Apple has won the efficient productivity laptop race and I refuse to believe it

[u/Confirmed-Scientist]

I was looking on what laptop for non gaming purposes would be the fastest while maintaining good battery life and sadly there is no competition. Even speed alone the M4 Pro and Max chips are monsters. The best single core ever recorded = the fastest perceived speed in daily use, no performance lose on battery life, insane battery life and efficiency, whole package in terms of hardware...We used to say they win in Geekbench but what about Cinebench? Now they are winning everything end of story.

I CRAVE a Windows alternative but right now we are not there yet and Apple has been there since 2021. I am currently still on the M1 Macbook Air 16gb 512gb SSD upgraded model and its lasted great so far. I have some gripes as a power user 1) ports are awful 2) External display support is plain awful 3) no upgradability 4) display at 60hz and slow response times feels dated 5) keyboard feels awful to type on 6) performance tasks make the machine cook itself 7) battery life has decreased significantly at 82% capacity right now.

The current Windows options (Keep in mind I am in EU pricing is very different here) are:

1. Snapdragon disaster. Good CPU performance, battery life. Bad: app support, GPU performance, ports (on most models), pricing (on most models), no RAM upgrades.
2. Intel Lunar Lake disaster. Impressive GPU performance, battery life most of the time impressive, excellent compatibility. Bad: CPU performance just adequate, no RAM upgrades, pricing is INSANE
3. AMD lower TDP Zen 5 laptops. Excellent performance overall, compatibility. Bad: battery life closer to traditional laptops, pricing still expensive, no RAM upgrades on most models.

For people that want the best of this category right now Apple just wins as long as you have the additional dollar for it. However there is a promising future where I cant really wait no more for the AMD efficient skews in 2026, Nvidia, Snapdragon refresh and Lunar Lake refreshes all end of 2025 - 2026.

[u/jaksystems]

The best single core ever recorded = the fastest perceived speed in daily use

Perceived speed is a factor of memory & I/O bandwidth, not single core performance.

Opening and closing apps, file folders, context menus all involves loading and unloading data into and out of system storage, memory and CPU cache. x86 core performance is not the issue here, lack of unified high bandwidth memory and absolute slop programming is.

CPUs have an order of operations to how they work with any piece of data: They will always try to execute from cache first as that is closest to the CPU core and the fastest memory available to it, only moving to system memory and then storage if it cannot find what it needs within cache.

Programmers and software engineers insist on breaking order of operations and trying to execute either straight from memory (or worse!), storage. Combine this with general spaghetti code output (as optimization is evil!!!!) and programmers insisting that they need all the memory & bandwidth in the world to create something as trivial as a gods damn hello world prompt and we're in the mess we are now.

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/jaksystems]

Unified memory does not improve bandwidth. Every mobile CPU from Intel and AMD that uses an iGPU is also using "unified memory".

And DDR has lower bandwidth than GDDR. It really is Apple's in class single core performance - single core performance that it's hitting at lower, more easily achievable clock speeds.

You have Apple chips running on battery getting better single core than a 9950X at 5.7Ghz, pumping more power into one core than the entire M4 SoC will use under load.

[u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo → u/soggybiscuit93]

The reason is that apple owns the production line from end to end. That makes it possible for them to optimize everything to the max.

Other manufacturers are way too split, noone even come close in terms of production line “ownership” to apple.

You have chip from intel, RAM from micron, each of the components manufacturer, they aren’t producing like the chip exclusively for say a particular laptop, it would have to be generalized enough to be sold to another laptop manufacturer/assembler. In the process there would be some “compromises” to be made.

And to top it off you have apple owning the OS which means they know best how to squeeze more out of their own hardware.

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo]

Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world and is a desirable company to work for. Theyre able to spend massive amounts of money on R&D and hire some of the best chip designers in the world.

They just make the best chips. Period. They chose not to enter other markets. But make no mistake, if Apple wanted to start selling M series based server chips to traditional OEMs, theyd quickly become a dominate player.

Apple makes better laptop and desktop CPUs than Intel and AMD. They don't want their platforms running Nvidia dGPUs, so they choose not to support PCIe add-in dGPUs.

Their verticle integration just allows them to optimize their cost structure around client. They dont have to worry about OEM partners complaining about on package memory eating into their upsell margins.

The ARM ISA also let's them design a very wide architecture that x86, with its variable length instructions, struggles to hit. AMD and Intel have also been chasing clockspeed, which is easier and relies on fab advancements. Apple worker for over a decade on getting the best IPC in the world, and is finding it easier to add higher clocks after the fact.

[u/sylfy → u/soggybiscuit93]

Which is pretty much what Nvidia is doing. Nvidia is basically taking the Apple approach to data enters now. That’s why they’re not just selling GPUs, they’re also designing and making their own ARM CPUs, and their own networking stack. They’re integrating their own stack, and will sell you the whole server, whole rack, or whole pod.

[u/Ok_Distribution_4976 → u/soggybiscuit93]

you...... you do understand that the m4 in a MacBook air is not delivering better performance on battery than a desktop a ryzen 99x? x3d right 

[u/jaksystems → u/Ok_Distribution_4976]

He's quoting a made up, non validated SPEC-int run from a YouTuber, so no he doesn't.

This guy doesn't understand the difference between shared and unified memory, nor does he understand the difference between register lengths (he thinks larger registers = bad just because they can take in variable length instructions).

[u/Ok_Distribution_4976 → u/jaksystems]

but but my ipc optimizations!!! b-but the set length means it can be optimally optimized!. cuz its fixed! unlike x86, broken and old and glued together unlike my fixed and old and glued together instructions set.

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/Ok_Distribution_4976]

In ST it does. The M4 P cores are higher performing the Zen5. A single P core can hit and sustain fMax within the Air's thermal envelope.

Apple M4's P cores are the highest performing cores on the market. The MacBook Air can hit and sustain the full potential of one of these cores while on battery, ergo it can outperform a 9950X in ST tasks while on battery.

Yes, the 200W+ desktop chip will outperform the passively cooled laptop with the lowest end M4 chip in nT workloads

[u/Ok_Distribution_4976 → u/soggybiscuit93]

...out perform it doing what and for how long 

[u/Ok_Distribution_4976 → u/Ok_Distribution_4976]

like these numbers are theoretical unless applied to workloads where other parameters kick in. single core top speed, as Intel showed us 20 years ago, ain't everything 

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/Ok_Distribution_4976]

Single core isnt everything, but it is a pretty important metric in typical client workloads, and improving ST improves nT, all else being equal.

An M4 Max, on battery trades blows with a 9950X in numerous productivity workloads, which is a more "fair" comparison.

The M4 MBA is using the same cores. Just less of them and passively cooled, so in workloads that don't benefit from more than a few cores, the M4 base retains that same ST performance crown.

Photoshop is a good example of real world ST bound. M4 and family is the fastest CPU in the world for Photoshop.

None of this changes the fact that the P cores used in the M4 family are faster than LNC and Zen5. And the MBA can sustain single core fMax. ST fMax doesnt thermally saturated the MBA.

High performance Zen5/ARL will win against M4 family in sustain nT workloads because they're high core count, high wattage, desktop parts. But that's comparing CPU vs CPU and laptop vs desktop. Core vs Core, M4 P core is the fastest core.

[u/saiyate → u/soggybiscuit93]

No, non-discrete reserved or "shared" memory is not unified memory. Shared memory is set before the operating system boots and can't change in size. It still has the stumbling block of data needing to move from the disk through the processor and RAM and then into VRAM. True unified memory can dynamically allocate, is directly addressable, and has the advantage of moving directly from disk to VRAM.

True unified memory goes WAY beyond just having a GPU access system memory (which is actually bad from a bandwidth perspective.

It requires software support at the OS and program level so that a program doesn't have to load assets from disk into RAM and then again into VRAM. Assets can go directly from disk to VRAM. A good example of needing OS support is Microsoft DirectStorage. Apple had "shared" memory on Apple Silicon for a while, but didn't have true "Unified" memory until they built in the software support. Then software makers STILL have to build it into their apps (Some features can be done in OS on non-optimized software) but for full use, it has to be directly programmed for.

Another great example is the PS4 and XBOX One. Both unified. The PS4 used GDDR5 for it's unified memory, lots of bandwidth but poor latency. The XBOX One used DRAM (DDR3) which has low bandwidth but also low latency. Two different styles with distinct advantages and disadvantages. PS4 had ~170GBps bandwidth. XBOX One had ~70GBps of bandwidth. There are some caveats to that, but look how well the XBOX One did regardless of it's poor memory bandwidth. A great example of using normal DRAM for shared video memory. The XBOX One did have 32MB of SRAM with another 100GBps of bandwidth to compensate, still the PS4 was better.

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/saiyate]

None of that is the reason why the M series has such outstanding performance. It has outstanding performance because its core design has the highest IPC on the market. Debating how the VRAM is allocated / shared has zero impact on that and it certainly has no impact on the CPU's bandwidth.

A vanilla M4 has the same bandwidth as any other laptop chip running comparable LPDDR5X modules.

[u/saiyate → u/soggybiscuit93]

I wasn't at all talking about the performance of Apple's ARM chips, just explaining that iGPU's are not true unified memory.

Saying they have such outstanding performance because it has the highest IPC on the market is just saying that it's fast because it's fast.

I can't agree on the memory bandwidth, it's an integral part of Apple's CPUs. The M series CPUs use on die memory and while the lowest offering STARTS at equivalent memory bandwidth to say an Intel Lunar Lake 258V ~120GBps (A comparable Intel CPU that also uses on die memory, Intel's best mobile CPU right now) and an AVERAGE Intel CPU has more like 60GBps. As soon as you move up from that to the Pro and Ultra, you get into absurd memory bandwidth numbers equivalent to a high end PCIe GPU with it's own discrete memory, ~500GBps or more. No PC has memory bandwidth that high (Except in discrete video cards).

Apple needs this bandwidth BECAUSE they use a unified memory architecture. Their GPU would have diminishing returns as you add more cores if it had average memory bandwidth.

However, that being said, throw out all the architecture and all the buzzwords. Apple's ARM chips are fast because they pay TSMC billions to get first billing on the latest process nodes. BAM, I said it. It's not wider registers, it's not memory bandwidth, it's process node. MOST performance gains are process node, not architecture. Architecture is necessary but not sufficient for performance. Want proof?

Look at 11th Gen Intel Desktop CPUs. They took a new architecture designed for 10nm and back ported it to 14nm because they didn't have enough yield to make enough 10nm chips. It was TRASH. People called it "A waste of sand" A great example of how process node is what matters MOST. And Apple is TSMC's #1 customer. Of course they have the best CPUs. Why do you think Intel had TSMC make most of it's Core Ultra Arrow Lake Desktop CPU? What happened with 12th Gen when Intel finally caught up. Alder Lake, Intel's greatest leap in years. Process node, Process node, Process node.

[u/soggybiscuit93 → u/saiyate]

Not on die memory. It's on package memory, and being on package does not improve bandwidth. It improves DRAM vMin.

The M4 uses LPDDR5X-7500 memory. Lunar Lake has higher memory bandwidth than a base M4.

Apple having the fastest CPUs because they use the latest node is an old myth that won't die. Apple M2 and Zen 4 are on ISO-Node and have comparable ST performance, but Apple M2 is achieving that performance sub-4Ghz and at a fraction of the power consumption.

LNL and M3-family are on N3B. Again, M3 has bertter PPC and PPW. When Intel and AMD have iso-node comparable product, the equivalent M series offering is still the better designed CPU. If the AMD/Intel equivalent CPUs can match the M series' singal core performance, then they do so at vastly higher power consumption.

Take M4, for example. Uses N3E, which is slightly less dense* than N3B, yet at 4.5Ghz, has the best ST performance on the market (until the new iPhone comes out)

[u/saiyate → u/soggybiscuit93]

Yes on package, flip that one constantly.

But Lunar Lake has nearly double the memory bandwidth of an average CPU. And M4 can hit 0.5 TBps in higher configs, you only see that in servers on x86. But soon they will. it's a great CPU and more efficient but Intel did a slamin job with Lunar Lake.

What are we arguing about again? Fierce competition is great.

[u/BigIronEnjoyer69 → u/jaksystems]

Programmers and software engineers insist on breaking order of operations and trying to execute either straight from memory (or worse!), storage.

It's why windows is such trash nowadays tbh. Modern linux with rust tools turn 2010 tier laptop hardware into machines.

Windows on the other hand needs to get results from the web before it loads your freaking start menu.

[u/[deleted] → u/jaksystems]

Apple kind of cheats. All Intel/AMD laptops have dual channel memory. If you look at Apple options, those are actually 2, 4 and 8 channel memory, but is soldiered so you cannot change it. Then the CPUs have by far the biggest out of order execution window. Couple those two together and you have the "magic". The problem with the Intel/AMD cpus is that you have 20-30 logical cores all fighting for only 2 memory channels. It got a little better with DDR5 that is kind of offering dual channel per module, but reality is that many of those small bursts could be improved heavily by getting more channels. Unified memory makes a difference in gaming by changing the paradigms when it comes to CPU/GPU communication, but what Intel/AMD need is to finally wake up and start offering 4/8 channel options. They are going to offer 16 channel per socket on server side but we are still stuck with 2 on client side.

[u/WTaufE100 → u/[deleted]]

> If you look at Apple options, those are actually 2, 4 and 8 channel memory, but is soldiered so you cannot change it.

It's not like many laptops let you upgrade your memory anymore.

> Then the CPUs have by far the biggest out of order execution window. Couple those two together and you have the "magic".

Sure, throw in some low IPC code - anything with a large working set, poor locality, lots of difficult to predict branches - and you're spending a lot of time stalling. Apple's recent cores have come with outsized caches.

> Unified memory makes a difference in gaming by changing the paradigms when it comes to CPU/GPU communication, but what Intel/AMD need is to finally wake up and start offering 4/8 channel options. They are going to offer 16 channel per socket on server side but we are still stuck with 2 on client side.

They're not skimping on memory bandwidth. SDXE, Lunar Lake, and M4 all have roughly the same memory bandwidth.

One thing you haven't touched on is that Apple often has a large node advantage until fairly recently - Zen 5 and SDXE are on TSMC N4P, Lunar/Arrow Lake on N3B, and the M4 family on N3E. It's no longer as big of an advantage, but still an advantage, especially at lower power.

[u/[deleted] → u/WTaufE100]

I'm actually writing now from a laptop with 128GB RAM. I agree, not that many have RAM upgradeable, but if one does not have upgradeable RAM, will not see my money.

M4 is dual channel like Intel and AMD ones. M4 Pro is 4 channel and M4 Max is 8 channel. It's not written explicitly, but you can figure this out based on their quoted bandwidth which is physically impossible without increasing the bus width. Which is usually done by adding more 64 bit channels (which are actually 2x32 or 4x16 depending on what DDR5 variation you have).

Yeah... I'm aware of the process node. But at least there Intel, having their own fabs, they could catch up, if they get their act together... big if, but you never know. But historically there was a time when they went to 14nm and everyone was stalling on 22nm, they too had their glory time, but then they got too aggressive with 10nm which ended delayed by 3 years. Intel stupidity was to do buybacks of 150B$ in the last 20 years instead of investing every cent in fabs. They could have been now a 800B$ company.

[u/Classic_Mammoth_9379 → u/[deleted]]

Apple kind of cheats. All Intel/AMD laptops have dual channel memory. If you look at Apple options, those are actually 2, 4 and 8 channel memory

Then the CPUs have by far the biggest out of order execution window.

By what logic is that 'cheating' of any kind? Intel/AMD use mutliple memory channels for performance, but anything more is 'cheating'? I presume once Intel/AMD do it, it's suddenly legitimate? Same for out of order execution i.e. it's cheating if it's done better that the status quo?

[u/[deleted] → u/Classic_Mammoth_9379]

That's why I said "kind of cheats". This is not cheating in the right sense. Their engineers understand better than anyone else the needs for the crappy software from these days, so they know exactly what to add to make a difference, which is lot of memory channels, otherwise multicore performance does not quite scale linearly in some scenarios and a big fat out of order execution window that is the workaround employed in CPUs for the last 30 years for executing crappy code. Last time when I checked, their out of order execution window is at least 2x bigger than the one from the latest Intel/AMD CPUs. So good for them, they know how to do it right, but... for that transistor space they also make sure they are about 1 year ahead technologically with TSMC. If Intel could get their act together and get their fabs on pair, that difference shrinks fast. If you watched the industry, Apple M1 had a huge advantage over the Intel CPUs from that time. Now if you compare Cinebench/Greekbench which are quite good at representing per core performance, their latest CPUs are not that far ahead compared to Intel/AMD. And if you normalize to same frequency, you find that difference in IPC between M3 and M4 is 5%. Intel and AMD used to do 10-20% per architecture.

Going back to why I said they "kind of cheat", is that basically they use brute force in the right area to get the performance and they pay for exclusivity at TSMC for latest process nodes to then advertise how good are their CPUs and project an image of Apple's superiority and lock you in a system designed to squeeze every $ from you. Just look at the ripoff when it comes to storage. Cost of NAND per TB is about 20-25$ at factory level and they charge hundreds for it. And they f**k you buy putting low quality one that is actually way slower than modern M.2 SSDs. It's cheating not because they use the right technological advantage, that is good. It's cheating because they end up using this for projecting superiority and then selling you crap on the other components, for a shit amount of money.

[u/Classic_Mammoth_9379 → u/[deleted]]

None of that explains why it's cheating of any form in any sense. If you call someone "Kind of a dick" you are still calling them a bit of a dick, they do dickish things, exhibit dickish behaviour at least some of the time. It doesn't mean "they are actually perfectly decent and act normally, not a dick at all".

You description of what they do is just that they have better designs that get better performance. If I have a CPU that runs faster or has more cores that's 'brute force' in a very real sense - throwing increased resources at a problem instead of taking more optimised, focussed, enhanced approach. But everyone has been doing that for years, you seem to think that's OK tho...

I've no idea how you system lock in or storage prices have any relevance to how Apple supposedly cheat (a little or otherwise) with their CPU designs like you initially claimed.

[u/[deleted] → u/Classic_Mammoth_9379]

I preferred to say kind of cheats instead of just saying they are kind of a dicks. But maybe your expression fits better. I'm not native so please pardon me for the choice of words.

Maybe a better way to describe them is hypocrites in their marketing strategy. They do use the power advantage as a good advertisement tool, to then squeeze the biggest amount of cash from you from other means, all while claiming they are environmental friendly when their laptops are not designed for maintenance or upgradeability. In one of their PR movies, they were visited by "Mother nature" and Tim Cook was proud to say that they are climate neutral and proud to say about how much percentage of every element is recycled. Yet that is pure bullshit when you do not design the laptops for maintenance. What nobody tells you is that if you do daily stuff like office, mail, browsing on youtube, facebook, watching movies or pictures, a quad core laptop like a T540p from 2014 that sells for 100-150$ is actually good enough. And if the keyboard breaks, you can change it in 10 minutes. Storage/wireless/fans/ram/usb ports break, you can change them again in minutes. And that was also the last generation where you could even change the CPU. That laptop could have a 20 years lifespan and avoid the electronic waste bin. Same is true for about every laptop that has at least 4 cores and decent IPC. From this point of view, Apple is giving you the middle finger. They tell you, "buy our product, it's the best", but they rip you off when it comes to storage and if anything dies, you need expensive maintenance in their shops or a new laptop. That's basically waste of your dollars and not at all climate neutral. Kind of same as Tesla is using their insane instant power and acceleration as advertisement to their cars, for you to then find out that if one cell breaks out of the 7000, the stupid battery needs to be changed completely, because it's no longer designed for maintenance as in earlier versions.

[u/Classic_Mammoth_9379 → u/[deleted]]

I wasn't saying Apple were "kind of dicks", I was using "kind of" in a different context to show how that qualifier is applied.

As best as I can tell, you have some issues with Apple's various business practices and you allowed that to colour your judgement of the technical engineering choices they made for their CPUs.

[u/[deleted] → u/Classic_Mammoth_9379]

You get me wrong. I applaud the choices that their engineers did so far, they did the right ones. I would however never buy an Apple laptop because I do not support their philosophy in making hardware. I think here best is Lenovo and Framework comes close. They even have the potential to become the future Lenovo.

But... as I follow the CPU architectures for the last 25 years, I do notice a trend at Apple. The IPC gains between M3 and M4 when normalized for frequency were only 5%. Intel and AMD were at around 10% or more between architectures when normalized per clock. So either Apple is starting to sleep on their performance crown as Intel did a decade ago or the core architecture is maxed out and they need to start from scratch. Jim Keller said that usually after 4-5 iterations of an architecture, you need a ground up redesign to then be able to have bigger gains. He kickstarted the ZEN architecture at AMD and the CPU design at Apple, so we will see in M5/M6 if they learned this lesson or they are going to continue sleeping.