AMD says its new laptop chips can beat Apple

As a Mac user, I'm very interested in the success of the new Qualcomm chips, the new AMD chips, whatever Intel might come up with, and Asahi Linux. Competition benefits us all. I read with interest a Phoronix article today about the progress of getting the new Snapdragon chips on Lenovo laptops. The Linux community appears to be stronger than ever with timely hardware support.

I've been in the market for a Linux laptop (casually browsing) for a while. I love the Framework mission. I periodically look at System76's offerings. Maybe Lenovo, hence the interest in Snapdragon. I'm not looking to replace my Macs, I just have a strong affinity for quality software and neat hardware. I recently added a bunch of new NUCs and mini-PCs to my renewed homelab after a multi-year hiatus. I can't imagine a better time to start investing in alternative (to me) hardware again.

Bring it, AMD. I want you to slay.

All these new competitors that can beat a MacBook Air. I wonder if Apple has plans to make something faster than the air.

Do silicon vendors give internal teams room for innovation experiments, beyond competition for markets defined by Apple supply chains? Even if there's no innovation on use cases, how about extending some products sideways, e.g. x86+FPGA version of Zynq, https://www.amd.com/en/products/adaptive-socs-and-fpgas/soc/...

> AMD Zynq 7000 SoC family integrates the software programmability of an Arm-based processor with the hardware programmability of an FPGA, enabling key analytics and hardware acceleration while integrating CPU, DSP, ASSP, and mixed signal functionality on a single device.

There are small manufacturers [1][2] bending AMD "mobile" SoCs into a plethora of form factors. Now that we have OSS FPGA toolchains (LiteX) and modular PC enclosures (Framework), AMD can offer flexible SoCs for experiments that unlock new markets that can grow in volume, instead of me-too chasing Apple/Qualcomm.

[1] https://cwwk.net [2] https://aoostar.com

One thing to keep in mind with AMD claiming that their chip is faster than the M3 is that isn’t the latest generation design from Apple. AMD is making claims that their unreleased chip is faster than something Apple has been selling for a year. And, Apple already has their M4 chip on the street- granted that the M4 in the iPad is probably hard to do a comparison against, but my guess is that an M4 will be in a laptop before too long.

I guess what I’m saying is that AMD has better be bringing something faster than the M3, that’s the bare minimum if you’re bragging about a new design.

There's reports the top of the line's 890M iGPU is on par with my desktop's RX580, which is stellar. Or about equal to a Nvidia 1070, or 15% behind the 1650 super. That's so wild. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/amd-latest-i...

I really really hope Strix Halo can deliver next year, with quad channel memory & a huge GPU. Hopefully it can hit both ends well: hopefully it can be TDP'ed down to be nicely power efficient, hopefully folks can build amazing cooling solutions so we can scale very compact systems up up up to absurd performance when when we have shore power.

Oh, Strix Halo is alleged to be MCM (multi chip module). AMD has been tuning & improving their Infinity Fabric MCM after it being a beast, but it's hard to believe they'll take this dragon on mobile. Intel's EIMB seems to be doing much better? Good luck all!

Well, define "beat" - For me, it'd be a similar performance AND power efficiency combo. Performance itself means nothing if the laptop needs to be charged every 3 hours. You can buy laptops with powerful CPUs now, but the battery life is usually poor.

AMD beating apple still won't solve vendor hell of drivers on other laptops. Just like it won't be able to fix sleep mode in Windows.

I am excited in continuous progress AMD had been able to sustain for a while now. However I am quite skeptical about claims of x86 beating ARM in perf or efficiency metrics all other things being comparable (die size, tech process, power budget, etc).

Hopefully they beat it in both performances and power consumption.

I use amd notebooks. They’re fast and do last decently on battery life. They tend to drain a bit more than they should sleeping (but they can run lid closed without a power cord).

This will be helpful for the portables that use and (steam decks and switches)

I’m glad competition is driving everyone forward, It’s good to see.

I had and 8th gen intel:nvidia laptop running linux. Battery life was frankly terrible. We’ve seen to have moved beyond that.

Release how it’s done.

“Faster than a MacBook Air” isn’t hard if you’re willing to burn electricity and produce more heat. Really it’s the same for the MBP comparison.

Heck Intel can beat a MBP. The could when it was released. You can buy it right now. Just don’t expect similar battery life or a light laptop.

Can you beat the performance at the same battery life with a similar sized battery? Can you match the performance and battery life while using a smaller battery?

Just saying you’re faster is only part of the story. Without the qualifiers you used it’s not meaningful.

... beat Apple at running Windows

Big if true