Intel, AMD and Nvidia want to beat Apple’s silicon. Here’s why they won’t

Once upon a time, you could watch a keynote presentation from any major computer chip company and rest easy knowing that the name “Apple” would never pass a presenter’s lips. The message always seemed to be, according to the classic Mad Men meme, “I don’t think about you at all.”

But oh how the tables have turned. With the transition to Apple silicon well underway and the launch of the high-powered M1 Pro and M1 Max chips last summer, major players in the silicon market are not only rushing to mention Apple, but to prove how much better their latest products are than this computer company that nobody cared about before.

Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show was a cavalcade of news for the likes of Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, all of which have taken their time reassuring vendors who rely on them that, yes, they could play in the same league as Apple.

Intel me no secrets, Intel you no lies

Perhaps none of these three protested as vehemently as Intel, Apple’s most recent ex-partner. The company unveiled its latest series of laptop processors, the Alder Lake series, including a high-end model that he describes as “the fastest mobile processor. Ever.” And, in truest press conference bluster, Intel laid out the benchmarks to drive home that fact, showing its Core i9-12900HK processor just ahead of the M1 Max in some tests, and easily surpassing it in others. others.

Of course, if we took every manufacturer’s reference chart at face value, our brains would go up in a puff of smoke like an evil robot. And given that these chips will probably never make their way into a Mac, we’re probably stuck with apples-to-oranges (if you’ll pardon the expression) comparisons.

But, before we even get to that, there’s an important factor in one of Intel’s own graphics: as impressive as the Core i9-12900HK processor is, its power consumption is many superior to the M1 Max, starting just below that chip’s 35W and climbing up to around 75W. Putting that chip in a MacBook Pro would mean a lot of design compromises that Apple wouldn’t be willing to make, even on behalf more power.

Graphic content

But computer processors aren’t the only industry where Apple’s silicon advancements are firing shots across the arc. One of the big stories with the M1 Max and M1 Pro is their graphics performance. In the past, Apple has worked with the two major graphics card companies, AMD (which acquired GPU company ATI in 2006) and Nvidia, both of which took pictures of Apple this year, with varying degrees of obliquity.

Nvidia, often seen as the graphics card giant to beat, bragged during its CES keynote that laptops using its new RTX GPUs are “up to seven times faster” than a MacBook Pro. 16 inches with an M1 Max. Except that several of the tools that Nvidia provides benchmarks for either only have beta support to run natively on Apple silicon, or no support at all. Other benchmarks, such as the Blender Cycles package that showed the biggest difference, currently don’t support Apple’s Metal graphics framework, potentially putting them at a disadvantage at this time.

AMD, meanwhile, has at least taken aim at the power efficiency of Apple’s chips, saying some laptops using its new Ryzen 6000 the chips can have up to 24 hours of battery life, but that’s specifically for video playback. (To be fair, Apple cites similar caveats in its own battery performance.)

AMD

Apple isn’t the only contender for these two graphics heavyweights, however. Intel has decided to enter the GPU business this year, with a new series of discrete graphics cards called Bow. With Intel on one side and Apple on the other, not to mention ongoing supply chain issues that have made graphics cards scarce, AMD and Nvidia should feel the pressure this year.

walk away with it

How did all this happen? Did Apple just step into another industry and sit down as a titan?

Admittedly, it’s hard to think of Apple as an underdog these days as its market capitalization flirts with $3 trillion, but let’s ditch the myth that these silicon advancements are things Apple just rolled out of his hat. The company has spent the last decade carefully designing and continually improving processors and graphics chips in its mobile devices before finally implementing this technology in its desktop and laptop computers.

It has acquired silicon businesses, from buying PA Semi in 2008 that laid the foundation for Apple’s processors to taking over parts from Dialog Semiconductor in 2018, and has invested heavily in graphics technology like Imagination Technologies. And, moreover, it is optimized for a specific case: the best performance it can obtain with the lowest power consumption.

With 45 years under its belt, Apple has mastered the art of playing the long game and strategically investing in key technologies, then nurturing them over the years. So what looks like an incredible magic trick is actually the result of long periods of hard work, backed by lots of money.

That said, let’s not forget that performance isn’t the only reason people choose to use a Mac over a PC. Many consumers aren’t likely to change, no matter how much power Apple may bring – the Mac gaming market, for example, has never compared to the PC market. And even if Apple’s silicon performance is eventually outclassed, there will always be those who simply prefer the Mac experience.

But at least as things stand, you can enjoy the joys of this experience and the satisfaction of knowing that your platform is the one to beat.

Dan has been writing about all things Apple since 2006, when he started contributing to the MacUser blog. He is a prolific podcaster and the author of the Galactic Cold War series, including his latest, The Nova Incident, coming in July 2022.