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Ask HN: Why hasn't x86 caught up with Apple M series?

Hacker News Discussion

Here's a summary of the themes discussed in the Hacker News thread, presented in markdown format:

The Efficiency Marvel of Apple Silicon vs. x86 Architecture

A central theme is the perceived and actual power efficiency advantage of Apple's M-series chips (M1, M2, M3, M4) compared to x86 processors from Intel and AMD. Users consistently highlight Apple's significantly better performance-per-watt.

  • "Apple Silicon is 2-4x more efficient than AMD and Intel CPUs during load while also having higher top end speed." (aurareturn)
  • "The only portable M device I heavily used on the go was my iPad Pro. That thing could survive for over a week if not or lightly used." (koiueo)
  • "On Cinebench 2025 single threaded, M4 is roughly 4x more efficient and 50% faster than Strix Halo." (aurareturn)
  • "MacBooks are more like 'phone/tablet hardware evolved into desktop' mindset (low power, high performance). x86 hardware is the other way around (high power, we'll see about performance)." (danb1974)

Users attribute this efficiency to a combination of factors, including Apple's vertical integration, custom silicon design, and optimized software.

Vertical Integration and Custom Silicon Design as Key Advantages

The discussion frequently points to Apple's control over both hardware and software as a crucial element in its efficiency and performance gains. This allows for deep, system-level optimizations that are difficult for x86 manufacturers to replicate.

  • "The faster the CPU can finish a task, the faster it can go back to sleep, aka race to sleep." (aurareturn)
  • "It seems if you want optimal performance and power efficiency, you need to own both hardware and software." (lenkite)
  • "Apple tailors their software to run optimally on their hardware. Other OSs have to work on a variety of platforms. Therefore limiting the amount of hardware specific optimizations." (hnaccountme)
  • "The reason the battery life is better has to do with everything other than the CPU cores. That's what AMD and Intel are missing." (ben-schaaf)
  • "The main reason for Apple's success is the deeply integrated architecture..." (sandreas)

The Complexities of RISC vs. CISC and Instruction Decoding

The long-standing debate between RISC and CISC architectures resurfaces, with nuances about modern processor design. While some believe RISC inherently offers advantages, others argue that modern CISC processors overcome initial inefficiencies through complex decoders and techniques like micro-operations.

  • "ARM instructions are fixed size, while x86 are variable. This makes a wide decoder fairly trivial for ARM, while it is complex and difficult for x86." (Remnant44)
  • "Everything is RISC after it gets decoded. It isn’t 1990 anymore. The decoder costs maybe 1% performance." (baq)
  • "Processors are insanely complicated these days. Branch prediction, instruction decoding, micro-ops, reordering, speculative execution, cache tiering strategies... It's no longer as obvious as 'RISC -> orthogonal addressing and short instructions -> speed'." (alexjplant)
  • "I may be out of date or wrong, but I recall when the M1 came out there was some claims that x86 could never catch up, because there is an instruction decoding bottleneck (instructions are all variable size)..." (trashface)
  • "x86 has long been the industry standard and can’t be remove, but Apple could move away from it because they control both hardware and software." (todotask2)

Linux on x86 Hardware: Potential and Challenges

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the experience of using Linux on x86 laptops, with many users expressing a desire for the same level of efficiency and polish found on macOS, but facing a gap in performance and battery life.

  • "Framework is a great laptop - I'd love to drop a mac motherboard into something like that." (j45)
  • "My M1 Macbook Pro I used at work for several months until the Ubuntu Ryzen 7 7840U P14s w/32GB RAM arrived didn't seem particularly amazing." (pengaru)
  • "Most Linux distributions are not well tuned, because this is too device-specific. Spending a few minutes writing custom udev rules, with the aid of powertop, can reduce heat and power usage dramatically." (nextos)
  • "powertop helps a lot, I went from 3-4 hours to 6-7 hours on a ThinkPad. That said, it's not something you would want to bother a regular user with." (danieldk)
  • "The only real annoying thing I've found with the P14s is the Crowdstrike junk killing battery life when it pins several cores at 100% for an hour. That never happened in MacOS." (pengaru)
  • "But you won't get similar power efficiency, which was claimed [by running Linux on a MacBook Pro]." (svantana)

Software and System-Level Optimizations Beyond the CPU Core

Participants debated the role of operating system optimizations, background processes, and specific software in contributing to perceived efficiency. The impact of security software like Crowdstrike was a recurring point of contention.

  • "Windows does a lot of useless crap in the background that kills battery and slows down user-launched software" (out_of_protocol)
  • "Antiviruses are evil in this sense - crippling battery life significantly." (yalok)
  • "It is incredible that crowdstrike is still operating as a business. It is also hard to understand why companies continue to deploy shoddy, malware-like 'security' software that decreases reliability while increasing the attack surface." (musicale)
  • "The issue is that the market position of Apple's competitors is such that it doesn't make as much sense for them to make such big and expensive chips (particularly CPU cores) in a mobile-friendly power envelope." (DuckConference)
  • "The fact that those new AMD chips use DDR instead of LPDDR has to be sucking up a lot of power." (ac29)

User Experience, Polish, and Ecosystem Lock-in

Beyond raw performance and efficiency, the discussion touched on the subjective aspects of user experience, including build quality, display, keyboard layout, and the general "polish" of Apple's ecosystem compared to x86 alternatives.

  • "There is a level of polish that I haven’t seen on any x86 laptop, which makes it really hard for me to venture outside of Apple’s sandbox." (al_borland)
  • "For me, the keyboards in the UK have an awful layout." (happymellon)
  • "Most manufacturers just don't give a shit. Had the exact same experience with a well-reviewed Acer laptop a while back, ended up getting rid of it a few months in because of constant annoyances, replaced with a MacBook Air that lasted for many years." (Zanfa)
  • "MacBooks are one of the heaviest laptops you can buy. I think they are doing it for the premium feel - it is extremely sturdy." (omnimus)
  • "The strategy Apple employs is that you must own both the hardware and the software to get the best experience, and the only way for you to realize these benefits is for them to control all the available hardware." (chvid)

The "Race to Sleep" vs. "Race to Idle" Debate

There was a lively exchange about the energy-saving strategies employed by CPUs, differentiating between quickly completing a task to enter a low-power state ("race to sleep") and minimizing power consumption during periods of inactivity ("race to idle").

  • "...the reason the battery life is better has to do with everything other than the CPU cores. That's what AMD and Intel are missing." (ben-schaaf)
  • "If you fully load the CPU and calculate how much energy a AI340 needs to perform a fixed workload and compare that to a M1 you'll probably find similar results, but that only matters for your battery life if you're doing things like blender renders, big compiles or gaming." (ben-schaaf)
  • "Apple Silicon is 2-4x more efficient than AMD and Intel CPUs during load while also having higher top end speed." (aurareturn)
  • "Not necessarily. Running longer at a slower speed may consume more energy overall, which is why 'race to sleep' is a thing. Ideally the clock would be completely stopped most of the time." (userbinator)

The Role of Memory and Integrated Components

The placement of memory (on-package vs. socketed), the integration of GPUs and other components, and the impact of these on power consumption and performance were also discussed.

  • "I think its putting the memory on the package. Putting the memory on the package has given the M1 over 400GB/s which is a good 4x that on a usual dual channel x64 CPU and the latency is half that of going out to a DRAM slot." (PaulKeeble)
  • "AMD’s Strix Halo is still significantly far behind M4 in performance and efficiency. Not even close n" (aurareturn)
  • "Apple uses extremely fast storage directly attached to the SoC and physically very very close. In contrast, most x86 systems use storage that's socketed (which adds physical signal runtime) and that goes via another chip (southbridge)." (mschuster91)
  • "No, it's not [half the latency]. DRAM latency on Apple Silicon is significantly higher than on the desktop, mainly because they use LPDDR which has higher latencies." (Tuna-Fish)