Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-08:/2397262] "GlobalFoundries to Acquire MIPS"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-04:/2396489] "Nvidia won, we all lost"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-04:/2396473] "Ubuntu 25.10 to drop support for effectively all existing RISC-V hardware, focuses on future RISC-V hardware instead"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-03:/2396128] "AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-03:/2396110] "Surveillance Used by a Drug Cartel"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-02:/2395852] "Why The Latest Linux Kernel Won’t Run On Your 486 And 586 Anymore"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-07-01:/2395685] "Donkey Kong Country 2 and open bus"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-29:/2395064] "Wayback: experimental layer to run X desktop environments on Wayland"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-29:/2395059] "“I want a good parallel computer”"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-27:/2394461] "Apple Just Patented an Image Sensor with 20 Stops of Dynamic Range"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-26:/2394371] "Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-26:/2394230] "Snow - Classic Macintosh emulator"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-25:/2394054] "Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-24:/2393676] "Microsoft extends free Windows 10 security updates into 2026"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-24:/2393476] "Magic Lantern Software for Canon Cameras Is Back"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-18:/2392274] "Senate passes GENIUS Act—criticized as gifting Trump ample opportunity to grift"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-18:/2392074] "Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel; now we’re hoarding pre-AI content"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-18:/2392100] "Keeping Snap and Crackle under Control with Prunt Printer Firmware"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-17:/2391828] "KiCad and Wayland Support"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-16:/2391596] "Retrobootstrapping Rust for some reason"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-16:/2391591] "Reddit user surprised when 1960s computer panel emerged from collapsed family garage"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-12:/2390501] "CP/M 2.2, CP/M 3.0, CP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86 listings by Digital Research"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-08:/2389388] "Windows 7: a 2025 perspective (rose-tinted or not)"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-07:/2389179] "Bill Atkinson has died"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-06:/2388900] "Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-06:/2388826] "Switch 2 rooted on day 1"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-05:/2388731] "New book uncovers radical networks that existed before the internet"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-04:/2388405] "Endangered classic Mac plastic color returns as 3D-printer filament"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-04:/2388311] "The IRS Tax Filing Software TurboTax Is Trying to Kill Just Got Open Sourced"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-06-03:/2388022] "Ask HN: Options for One-Handed Typing"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-29:/2386728] "New Guide! USB Chording Keyset #3D Printing #AdafruitLearningSystem"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-27:/2386129] "Ransomware attack on MATLAB dev MathWorks – licensing center still locked down"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-26:/2386011] "Trying to teach in the age of the AI homework machine"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-23:/2385466] "College Board keeps apologizing for screwing up digital SAT and AP tests"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-22:/2385014] "Deadlocked Supreme Court Rejects Bid for Religious Charter School in Oklahoma"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-22:/2385087] "Nvidia’s RTX 5060 review debacle should be a wake-up call for gamers and reviewers"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-22:/2385080] "Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-21:/2384758] "By default, Signal doesn't recall"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-20:/2384477] "Under RFK Jr., COVID shots will only be available to people 65+, high-risk groups"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-18:/2383916] "KDE is finally getting a native virtual machine manager called “Karton”"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-12:/2382103] "US, China agree to roll back tariffs – but only for 90 days"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-12:/2382021] "US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-06:/2380536] "Testing different temperature sensors for a DIY thermostat"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-05:/2380199] "Signal clone used by Trump official stops operations after report it was hacked"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-05:/2379948] "Matrix-vector multiplication implemented in off-the-shelf DRAM for Low-Bit LLMs"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-04:/2379884] "Design for 3D-Printing"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-04:/2379773] "Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-02:/2379300] "New US tariffs are now hitting cheap imports from China"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-05-01:/2379066] "Trump Moves Waltz to U.N. and Names Rubio Interim National Security Adviser"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-04-30:/2378860] "A judge just blew up Apple’s control of the App Store"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-04-30:/2378815] "Raspberry Pi cuts product returns by 50% by changing up its pin soldering"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-04-30:/2378854] "Layout A PCB with Tscircuit"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-04-29:/2378380] "Recreating Joey's Gibson Virus on a Vintage PowerBook - Simone's Blog"
Diag| Considering item [tag:pappp.net,2025-04-29:/2378455] "I use zip bombs to protect my server"
Article note: Oh, shit, now that there are independent numbers, looks like Apple wasn't cooking the results via thermal throttling the competition as much as I thought. That's a genuinely impressive part.
Enlarge/ Apple's new octa-core ARM big/little CPU is putting its high performance x86 competition on notice. (credit: Apple)
Original story 9:00am EST: There's a lot of understandable excitement around Apple's ARM-powered devices right now. And we've got traditional reviews of those devices and their ecosystems, for Apple fans and the Apple-curious. This is not one of those reviews—though reviews are coming imminently for some of the new Macs. Instead, we're going to take a closer look at the raw performance of the new M1 in comparison to more traditional x86 systems.
The M1's CPU is a 5nm octa-core big/little design, with four performance cores and four efficiency cores. The idea is that user-focused foreground tasks, which demand low latency, will be run on the performance cores—but less latency-sensitive background tasks can run slower and lower on the four less-powerful but less power-consumptive efficiency cores.
In addition to the eight CPU cores, the version of the M1 in the Mac mini has eight GPU cores, with a total of 128 Execution Units. Although it's extremely difficult to get accurate Apples-to-non-Apples benchmarks on this new architecture, I feel confident in saying that this truly is a world-leading design—you can get faster raw CPU performance, but only on power-is-no-object desktop or server CPUs. Similarly, you can beat the M1's GPU with high-end Nvidia or Radeon desktop cards—but only at a massive disparity in power, physical size, and heat.
Article note: Wow. There are some choices in that chart people will argue with, but it's a great presentation.
I've been comparing the current situation to that era in the 2000s when Netburst was failing and AMD hired the old Alpha folks resulting in the early Athlon 64 parts, but AMD actually pulled harder this time.
Enlarge/ Spoiler: When it comes to performance over the years, Intel is the slow and steady tortoise to AMD's speedy-but-intermittent hare. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)
The comment wars between Intel and AMD fans have been hot for the last few release cycles, with a lot of digital ink spilled about which company has—or has not—improved significantly over the years. There's been no shortage of opinions about the current raw performance of each company's fastest processors, either. We thought it would be interesting to dive into archived performance benchmarks of the fastest desktop/enthusiast CPUs for each company to get a good overview of how each has really done over the years—and perhaps to even see if there are patterns to be gleaned or to make some bets about the future.
Before we dive into charts, let's start out with some tables—that way, you can see which CPUs we're using as milestones for each year. While we're at it, there are a couple of irregularities in the data; we'll discuss those also and talk about the things that a simple chart won't show you.
Twenty years of enthusiast computing
Year
Intel Model
AMD Model
Notes
2001
Pentium 4 2.0GHz (1c/1t)
Athlon XP 1900+ (1c/1t)
2002
Pentium 4 2.8GHz (1c/2t)
Athlon XP 2800+ (1c/1t)
Intel introduces hyperthreading
2003
Pentium 4 Extreme 3.2GHz (1c/2t)
Athlon XP 3200+ (1c/1t)
2004
Pentium 4 3.4GHz (1c/2t)
Athlon 64 FX-55 (1c/1t)
2005
Pentium 4 3.8GHz (1c/2t)
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2c/2t)
2006
Pentium Extreme 965 (2c/4t)
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2c/2t)
Intel takes the undisputed performance lead here—and keeps it for a decade straight.
2007
Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (4c/4t)
Phenom X4 9600 (4c/4t)
Intel and AMD both launch the first true quad-core desktop CPUs
2008
Core 2 Extreme X9650 (4c/4t)
Phenom X4 9950 (4c/4t)
2009
Core i7-960 (4c/8t)
Phenom II X4 965 (4c/4t)
2010
Core i7-980X (6c/12t)
Phenom II X6 1100T (6c/6t)
Intel and AMD both introduce hex-core desktop CPUs
2011
Core i7-990X (6c/12t)
FX-8150 (8c/8t)
2012
Core i7-3770K (4c/8t)
FX-8350 (8c/8t)
Intel abandons hex-core desktop CPUs—but few miss them, due to large single-threaded gains
2013
Core i7-4770K (4c/8t)
FX-9590 (8c/8t)
AMD's underwhelming FX-9590 launches—and it's Team Red's last enthusiast CPU for four long years
2014
Core i7-4790K (4c/8t)
FX-9590 (8c/8t)
Intel's 5th generation Core dies stillborn. AMD releases low-power APUs, but no successor to FX-9590
2015
Core i7-6700K (4c/8t)
FX-9590 (8c/8t)
2016
Core i7-7700K (4c/8t)
FX-9590 (8c/8t)
Strictly speaking, 2016 was an Intel whiff—Kaby Lake didn't actually launch until January 2017
2017
Core i7-8700K (6c/12t)
Ryzen 7 1800X (8c/16t)
Launch of AMD's Zen architecture, return of the Intel hex-core desktop CPU
2018
Core i9-9900K (8c/16t)
Ryzen 7 2700X (8c/16t)
2019
Core i9-9900KS (8c/16t)
Ryzen 9 3950X (16c/32t)
AMD's Zen 2 architecture launches, Intel whiffs hard in the performance segment
2020
Core i9-10900K (10c/20t)
Ryzen 9 5950X (16c/32t)
AMD's Zen 3 finally crushes Intel's long-held single-threaded performance record
Although both Intel and AMD obviously launch a wide array of processors for different price points and target markets each year, we're limiting ourselves to the fastest desktop or "enthusiast" processor from each year. That means no server processors and no High-End Desktop (HEDT) processors either—so we won't be looking at either Threadrippers or the late model XE series Intel parts.
Please, please, stop referring to yourselves as ‘consumers.’ OK? ‘Consumers’ are different than citizens. Consumers do not have obligations, responsibilities, and duties to their fellow human beings. And as long as you’re using that word ‘consumer’ in the public discussion, you will be degrading the quality of the discussion we’re having, and we’re gonna continue to be clueless going into this very difficult future that we face.