Comment by pdpi
7 hours ago
Kind of weird to see an article about high-performance ARM cores without a single reference to Apple or how this hardware compares to M4 or M5 cores.
7 hours ago
Kind of weird to see an article about high-performance ARM cores without a single reference to Apple or how this hardware compares to M4 or M5 cores.
That would only matter (to me, at least) if those Apple chips were propping up an open platform that suits my needs. As things stand today, procuring an M chip represents a commitment to the Apple software ecosystem, which Apple made abundantly clear doesn't optimize for user needs. Those marginally faster CPU cycles happen on a time scale that anyway can't offset the wasted time fighting MacOS and re-building decades-long muscle memory, so thanks but no thanks.
totally true. for me it's unless those apple hardware can run linux first-class, until then it's irrelevant. sad to say this but macos sucks.
Sure. Insofar as Apple Silicon beats these things, "I'll take less powerful hardware if it means I'm not stuck with the Apple ecosystem" is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff to make. Two things, though.
First, I don't like making blind tradeoffs. If what I need (for whatever reason) is a really beefy ARM CPU, I'd like to know what the "Apple-less tax" costs me (if anything!)
Second, the status quo is that Apple Silicon is the undisputed king of ARM CPU performance, so it's the obvious benchmark to compare this thing against. Providing that context is just basic journalistic practice, even if just to say "but it's irrelevant because we can't use the hardware without the software".
The problem is you can't really compare things apples to apples anyway. You're always comparing different builds and different OSes to get a sense of CPU performance.
Why do you need ARM? There is nothing magic, most CPUs are an internal instruction set with a decoder on top. bad as x86 is, decoding is not the issue. they can make lower power use x86 if they want. They can also make mips or riskv chips that are good.
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Let's say my company makes systems for in-flight entertainment, with content from my company.
I am looking for a CPU.
I don't want to confront my users with "Please enter your Apple ID" or any other unexpected messages that I have no control over.
Is Apple M series an option for me?
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When purchasing any ARM based computer a key question for me, is how many of those can I purchase for the cost of a Mac mini, and how many Mac mini can I purchase for the cost of that, and does that have working drivers...
And the answer there may absolutely be "none", which equates to doing away with ARM, which is totally fine. I don't have a horse in the x86 vs ARM race, especially since it's pretty clear that performance per watt stands within a narrow margin across arches on recent nodes.
Last time I tried, getting Linux working on Apple Silicon actually worked better than on Qualcomm ARM machine (which only support strange Windows).
Asahi Linux is fantastic these days, but as with most linuxes on laptops the power management / battery life is the worst part. If treating a laptop like a portable desktop is ok for your use case you'd be plenty happy. If you're far away from an outlet for too long however, you'll find it lacking. At least that's my experience. It's possible they eventually figure that out too...
FWIW, Apple Virtualization framework is fantastic, and Rosetta 2 is unmatched on other Arm desktops where QEMU is required. For example, you can get Vivado working on Debian guest, macOS host trivially like that.
Been using Colima to run mixed architecture container stacks in docker compose on my M3 Mac and the machine barely blinks. I get a full day running a dozen containers on a single battery charge.
Colima is backed by qemu, not Rosetta, so if Rosetta disappeared tomorrow I don't think I'd notice. I'm sure it's "better" but when the competition is "good enough" it doesn't really matter.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/10/apple-to-phase-out-rose...
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still matters as a benchmark imo
> represents a commitment to the Apple software ecosystem
I don't see how that's holding you back from using these tools for your work anymore than using a Makita power tool with LXT battery pack.
Pretty simply because I don't want to use MacOS, its terrible window management, quirks and idiosyncrasies. In your comparison, my gripe wouldn't be about the hassle of finding 3rd-party compatible batteries, but about the daily handling of the Makita while knowing the DeWalt to be more ergonomic and better suited to my needs.
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Those are of almost zero use for people wishing to run Linux etc.
Yes, Asahi exists, and props to the developers, but I don't think I'm alone in being unwilling to buy hardware from a manufacturer who obviously is not interested in supporting open operating systems
I mean… Apple went out of their way to build a GUI OS picker that supports custom names and icons into their boot loader.
So they don’t actively help (or event make it easy by providing clear docs), but they do still do enough to enable really motivated people
Apple does not produce general purpose computing parts.
This is an industry blog, not a consumer oriented blog.
M4 and M5 are literally general purpose computing parts. Apple literally owns the most profitable general purpose computing platform with the iPhone.
Perhaps this was worded poorly, but the parent is referring to inability to source these processors from Apple and use them in other (non-Apple devices).
As in, they don't sell you the parts, they only sell you the entire product. If you don't want the entire package, the processors alone are irrelevant.
The iPhone is anything but a general purpose computing platform. Apple actively prevents many purposes.
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iPhone is an Apple controlled computing platform.
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Same, I wish Chips and Cheese would compare some of these cores to Apple Silicon, especially in this case where they're talking about another ARM core.
A few years ago they were writing articles about Apple Silicon.
Apple doesn't expose the kind of introspection necessary to compare with the data the article is about. Any mention would just be about Apple's chips existing and being better
>Kind of weird to see an article about high-performance ARM cores without a single reference to Apple
And Qualcomm.
Perhaps you're not the target audience of the article.
The core they're talking about was released about two years ago. nvidia stuck it on their grace blackwell (e.g. DGX Spark) as basically a coordinator on the system.
Anyway, here it is in GB10 form-
https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/14078585
And here is a comparable M5 in a laptop-
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-pro-14-inch-2025
M5 has about a 32% per core advantage, though the DGX obviously has a much richer power budget so they tossed in 10 high performance cores and 10 efficiency cores (versus the 4 performance and 6 efficiency in the latter). Given the 10/10 vs 4/6 core layouts I would expect the former to massively trounce the latter on multicore, while it only marginally does.
Samsung used the same X925 core in their Exynos 2500 that they use on a flip phone. Mediatek put it in a couple of their chips as well.
"Reaching desktop" is always such a weird criteria though. It's kind of a meaningless bar.
Afaict the "desktop" target is meaningless these days. Desktops aren't really a thing anymore in the general sense are they? Only folks I know still hanging on to desktop hardware are gamers and even those I see going by the wayside with external video cards becoming more reliable.
"Daily driver" is probably a better term, but everyone's daily usage patterns will vary. I could do my day job with a VT100 emulator on a phone for example.
Kind of weird that you pick Apple CPU cores when Qualcomm cores would be a far more appropriate comparison.
You make a valid point; Apple has indeed set a high standard for ARM cores in performance. A comparison with their M4 and M5 cores would provide valuable context for these new developments.
Most of your comment history reads like LLM generated trite comments. Are you human?
Yes, and my optinions are my own.
Chips and Cheese focuses on architecture and chip design, and I think a lot of the tooling is less refined on macOS, so the comparison graphs can't quite get the same depth on Apple's chips. That's just a guess.
But I did some comparisons when I tested the same Dell GB10 hardware late last year: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/dells-version-dgx-spa...