You'll have to wait for a proper review that does power measurements to get a sense for how they actually compare on that front.
My only question is what it's idle power consumption is like.
And that's with the M1 having 4 slow cores for better battery life / consumption (with 8 full speed cores it would obliterate the 5850U).
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Apple-M1-8-Core-3200-MH...
Apple M1 - CPU Mark: 14,872 / Single thread: 3,630
AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U - CPU Mark: 20,659 / Single thread: 3,237
The AMD is 38.9% faster on the multi-core benchmark, and 10.8% slower on the single-core benchmark.
(And, still, that's with M1 having 4 cores tied behind its back for better battery life).
Most people’s performance workload is dominated by media consumption—not media creation. But the latter sure does make for good benchmarks.
It's not really that simple. An M1 with 8 full speed cores would also consume significantly more power and would no longer work in something like the MacBook Air. On paper these CPUs are both targeting the same power budget, so if AMD can put 8 full-speed CPUs in the same power budget that Apple can "only" put 4 full-speed and 4 low-power then why shouldn't AMD get a win from that?
1: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Apple-M1-8-Core-3200-MH...
In contrast to the M1 which is so efficient that Apple doesn't even put a fan in it on its lower end models, and it still barely gets warm.
Also the battery life is a lot better on the m1.
Can you buy one today other than the HP EliteBook 845 G8, which starts over $2300? Because you can buy M1 laptops yesterday for less than half that and I can't find any other 5800U series laptops for sale.
Lenovo has a number of 5000U models coming out (including various Thinkpads), but if I were looking for an upgrade this year, I think I'd be most excited about the 5800H Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro (available for preorder now).
Regarding H vs U processors, based on my testing of a previous-gen 4800H laptop, it benchmarked comparably on a perf/W basis to the U series, but via 3rd party tools (I use RyzenAdj) you can easily set whatever TDP you want (eg from 10W or 15W to match a U up to 65W+).
> Bulky
Often a sign of user-replaceable RAM and SSD, which is good. I don't mind if it adds a few millimeters to the thickness.
> low res screen
1920x1080 is enough resolution for a 13" laptop.
> design suggests that it relies heavily on active cooling
I don't want passively cooled computers, I want fast ones. All else being equal, compute performance is proportional to electricity consumption, and heat generated.
Ok, but then why are we even making comparisons with M1 laptops? The M1 is a low TDP chip designed to be used in devices with minimal or no active cooling. Apple will no doubt be bringing out beefier chips for its higher end laptops in due course.
The problem is not specific to Apple, many other companies are offering ultra-thin laptops with similar tradeoff.
As a consumer, I don’t like that tradeoff. I’m already paying for a fast CPU. Yet due to the lack of a proper fan assembly (a low-tech and cheap component, compared to CPU) I’m only able to get good performance for brief periods of time. While usually that’s OK, sometimes I want sustained performance for minutes or hours, even on a laptop.
More broadly, it seems that you prioritize performance over everything else when it comes to laptops. Apple doesn't – especially not in its 13" range. What they are providing is a small form factor with crazy good battery life and performance that's more than good enough for most people.
Thermal throttling is not inherently a bad thing – it's a sign of a balanced design. If you have a fixed amount of thermal headroom to play with, then you want a processor that uses more power at peak loads than you can dissipate (so that you can take full advantage of the cooling off periods provided by non-peak usage).
More or less. I’m a programmer, and I want computers to compute things.
If I only wanted them to play youtube, I’d get a tablet instead. If I only wanted a laptop to run a word processor, I would look at these MacBooks or equivalent Windows devices.
> If you have a fixed amount of thermal headroom to play with
In case of ultra-thin laptops like macbooks, the primary reason why it’s fixed to just 10-15W is to look good on marketing materials. Technically, it’s easy and cheap to make it fixed to the value several times higher than that. After all, 10 years ago mainstream laptop CPUs were dissipating 35-45W: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Mobile_platform
I'm also a programmer, but don't find performance particularly important once it reaches an acceptable level. I would rather have a thin a light laptop (as would most people, judging by sales).
I should have noted I specialize on desktop and embedded development. I can always find uses of faster CPUs, more cores, and more RAM.
> I would rather have a thin a light laptop
I agree, but to an extent. I don’t have a gamer-targeted laptop because heavy to carry around.
But still, I believe these unupgradable ultra-thin laptops are a bad deal.
They only saving a few millimeters of thickness and ~0.2kg of weight, for a huge performance cost. BTW, I have installed 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD in my reasonably thin (2cm) and reasonably light (1.6kg) 13” laptop.
> as would most people, judging by sales
Judging by sales, most people don’t need a computer at all, they prefer phones and tablets. On the internets, more than half of page views are now from mobile devices.
Can you point to a laptop that's only slightly larger than the M1 Macbook Pro and has much better performance?
Ryzen 7 4800U is very similar to Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U: same core and threads count, same frequency, same 10-25W TDP. The main difference of the new one is Zen 3 microarchitecture instead of Zen 2, and there're quite a few sources comparing Zen 3 to Zen 2.
If you want to be certain, wait for the direct benchmarks.
Hate to break it to ya' but just chucking a chip into a gigantic heatsink of a frame, and relying on one or two USB-C ports to support gigantic networks of peripherals through a powered hub (sold seperately) which has issues running multiple added on monitors because the HDMI over USB-C tends to put off EMI in the 2.4 GHz band is honestly a step backwards compared to the characteristics you complain about. My old MBP would kill it's own network connection trying to drive large smart TV's through it's USB-C ports; and constantly stall handling all the input demands as I'd end up outtyping the capability of the processor to context switch on a typical programmer/scripter workload. Not had an issue one with System76's older school design approach to things like the Serval (whose battery life is abysmal comparatively, but I knew that going in. It's a workstation.)
System76 isn't out to build dispose-a-systems or systems that can only be swapped back through them on warranty. These are systems intended to be user serviced. That means thicker. You have to account for fasteners, less/no glue, stay away from over-using overly brittle plastic bezels that break at the drop of a hat, more room for connectors, so soldering labs aren't required for swapping out or adding RAM/SSD's... More generous tolerances for hand room, ergonomic motherboard and keyboard layouts. I can trust my system more, because I can actually take care of it.
Compared to my old VAIO Z Series, which I love dearly to this day, but which I always crack open with fear and trepidation because of the over-reliance on FPC's, System76 stuff is a breath of fresh air for me. I'd prefer an XFCE derivative desktop over GNOME, but eh. I'll live.
I didn't have to go hunting all over the Net for years for an unofficial community driver that actually gets me passed the most recently updated by manufacturer driver from 2012 for the Nvidia GT 630M/Intel IHD kludge, I don't as a consequence have to run with Driver Signature Enforcement off, and hardly ever update, I don't have to worry about FPC's breaking or put up with software remapping two keys on the keyboard in software because it's easier than risking screwing something up while disassembling the whole bloody laptop to get to the keyboard and mobo so I can reseat the ribbon connector in the hopes of a more solid connection reviving the bloody. No longer functioning keys.
Heck. I ended up able to find my way through troubleshooting their initial setup tool after making my own life more difficult than it needed to be on OS setup bbecause I wanted to understand how the machine worked from boot to userspace.
Something I still have zilch insight into with Macs.
So... Different strokes I guess?
In truth though, the A14 design isn’t too much faster than A13 or even A12 despite them being 7nm. Most of its advancements were from clock ramps. I wonder if the hardware layer for x86 kept a lot of resources tied up on that instead of advancing the architecture performance more.
As far as I understand it, just because AMD and Intel chips are in the 5GHz range doesn't mean it is realistic to assume that Apple could also scale M1 up to that frequency so looking at just frequency or just IPC mean next to nothing. We pretty much have to resort to frequency x IPC i.e. benchmarks to gauge the relative difference.
You're right that M1/A14 perf jump is relatively small and seems to effectively be a port of A13 to 5nm in terms of core design, so if we wanted to guess at AMD's perf at 5nm we could try to use that as a yard stick.
I remember seeing someone do the benchmarks on that but I can't seem to find it now. He lowered ryzen 5000s wattage to match M1 with an offset to account for 7nm vs. 5nm and found that AMD was still behind in perf/w but by something like 20-30%. I'll keep looking to see if I can find it.
Edit: Found it: https://old.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/k3nbn3/psa_performance...
He arrives at the M1 having a 1.23x perf/w advantage in Cinebench when accounting for 7nm vs. 5nm. Without that it has a 1.34x advantage. Note that this is measuring the core directly. Ryzen's IO die is a huge power sucker so this really shouldn't be used to decide what laptop to buy or whatever, it's just a peek into how close their core architectures are to each other.
But this is also just a single test result that's going to be far from comprehensive.
Also, I see the M1 as having 1733 (single) and 7652 (multi) GeekBench score, whereas the AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U has 1414 (single) and 8140 (multi), so the M1 is quite faster in single core than it (22%) and close in multi-core (the AMD being 6% faster).
So what gives, and how does that fits with the numbers given by the grandparent?
The day it hits an over the counter SoC that can be used with open source software, i'll start to get excited...
Until then, i'll just use AMD Ryzen and Intel or straight up open source capable arm SoC
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Apple-M1-8-Core-3200-MH...
I'd say AMD is really blowing the M1 laptops out of the water at half the price and more performance.
Many OEMs don't really give a good thermal headroom for the AMD processors, and only Lenovo seems to have done it right.
Lenovo's stock management sucks though. There were no stock for many days, and had to go unorthodox methods to get my hands on a unit.
It's remarkable that AMD can even compete despite not having access to 5nm like the M1 does.
I'm very excited for the near future of 5nm AMD laptops. Even more for 3nm.
It's nice to see the CPU space heating up in recent years.
(edit: Not precision, is inspiron.)
edit: wow price went way up actually - I paid $790 https://i.imgur.com/aBamY5l.png
Where? The only 5850U laptop I can find is the HP EliteBook 845 G8, and that starts at over $2300 for a 5850U model.
[1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+7+PRO+585...