Re:Intel Alder Lake Mobility CPU Faster Than Apple M1 Max
by kergonath on Thursday October 28, 2021 @04:22PM
(#29031405)
You've got a point, but the discussions are most of the time not about the theoretical characteristics of an architecture on a process node that it will never use. It's people beating each other on the head about which mega-corp has CPUs a few percents faster than the other.
From a historical point of view, a systematic shift to hotter, more power-hungry chips was never a good sign (see for example the various Pentium 4s and the successive incarnations of Bulldozer and Piledriver). I hope it's a stopgap and that they have a new Core 2 masterpiece being readied, but let's not kid ourselves: it does not look good. the Physics of heat transfer put a limit to the gains in performance you can achieve if you don't also increase efficiency. It's cold comfort to know that your CPU would be wonderful if cooled with liquid nitrogen when your desktop throttles under load.
From a historical point of view, a systematic shift to hotter, more power-hungry chips was never a good sign (see for example the various Pentium 4s and the successive incarnations of Bulldozer and Piledriver). I hope it's a stopgap and that they have a new Core 2 masterpiece being readied, but let's not kid ourselves: it does not look good. the Physics of heat transfer put a limit to the gains in performance you can achieve if you don't also increase efficiency. It's cold comfort to know that your CPU would be wonderful if cooled with liquid nitrogen when your desktop throttles under load.