"Now you got a big problem, because neither Intel, AMD or Nvidia are going to license their intellectual property to Dell or HP for them to make an SoC for their machines."
This isn't quite correct. AMD and Nvidia have made custom SOCs for game consoles for years now; they could create customized SOCs for PCs if this was a critical issue. But I don't believe it is. The PC workloads and use cases follow well-known patterns and market segments and you don't really need a lot of different custom accelerators, or be on a single SOC for that matter. Video-related processing has been part of GPUs for many years.
For that matter, making RISC CPUs is not actually a huge obstacle for these guys. (Nvidia does.) Yes even Intel.
The article also seems to entirely omit the M1's heterogenous core strategy, where 4 of the cores are high performance and the other 4 are optimized for power efficiency. A deeper analysis of this and how software manages them would be more interesting.
>The article also seems to entirely omit the M1's heterogenous core strategy, where 4 of the cores are high performance and the other 4 are optimized for power efficiency. A deeper analysis of this and how software manages them would be more interesting.
When the CPU utilization ramps up on M1 MacBooks, the user interface always remains buttery smooth. I haven't been able to make the M1 Air drop a frame yet no matter how hard I push it. Meanwhile doing anything remotely CPU intensive on an Intel MacBook will turn the user interface into a janky stuttery mess.
I suspect the heterogeneous cores are the "secret" behind this. Performance tasks are delegated to the performance cores, leaving the efficiency cores free to instantly respond to any UI-bound tasks.
Where do you have frame drop issues on your intel Mac? I have a 2017 15 inch with the best i7 and run a 4K and 1440p monitor with no noticeable issues. Just ordered an M1 Air.
Maxed out iMac 2017 here, I can't wait for a new iMac with better performance and zero noise. I love the 5K display and the only comparable display is the Pro Display XDR, which I can't justified.
It does all the time, when I run anything that taxing the CPU. Switching app doesn't feel instant and I can always hear the fan noise going in the background.
This isn't quite correct. AMD and Nvidia have made custom SOCs for game consoles for years now; they could create customized SOCs for PCs if this was a critical issue. But I don't believe it is. The PC workloads and use cases follow well-known patterns and market segments and you don't really need a lot of different custom accelerators, or be on a single SOC for that matter. Video-related processing has been part of GPUs for many years.
For that matter, making RISC CPUs is not actually a huge obstacle for these guys. (Nvidia does.) Yes even Intel.
The article also seems to entirely omit the M1's heterogenous core strategy, where 4 of the cores are high performance and the other 4 are optimized for power efficiency. A deeper analysis of this and how software manages them would be more interesting.