The fact is that a GPU from Nvidia is a much faster NPU than a CPU from Apple.
It is marketing as you say, but it's misleading marketing, on purpose. They could have simply written "the fastest integrated NPU of any CPU" instead. This is something Apple often does on purpose, and people believe it.
It just happens to be it’s good at neural stuff too.
There’s another difference too. Apple’s NPU is integrated in their chip. Intel and AMD are going the same. A 4090 is not integrated into a CPU.
I’m somewhat guessing. Apple said NPU is the industry term, honestly I’d never heard it before today. I don’t know if the official definition draws a distinction that would exclude GPUs or not.
I simply think the way Apple presented things seemed reasonable. When they made that claim the fact that they might be comparing against a 4090 never entered my mind. If they had said it was the fastest way to run neural networks I would have questioned it, no doubt. But that wasn’t the wording they used.
Yes, and so does the M4.
> It just happens to be it’s good at neural stuff too.
No, it's no coincidence. Nvidia has been focusing on neural nets, same as Apple.
> There’s another difference too. Apple’s NPU is integrated in their chip.
The neural processing capabilities of Nvidia products(Tensor Cores) are also integrated in the chip.
> A 4090 is not integrated into a CPU.
Correct, but nobody ever stated that. Apple stated that M4 was faster than any AI PC today, not that it's the fastest NPU integrated into a CPU. And by the way, the M4 is also a GPU.
> I don’t know if the official definition draws a distinction that would exclude GPUs or not.
A NPU can be a part of a GPU, a CPU or it's own chip.
> If they had said it was the fastest way to run neural networks I would have questioned it,
They said fastest NPU, neural processing unit. It's the term Apple and a few others use for their AI accelerator. The whole point of a AI accelerator is performance and efficiency. If something does a better job at it then it's a better AI accelerator.
There is no actual distinction. A GPU with Tensor cores(=matmul units) really does have an NPU just as much as a CPU with an NPU (=matmul units).
Nevertheless, Apple's bragging is a little weird, because both Intel and AMD have already announced that in a few months they will launch laptop CPUs with much faster NPUs than Apple M4 (e.g. 77 TOPS for AMD), so Apple will hold the first place for only a very short time.
It’s the fastest available today. And when they release something faster (M4 Pro or Mac or Ultra or whatever) they’ll call that the fastest.
Seems fair to me.
They said they had the fastest NPU in a PC. Not the fastest on earth (one of the nVidia cards, probably). Not the fastest way you could run something (probably a 4090 as you said). Just the fastest NPU shipping in a PC. Probably consumer PC.
It’s marketing, but it seems like a reasonable line to draw to me. It’s not like when companies draw a line like “fastest car under $70k with under 12 cylinders but available in green from the factory”.