I'm pretty skeptical of this. 3 W mobile CPU outperforms 165 W desktop CPU? If it was the case, they would have those things in macbooks already, and would boast tens of hours from one charge... If you go to the article that is mentioned in "recent figures", they tested single-core performance. So it was single core of a 28-core CPU (with boost though). It's still impressive, but not unbelievable.
It's a 165 watt desktop CPU running a single-threaded integer benchmark that doesn't use the other 27 cores, doesn't fully utilize the 6 memory channels or 40 PCIe lanes, etc. Also, you're comparing TDP to average power. Skylake won't come close to the TDP running an integer benchmark (it's the AVX units that really suck power).
Amber Lake Y (a 2-core part with 4.2 GHz turbo) should achieve similar performance on a single-threaded integer benchmark like that, and it's a 5W part. Still, that's incredibly impressive on Apple's part.
I'd consider it feasible-- in my testing, my iPhone XS outperforms my mid-2017 MacBook Pro (with i7-7820HQ [1]) in single-core benchmarking with Geekbench 4. Not by much, but it does manage a slight lead: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/10006209?baseli...
Granted, this probably wouldn't hold up for a more sustained workload since the fanless iPhone's going to hit its thermal limits much more quickly than the full-size laptop, but it's pretty impressive that they're edging this close to Intel anyways (in a much smaller, much lower-power package). It'll be really interesting to see what happens with the more unconstrained A12X that'll likely go into the iPad Pro this year.
Did you run it on MacBook when it was on battery? Might not get to the max TDP in that case. So it would be like 30W vs 4W, but it's also 14nm vs 7nm.
Anyway though, it's still _very_ impressive from Apple, but much more believable. Looks like they've got very good engineers working on it. I hope they can scale it to the laptop requirements.
I think that one was run on AC, but it was a while back so I can't be 100% sure. I keep meaning to re-run it to make sure, but haven't gotten to it yet.
I also have benchmarks of Haswell-era hardware which the XS is also very competitive against-- including my personal desktop, which the XS beats in single-core and matches for multi-core. But that one's probably not an entirely fair comparison, given that it's older hardware and the machine wasn't intended to be particularly high-end when I built it.
I'd like to see some more comprehensive benchmarking against Intel... I'd be inclined to do some myself, but I don't have a good benchmarking suite that isn't Geekbench. If only the SPEC benchmarks weren't so stinking expensive...
I'm also somewhat skeptical, but it's worth noting that "Skylake" covers a lot of ground[1], and the mobile Skylake processors use 15W (9.5W when in low power processing mode)[2]. Still a matter of multiples, but 5x instead of 55x.
They talk about specific CPU there, Xeon 8176. That's why phrase from the article "we see that the A12 outperforms a Skylake CPU" is very sensationalist.
Ah, I see what's going on. The Skylake numbers are for a single threaded test. Assuming the A12 ones are as well, what's being said (poorly) is that the single threaded performance of Apple's A12 is better than the single threaded performance of Intel's Skylake Xeon 8176.
Of course there's a different number of cores in each, and the performance of multi-core code will likely differ based on technologies (memory architecture, hyperthreading vs real cores, etc).
If it's accurate, it is still fairly impressive (just not as crazy as it first sounds).
Anandtech is using SpecInt/FP numbers to compare Single core IPC between one A12 BIG core, and one Skylake server CPU core.
Per-core power consumption on that Intel chip is 165/28 = 5.89W.
Apple is pushing similar IPC at 3W instead of 5.89W In that context, it's not so unbelievable, but it's still really fucking impressive.
The reason they don't have them in laptops is not because of performance, it's because they don't have an OS. A laptop that only runs iOS is called an iPad and it doesn't have the software I want to run.
I am quite sure that macOS runs quite fine on an A12. Like back in the PowerPC times, where Apple would build OS X always on x86 chips too, they certainly keep testing macOS on ARM hardware. Even if they don't have any imminent plans to release an ARM based Mac, it is a great way of testing your software for portability.
Of course, but without any software. Microsoft has done some interesting stuff in that regard so maybe there is an easier transition than getting all third party developers on board, but it's a tough nut to crack.
Apple have experience of that, and I mean a lot. The first C compiler I used was the cheap student version of Metrowerks that only compiled to 68K, I was on a PowerPC machine at the time. Mac OS X had a Mac OS classic compatibility mode until around the time the Intel processors replaced PowerPC ones, and early Intel machines could run apps compiled for PPC.
Apple is going to have a good ecosystem of ARM software very soon. The whole reason they pushed their Marzipan initiative with the ability to seamlessly port iOS (ARM) apps to macOS (x86) is so that they can also do (iOS >>> macOS) on ARM.
By asking developers to port from iOS apps, they have the side effect of getting developers to implement "fully featured" apps, just with a mobile UI. Adobe has already promised they'll be doing this with photoshop and Illustrator, releasing in 2019.
Others will follow suit. Not only will this strengthen the feature set of iOS apps, but it will strengthen the iPad Pro app ecosystem, and apple will simply link the iOS and Mac App Stores, allowing for "universal" apps.
Marzipan will translate them to x86/64 and later when Apple switches to ARM, Marzipan will simply keep these apps on ARM, and change their UI to match.
If you've been watching Apple closely over the last few years, you'll notice that they're consolidating their API's across macS and iOS. Things like Metal and AppKit and UIKit and so on are beginning to converge. This is all setting the stage for Marzipan.
They announced the "first half" of what they intend during the WWDC 2018 keynote. But the second half will be announced only after they reveal ARM Macs, and then "surprise - all the iOS apps you see now are available here, too. They automagically get UI adaptations for mac!"
Yes, the challenge is the software. Not so much the native Mac software created with XCode. That would probably rebuild at a button press. The elephant in the room are VMs. Many Mac users (for example me) are running x86 based operation systems inside VMs on their Mac. This wouldn't work without a dynamic translation like Rosetta. But as Apple is making their own processors, I would consider it a possiblity that they add some hardware accelerators for a Rosetta style software to their chips.
While I understand running VMs are important for you and many developers, people like us who want to do this have to be a miniscule share of Apple's market. I wouldn't bet on them spending much time on it.
You are right that developers are only a small part by volume. However they are the most important users in an environment, as they the ones creating new applications. Same with other power users, who require a VM. Driving them away from the platform could have a much larger net effect. That Macs got much more popular after the switch to x86 hints at that the compatibility isn't quite unimportant.
So I do think that Apple is probably going to ARM, but they need to be very careful in the steps they are taking and they need to have a really compelling offer so that users are willing to go through the transition.
My point was that if they had this abysmal advantage now, it means they would see it coming several years prior and would work on OS and anything else it needed.
But it's not the point, main point is that I think statement that current A12 is close (to whatever reasonable %) to top desktop chips is simply not true. I didn't see any concrete evidence of it, and everyone just seem to like this idea, that's why it was talked much lately. I'm all for great advantages and all that, but I still must use common sense, 3-4W vs 150+ W - that's too much.
People aren't comparing 3W mobile chips to 150W desktop CPUs. They're comparing like for like in terms of perf/watt. Skylake isn't a particular SKU, it's a micoarchitecture generation, from which Intel can scale the design from low power 10W parts to power hungry server chips.
Apple has successfully changed architectures before, and has been developing an ARM version of Mac OS for a while. I am sure that it doesn't have the same level of refinement, it is might not be that far off.
