with regard to the conclusions drawn. He literally puts their claims to the test in the only manner currently available to him at this point in time. The only other option is for him to not do this at all, which would just leave you with Apple's claims and nothing else.
As it is, the article indicates that the architecture inside the A14 chip is capable of single-core results comparable to AMD and Intel's best. It tells us nothing about how M1 will perform in its complete form in full applications compared with said chips, and the article acknowledges that. The sensible thing to do is /interpret the results according to their stated limitations/, not "be sceptical" in some generic and uncomprehending way.
I think this best sums up the problem with your responses here: "The evidence that's placed in front of you isn't real, it is a guesstimate at best". Being an estimate doesn't make something not real. The data is real, the conclusions drawn from it are the estimates. Those are separate things. The fact that you're conflating them - even though the article is clear about its intent - indicates that the problem is with how you're thinking about and responding to the article, not the article itself. That's why I assumed you were working from a position of personal bias - regardless of that, you're definitely engaged in multiple layers of flawed reasoning.
Kangal - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
@SpunjjiI agree, it is not the writers fault for having readers misinterpret some things. However, you continue fail to acknowledge that a writer actually has the means and opportunity to greatly limit such things. It is not about re-inventing the wheel, that's a fallacy. This is not about making misguided people change their minds, it is about allowing neutral readers be informed with either tangible facts, or putting disclaimers on claims or estimates. I even made things simple, said that Andrei simply needed to address that the figures are estimates so that the x86 comparisons aren't absurd.
"You're holding it wrong" is an apt analogy. I'm not chewing on the phone, nor the company. I've already stated my reservations (they've lied before, and aren't afraid of exaggerating things). So you're misguided here, if you actually think I was even defending such a position. I actually think you need to increase your reading comprehension, something that you actually have grilled me on. Ironic.
I have repeated myself several times, there are some key points that need to be addressed (eg/ legacy program performance, real-world applications, multi-threaded, synthetic benchmarks, and user experience). None of these have been addressed. You said the article acknowledges this, yet you haven't quoted anything. Besides, my point was this point needed to be stressed in the article multiple times, not just an off-hand remark (and even that wasn't made).
Being an estimate doesn't make something not real. Well, sure it does. I can make estimates about a certain satellites trajectory, yet it could all be bogus. I'm not conflating the issue, you have. I've displayed how the information presented could be misinterpreted. This is not flawed reasoning, this is giving you an example of how loosely this article has been written. I never stated that I've misinterpreted it, because I'm a skeptical individual and prefer to dive deeper, read back my comments and you can see I've been consistent on this point. Most other readers can and would make that mistake. And you know what, a quick look on other sites and YouTube, well it shows that is exactly what has happened (there are people thinking the MBA is faster than almost all high-end desktops).
I actually do believe that some meaningful insights can be gathered by guesstimates. Partial information can be powerful, but it is not the complete information. Hence, estimated need to be taken with a pinch of salt, sometimes a little, other times a lot. Any professional who's worth their salt (pun intended) will make these disclaimers. Even when writing Scientific Articles, we're taught to always put disclaimers when making interpretations. Seeing the quality of writing drop on Anandtech begs one to not defend them, but to pressure them instead to improve.
varase - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
Remember that M1 has a higher number of Firestorm cores which produce more heat - though not as much as x86 cores.There may be some throttling going on - especially on the fanless laptop (MacBook Air?).
Jeez ... think of those compute numbers on a fanless design. Boggles the mind.
Whenever you compare computers in the x86 world at any performance level at all, the discussion inevitably devolves into, "How good is the cooling?" Now imagine a competitor who can get by with passive heat pipe/case radiation cooling - and still sustain impressive compute numbers. Just the mechanical fan energy savings alone can go a good way to preserving battery life, not to mention a compute unit with such a lower TDP.
hecksagon - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
These benchmarks don't show time as an axis. Yes the A14 can compete with an i7 laptop in bursty workloads. Once the iPhone gets heat soaked performance starts to tank pretty quickly. This throttling isn't represented in the charts because these are short benchmarks and the performance isn't plotted over time.Zerrohero - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
Do you think that the M1 performance with active cooling will “tank” like A14 performance does in an iPhone enclosure?Do you understand how ridiculous your point is?