Comments like this one remind me of all the people saying "China can't invent things, they can only copy the US" 20 years ago.
Like, we're comparing a new Dell to a Mac released only 4 months ago. How did you feel about the Mac Neo then, and now? Is it also legacy hardware destined for the landfill?
I think the bigger news is Intel's made a chip that isn't just pushing clocks to hit some performance number, they've actually tuned clocks for efficiency... which also leads to much better battery life.
And the fan on the system in the original article[1] also allows the Intel system to run substantially faster for longer tasks (where the Neo thermally saturates and has to stay throttled).
(The iGPU is another matter... sadly still a bit lacking.)
I'm hoping Intel makes a follow-up to the N100-series chips with just four of their newer low power E-cores.
We've long known that pushing clock speeds results in diminishing efficiency, so it's about time we see Intel stop pushing the clocks (and power) so hard that the chip melts down and the battery drains quickly.
Intel's actual problem was that their process fell behind TSMC's. That meant competing on performance per watt was out of the question and the best they could do was turn up the clock speed and try to stay on top for performance.
If they've managed to fix their process then they don't have to do that anymore.
Getting sustained single-core performance requires you to push the P-cores to junction temp. It's only efficient in bursty workloads, under load it will go back to Intel-tier efficiency.
Ok so Intel managed to make a 20W TDP chip that gets 6.x Gflops/W. Call me back when they’ve got a chip that still gets 6.x Gf/W with a 200W 1,200Gflop package like the M3 next on your list. This little fellow is only 50% more efficient than my aging M1 Max!
It’s great that they are making progress. Competition is good. They certainly need good news right now. I have exactly one intel cpu in my house in a NUC I got off eBay and it’s about to be replaced by my M4 mini. My other x86 are Zen (threadripper, 5800x3d, 5950s).
Yeah, the first step is they realize pushing clocks is not the most important thing; second step is to apply that to other chips they make too! I want to see more desktop and server chips getting closer to Arm efficiency.
I don’t think it’s completely unfair to say that the Neo is based on a chip that was first announced in Sep 2024 while the Intel chip is from Apr 2026.
Also, I think the battery life most people are practically interested in is more like running (close to) idle and less like the number of Watts spent when running maxed out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Arm chips still win on that metric…
Plus it’s a phone chip. Yeah it’s used in the Neo but it’s no M5.
It’s good Intel got to this point, but you can’t declare them tied with Apple. They qualified for the real race, which us great, but they're not going to win with that chip.
I haven’t followed the PC chip business anywhere near as much as I used to around the turn of the millennium. I was under the impression Intel actually made a few chips that could go quite low power. The problem was their performance sucked.
It’s good that this performs good and can go low power, but the big question to me is whether they can scale it up without it becoming a power sucking furnace.
There’s no other comment somewhere in here, where someone is pointing out that that was in FP64, which is not something most people use. Especially people who are going to buy a computer like this.
I suspect for me personally, integer use matters far, far, far more than anything else.
It might be used a little bit in other places, wouldn’t surprise me one bit. And it’s good that the computers are capable of it. Even if someone can’t get a more powerful computer, it’s nice that they have the ability to use it for almost anything (within some limits) if they’re patient.
But as you said, if your workflow really needs FP64 you’re probably not reaching for a MacBook Neo or this Intel thing.
"competing" is not the same thing as "competitive". Apple is 1-2 years ahead. If they remain so indefinitely into the future then Intel is not competitive.
Except Intel can run Linux. A powerful enough laptop with M efficiency that can run Linux is compelling for many laptop buyers, especially the HN crowd.
Shouldn't we be concerned that the company instead of aiming for the leap is producing legacy hardware destined for landfill?
Wake me up when Intel produces something groundbreaking.