Those are of almost zero use for people wishing to run Linux etc.
Yes, Asahi exists, and props to the developers, but I don't think I'm alone in being unwilling to buy hardware from a manufacturer who obviously is not interested in supporting open operating systems
That would only matter (to me, at least) if those Apple chips were propping up an open platform that suits my needs. As things stand today, procuring an M chip represents a commitment to the Apple software ecosystem, which Apple made abundantly clear doesn't optimize for user needs. Those marginally faster CPU cycles happen on a time scale that anyway can't offset the wasted time fighting MacOS and re-building decades-long muscle memory, so thanks but no thanks.
Sure. Insofar as Apple Silicon beats these things, "I'll take less powerful hardware if it means I'm not stuck with the Apple ecosystem" is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff to make. Two things, though.
First, I don't like making blind tradeoffs. If what I need (for whatever reason) is a really beefy ARM CPU, I'd like to know what the "Apple-less tax" costs me (if anything!)
Second, the status quo is that Apple Silicon is the undisputed king of ARM CPU performance, so it's the obvious benchmark to compare this thing against. Providing that context is just basic journalistic practice, even if just to say "but it's irrelevant because we can't use the hardware without the software".
When purchasing any ARM based computer a key question for me, is how many of those can I purchase for the cost of a Mac mini, and how many Mac mini can I purchase for the cost of that, and does that have working drivers...
Same, I wish Chips and Cheese would compare some of these cores to Apple Silicon, especially in this case where they're talking about another ARM core.
A few years ago they were writing articles about Apple Silicon.
Without being a cpu geek, a lot of the branch prediction details go over my head, however generally a good review. I liked the detail of performance on more complex workloads where IPC can get muddy when you need more instructions.
I feel these days however, for any comparison of performance, power envelope needs to be included (I realise this is dependent on the final chip)
If ARM starts dominating in desktop and laptop spaces with a quite different set of applications, might we start seeing more software bugs around race conditions? Caused by developers writing software with X86 in mind, with its differing constraints on memory ordering.
You don't need to be writing assembly. Anything sharing memory between multiple threads could have bugs with ARM's memory model, even if written in C, C++, etc.
If you go around your OS yes that could be the case but you can already have issues using the application from machine to machine with the same OS having different amounts of RAM and different CPU's. But I am not an expert in these matters.
The major issue is these days most software is electron based or a webapp. I miss the days of 98/XP, where you'd find tons of desktop software. A PC actually felt something that had a purpose. Even if you spin up a XP/98(especially 98/2000 VM) now, you'd see the entire OS feels something that you can spend some time on. Nowadays most PCs feel like a random terminal where I open the browser and do some basic work(except for gaming ofcourse).
I really hate the UX of win 11 , even 10 isn't much better compared to XP.
I really hope we go back to that old era.
Yes, Asahi exists, and props to the developers, but I don't think I'm alone in being unwilling to buy hardware from a manufacturer who obviously is not interested in supporting open operating systems
First, I don't like making blind tradeoffs. If what I need (for whatever reason) is a really beefy ARM CPU, I'd like to know what the "Apple-less tax" costs me (if anything!)
Second, the status quo is that Apple Silicon is the undisputed king of ARM CPU performance, so it's the obvious benchmark to compare this thing against. Providing that context is just basic journalistic practice, even if just to say "but it's irrelevant because we can't use the hardware without the software".
I don't see how that's holding you back from using these tools for your work anymore than using a Makita power tool with LXT battery pack.
This is an industry blog, not a consumer oriented blog.
A few years ago they were writing articles about Apple Silicon.
Only found this which talks about performance-per-area (PPA) and performance-per-clock ()I assume cycle) (PPC): https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1gvo28c/latest_ar...
I feel these days however, for any comparison of performance, power envelope needs to be included (I realise this is dependent on the final chip)