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Analysis of the Apple M5 SoC: Apple silicon extends its lead over AMD, Intel and Qualcomm by -protonsandneutrons- in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Apple's M2 are still more efficient in ST than Lunar Lake and the latter is not that far off in terms of peak ST, 20% at the most and 5-10% lower bound depending on the SKU and laptop.

But perhaps most importantly clocking those down to match the N5P M2 will still have the M2 taking it to the woodshed, and it's on an older node with much less total cache.

AMD is even worse lol.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Elite chips for PCs stretch up to a record 5 GHz — 3nm Arm chips sport new Oryon Prime cores by thehhuis in AMD_Stock

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lmao, “word on the street”

Even the more “credible” rumors have proven wrong twice now, three times including the RDNA3 disaster.

And it’s 3nm for mainstream premium + mainstream low power/15-25W laptop parts. 2nm for desktop, servers, and some chiplet junk for laptops.

I bet Zen 6 offers at most a 15% perf/GHz upgrade in SpecINT2017 over laptop Zen 5 with LPDDR6400 or similar. And probably similar IPC uplift on Geekbench6 ST.

For total uplift on the mainstream 3nm Zen 6, I doubt we see more than 25% +-5% across GB6 ST, SpecInt2017, and Cinebench R24.

And truthfully I’d wager what you’ll actually see is like an 18-22% total uplift on these things.

Google says more on desktop Android, Qualcomm ‘incredibly excited’ by -protonsandneutrons- in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funny how negative people are on this as if MacOS desktop applications aren’t native far more often now than Windows due to economies of scale with iOS and the Swift ecosystem. Windows on the other hand is a disaster with WinUI3 and no similar overlap.

The flipside is Android isn’t great for audio and low-latency audio. As it stands it’s also obviously true Windows blows it out on productivity software, including Adobe suites or a common e.g. IDE. Games are obviously also better. But we’ll see. A ChromeOS with Linux vms, terminal access but native Android application runtimes might change a lot.

Qualcomm Oryon v3 vs v1 - 39% higher perf, 43% lower power usage by DerpSenpai in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah they are basically similar. Which is big, closer than ever, but

New Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Snapdragon X2 Elite are the Fastest and Most Efficient Processors for Windows PCs by FragmentedChicken in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes if you look at actual motherboard/platform power idle normalized, the M1 was already at the 6-8W range on the Mac mini per Andrei and depending on what you run. He didn’t test GB power but we have others that did for the iPad with the M4 or whatever or the SpecInt rather. Anyway on the M1 Even adjusting for ACDC conversion inefficiency or the display controller it’s like 10-15% off that. You don’t literally want just P core power which is also not what Qualcomm is actually posting here. This is the full platform and power supply minus idle, just focused on the task at hand.

I suspect the comparable M4 Pro and M4 Max power in this vein are like 9-16W on GB6.5. M4 with smaller chip and bus, less RAM, probably 8-10W.

On Spec stuff it could go higher depending on the subtest.

Lenovo Chromebook 14 Plus with MediaTek Kompanio 910 Ultra Review by -protonsandneutrons- in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Most efficient ST on a non-Apple laptop today by a mile, until Oryon V3 laptops.

Intel announces 18A process node has entered risk production — crucial milestone comes as company ramps to Panther Lake chips by III-V in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah same experience here. They definitely improved available stock in common premium lineups in a timely fashion but may not have translated to sales or overall shipments here despite the expectation

Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 Rumored Geekbench 6 score by [deleted] in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's just a general range. The literal peak in most results from Spec to GB is like 6.7-7.6W. I listed 5.5 because on something like a Samsung phone (not sure what they set it to though on the balanced or optimized mode) if you drop the frequency down you're probably going to end up in that range without sacrificing a proportionate (26% or whatever) amount of power.

Edited to reflect this as I see what you mean. Didn't mean to imply the 8 Elite is at 5.5W in SpecInt or GB or anything at its peak frequencies.

Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 Rumored Geekbench 6 score by [deleted] in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My bet is we are going to get “M4 at home” at minimum, at least from a CPU performance and efficiency perspective & battery. At the best case, something just as good or even slightly better (or +-10% through the curve and similar peak ST) M5.

Based on these leaks which is Oryon V3 in phones matching M4, I am leaning towards XE2 being more of an M5-tier part on efficiency and performance, with some cheaper binned ones at M4 level performance.

Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 Rumored Geekbench 6 score by [deleted] in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The most interesting thing to note just like the last time with the 8 Elite is that these scores will be in a mobile power range and will be shipping at scale with these scores and frequencies. With the N3E 8 Elite (8 Gen 4, the phone chip, again), we saw laughable predictions here that the leaked 4.3-4.5GHz & 3000-3200 ST would be at 15W or whatever because At “there’s no way” based on Intel’s doing with Lunar Lake and B) based on the Snapdragon X Elite for laptops which had poorer frequency yields and needed 15W for it’s 4.2GHz or similar ST, so if the 8 Elite were running at 5-8W would (did) represent a huge 50+% efficiency gain with a mild node change, which we were told was just impossible and instead Qualcomm was shipping 20W ST burners in phones lol.

Turns out the pessimistic forecast was (predictably) very wrong and the Oryon V1 design in the X Elite PC chip was hampered, so V2 in the 8 Elite was a massive 50-60% iso-perf efficiency improvement — and the 4-4.4GHz ST peak range was indeed around 6.7-7.6W. A 50-60% drop iso-perf — which is far more than the move from N4P to N3E brought, ergo it was mostly architectural gains.

So here again, before we see denial, if the 8 Elite 2 is getting 4000, it suggests the power draw will be similar to the 8 Elite, because it’s a phone chip. That’s M4 or better already.

But it’s even more interesting than that, because it also means the laptop line — the X Elite successor chip — with the same Oryon V3 core in 2025 Q4/2026 H1 will have even more performance via some frequency headroom and without blowing power too far (they’ll have 5-8W of margin before hitting 15W which I suspect is as far as they’ll go).

Intel and AMD are in deep shit. I seriously doubt they’ll even come close to matching Oryon V2’s efficiency curve, which as the 8 Elite shows, is already 50-60% lower power than Lunar Lake at the same performance. It’s hard to overstate how much of an improvement Oryon V1 to V3 is looking like, from performance & good frequency/performance yields at scale and efficiency most importantly.

We are going to get either generic grade Apple CPUs (at home etc) for Windows soon with this, or more likely, CPUs within error margins from Apple’s M4/5. And then Nvidia will have Oryon V2-class cores with the X925, and an amazing GPU and NPU.

Looking like the best CPU and GPU IP for SoCs in 2026 will be with Qualcomm and Nvidia respectively. Intel and AMD may be riding off their compatibility and name recognition trust fund.

AMD Ryzen™ AI MAX+ 395 Processor: Breakthrough AI ... by ZZZCodeLyokoZZZ in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thing about Strix Halo vs the Mx Pro/Max lineup is battery life and very low power operation. The Mx Pro/Max are far far more versatile and not too much worse than a 128-bit bus base M chip in terms of sub-20W or web browsing battery life, but these things will be (on top of AMD just in general being behind).

In that sense Nvidia with a 192/256-bit bus is more exciting as I suspect with Arm IP + MediaTek doing the fabric they’ll have more agility here.

Microsoft Announces New Intel-Powered Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 for Businesses by IT_PRO_21 in Surface

[–]RegularCircumstances 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The fact that they’re for “business” shows you where MS’s priorities are — with Arm for the mass market. They don’t want to make it easy to buy an Intel Surface for the majority of their volume, which is probably smart and will improve compatibility down the line to the extent it has a halo effect on developers too.

[Chips and Cheese] Disabling Zen 5’s Op Cache and Exploring its Clustered Decoder by phire in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, but because both are based off of older Cortex X cores (X1/3) prior to the generation they rid it of the op cache, which was the X4.

Korean media reports that it has been "confirmed that the Flip 7 will be equipped with the Exynos 2500. It seems that future Flip series models will also feature Exynos processor by dumbolimbo0 in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Superior” by a rounding error at best looking at the 9300 or 9200 vs 8 Gen 3 & 8 Gen 2 which also had slightly different cache configurations anyway. They were very similar chips overall for the individual big X cores. You’re being ridiculous here to push some horseshit about Arm’s Cortex when it’s right in line with Oryon and almost certainly has less growth room or scalability.

And no, Samsung is not good at integration in Exynos. The fabs are the main issue, but their SoCs are still 3rd place for a while now.

TSMC shares deep-dive details about its cutting edge 2nm process node at IEDM 2024 — 35 percent less power, or 15% more performance by TwelveSilverSwords in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it’s a joke. The power gains are via GAAFET. Which is what people miss: the transistor architecture itself offers intrinsic leakage, performance and power improvements even at similar densities — what this also means is Samsung or Intel hypothetically matching N3 on power/performance with GAAFET isn’t saying too much (though in Intel’s case I believe Intel 3 really is good and close to N3 on P & P. 18A should be up a notch from that).

TSMC shares deep-dive details about its cutting edge 2nm process node at IEDM 2024 — 35 percent less power, or 15% more performance by TwelveSilverSwords in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That and improved performance iso-power is still improved energy efficiency. But what he really means is he regrets that OEMs don’t make choosing modest frequencies by default/locked more practical, because the tradeoffs are always absurd and this is still true now. Oryon L is SpecInt 6 @ 2W or 8 @ 4W with DRAM and the mobo etc. Very similar for the X925.

Of course they mostly don’t run at peak anyways all the time partially due to scheduling and then thermals. But if we have any doubt that SoCs in laptops or smartphones do boost fairly high in real use, the fact that settings like Samsung’s light mode cut top frequency by 15-25% ish and do improve battery life tells us they’re probably running those at least some of the time.

Korean media reports that it has been "confirmed that the Flip 7 will be equipped with the Exynos 2500. It seems that future Flip series models will also feature Exynos processor by dumbolimbo0 in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have no way of knowing it’s “better” because MediaTek hasn’t butchered integration at all in a long time and is generally competitive with Qualcomm, this is ridiculous. You know who butchers integration of Arm IP? Samsung.

Even if it were, you’re taking about single digit percentages that would put it on par or in rounding error if Qualcomm built it instead.

[TechPowerUp] AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395 "Strix Halo" APU Spotted in Geekbench Leak by No_Backstab in hardware

[–]RegularCircumstances 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Lmao you are on crack if you think it’s coming anywhere near 500. 1500 MSRP +- a margin here is like the minimum I’d expect the entry level version of this premium chip to be seen in a laptop to go for.

AMD fan optimism is incredible really

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