this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
42 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
23205 readers
107 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Several reasons.
First, Apple usually uses the latest TSMC production process (because they are willing to spend more $$$), while AMD and Intel don't. This might actually change with AMD Zen6, at least that is the rumor.
Second, Intel and AMD need to keep lots of redundant backwards compatibility.
Third, Apple doesn't really care about upgradability and can improve performance by having RAM closer to the CPU. This might change as we see with AMD Strix Point. It is not good for consumers, but it might be good specifically for mobile devices.
Fourth, Apple usually sells their devices for a lot more $$$ and it is a complete package, so they can afford to have a $700 CPU in their laptop, while AMD and Intel need to actually make money on the CPU itself.
Lastly, Intel and AMD are quite good when it comes to multicore performance. But Apple is really good in single-core and efficiency. This is mostly because AMD and Intel design their architectures primarily for datacenter and then use that same architecture in PC and mobile CPUs. That is why Zen5 for example isn't that much better than Zen4 on desktop or mobile, while the datacenter version of Zen5 (EPYC) is a beast.
Apple is winning rn with their base model pricing. I'm going to glaze the M4 Mac Mini here as well because it's genuinely one of the best deals in computing right now.