I always get a little bothered when I see negative reviews from a CPU update in Apple laptops. While a new CPU alone isn’t a thrilling update, it’s important that they do these regularly so consumers looking to buy aren’t forced to buy a 3 year old product with no idea when a refresh will come. I’ve been in this situation many times with Apple and it has been very frustrating. I’m glad they are back on a yearly refresh schedule.
I think the issue stems from too many people making their living off reviews that require something exciting to get views. When updates are more evolution than revolution, it makes for a more boring article/video. I always worry that these types of responses will lead Apple to do silly things, like leaving old chips out there too long, or adding pointless features just so there is something new to talk about.
Not me: I wanted Apple’s software division to innovate like its hardware division. Extra power with nothing to use it on except more and more docker containers isn’t compelling to me. I’ve not upgraded my M1 Macbook Pro and don’t plan to
We want Apple to compete. When they stopped signing CUDA drivers, I thought it was because Apple had a competitive GPGPU solution that wasn't SPIR-V in a trenchcoat. Here we are 10 years later with SPIR-V in a trenchcoat. The lack of vision is pathetic and has undoubtedly cost Apple trillions in the past half-decade alone.
If you think this is a boring architecture, more power to you. It's not boring enough for me.
Genuine question, how does SPIR-V compare with CUDA? Why is SPIR-V in a trench coat less desirable? What is it about Metal that makes it SPIR-V in a trench coat (assuming that's what you meant)?
I am excited about Panther Lake myself but where are you reading that it has higher performance/watt than M5? The chips aren't even out yet. All we have are Intel marketing materials with vague lines on charts. No one could have possibly done a performance/watt test on Panther Lake yet. I'm hoping they beat M5 but if I had to, I'd put my money on M5.
Yes, I really want an M5, a CPU I can buy today, more than Panther Lake, which isn’t on the market yet and hasn’t been reviewed by 3rd parties.
I want a laptop that gives me amazing performance, thermals, build quality, and battery life. It’s gonna take a while to see what manufacturers will do with panther lake.
These arguments constantly devolve into "why would you want an APPLE product that's less good than $_new_shiny_PC_thing" and it's always currently available products being pitched against conceptual products in the heads of Intel's fanboys that may come to market in a year. It's a ridiculous comparison.
I got an M3 Pro Macbook Pro on clearance recently for $1,600, 16 inch screen brighter than any PC laptop's I've ever seen, that's the fastest computer I have ever used, hands down and it's 2 generations out of date already. OR I can have a PC gaming laptop where the fit and finish isn't as nice, where the screen is blurrier, the battery life maxes out at 4 hours if I do absolutely nothing with it, and any time I do anything of remote consequence the fans kick up and make it sound like it's trying to take off.
And that's without even taking into account the awful mess Windows is lately, especially around power management. It makes every laptop experience frustrating, with the same issues that were there when I was in fucking high school.
Like if you just hate Mac, fine, obviously a Mac is a bad fit for you then and I wouldn't try and tell you otherwise. But I absolutely reserve the right to giggle when those same people are turning their logical brains into pretzels to justify hating a Mac when it has utterly left the PC behind in all things apart from gaming.
Leaving aside the availability of various Intel processors, exactly what I want is for the various manufacturers to compete as hard as they possibly can.
I want Intel to catch up this month. And then next month I want AMD to overtake them. And then ARM to make them all look slow. And then Apple to show them how it's done.
The absolute last thing I'd want is for Apple to have special magic chips that nobody else even comes close to.
I always get a little bothered when I see negative reviews from a CPU update in Apple laptops. While a new CPU alone isn’t a thrilling update, it’s important that they do these regularly so consumers looking to buy aren’t forced to buy a 3 year old product with no idea when a refresh will come. I’ve been in this situation many times with Apple and it has been very frustrating. I’m glad they are back on a yearly refresh schedule.
I think the issue stems from too many people making their living off reviews that require something exciting to get views. When updates are more evolution than revolution, it makes for a more boring article/video. I always worry that these types of responses will lead Apple to do silly things, like leaving old chips out there too long, or adding pointless features just so there is something new to talk about.
Not me: I wanted Apple’s software division to innovate like its hardware division. Extra power with nothing to use it on except more and more docker containers isn’t compelling to me. I’ve not upgraded my M1 Macbook Pro and don’t plan to
We want Apple to compete. When they stopped signing CUDA drivers, I thought it was because Apple had a competitive GPGPU solution that wasn't SPIR-V in a trenchcoat. Here we are 10 years later with SPIR-V in a trenchcoat. The lack of vision is pathetic and has undoubtedly cost Apple trillions in the past half-decade alone.
If you think this is a boring architecture, more power to you. It's not boring enough for me.
Genuine question, how does SPIR-V compare with CUDA? Why is SPIR-V in a trench coat less desirable? What is it about Metal that makes it SPIR-V in a trench coat (assuming that's what you meant)?
At this stage of the game what people want is CUDA. I just bought a new GPU and the only requirement I had was "must run reasonably mondern CUDA".
M1 had performance/watt way ahead of x86.
M5 has performance/watt below Panther Lake.
Is that really what you want?
I am excited about Panther Lake myself but where are you reading that it has higher performance/watt than M5? The chips aren't even out yet. All we have are Intel marketing materials with vague lines on charts. No one could have possibly done a performance/watt test on Panther Lake yet. I'm hoping they beat M5 but if I had to, I'd put my money on M5.
Yes, I really want an M5, a CPU I can buy today, more than Panther Lake, which isn’t on the market yet and hasn’t been reviewed by 3rd parties.
I want a laptop that gives me amazing performance, thermals, build quality, and battery life. It’s gonna take a while to see what manufacturers will do with panther lake.
These arguments constantly devolve into "why would you want an APPLE product that's less good than $_new_shiny_PC_thing" and it's always currently available products being pitched against conceptual products in the heads of Intel's fanboys that may come to market in a year. It's a ridiculous comparison.
I got an M3 Pro Macbook Pro on clearance recently for $1,600, 16 inch screen brighter than any PC laptop's I've ever seen, that's the fastest computer I have ever used, hands down and it's 2 generations out of date already. OR I can have a PC gaming laptop where the fit and finish isn't as nice, where the screen is blurrier, the battery life maxes out at 4 hours if I do absolutely nothing with it, and any time I do anything of remote consequence the fans kick up and make it sound like it's trying to take off.
And that's without even taking into account the awful mess Windows is lately, especially around power management. It makes every laptop experience frustrating, with the same issues that were there when I was in fucking high school.
Like if you just hate Mac, fine, obviously a Mac is a bad fit for you then and I wouldn't try and tell you otherwise. But I absolutely reserve the right to giggle when those same people are turning their logical brains into pretzels to justify hating a Mac when it has utterly left the PC behind in all things apart from gaming.
Leaving aside the availability of various Intel processors, exactly what I want is for the various manufacturers to compete as hard as they possibly can.
I want Intel to catch up this month. And then next month I want AMD to overtake them. And then ARM to make them all look slow. And then Apple to show them how it's done.
The absolute last thing I'd want is for Apple to have special magic chips that nobody else even comes close to.
I don't want Panther Lake, whatever that is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg
No, you're right, that's not—let me go buy a Panther Lake laptop right now. What site would you recommend?
M5 and Panther Lake are both late 2025 releases. They're fair comparisons.