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.

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pdpi 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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".

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bluGill 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

	▲	pdpi 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There's nothing special about ARM, sure. Hence "for whatever reason". Still, ARM is a known quantity, and the leading alternative to x86 for desktop CPUs. The article is titled "reaching desktop performance". We know how Apple's hardware performs on native workloads. We know how it performs emulating x86 workloads (and why). Surely "... and this is how this hardware measures up against the other guys trying to achieve the exact same thing" is a relevant comparison? I can't be the only person who reads "reaching desktop performance" and wonders "you mean comparable to the M1, or to the M3 Ultra?"

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amelius 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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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buran77 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This CPU will end up in products that are competing against Apple's in the market. People will look at and choose between two products with X925 or M4/5. It's a very obvious parallel and a big oversight for the article.

For better or worse if you make a (high end) consumer CPU it will be judged against the M-series, just like if you make a high end phone it will be judged against the iPhone.

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ghosty141 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why should it be?

All he is saying: We currently have products in a similar product category (arm based desktop computers) that are widely used and have known benchmark scores (and general reviews) and it would make sense if I publish a new cpu for the same product category ("Reaching Desktop Performance" implies that) that I'd compare it to the known alternatives.

In the end you can just run Asahi on your macbook, the OS is not that relevant here. A comparison to macbooks running Asahi Linux would be fine.

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amelius 2 hours ago | parent [-]

But why would an article address _their_ specific usecase?

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buran77 an hour ago | parent [-]

> But why would an article address _their_ specific usecase?

amelius, if anyone had specific requirements, it was you with your "systems for in-flight entertainment".

OP asked a very reasonable question for a very generic comparison to the 800-pound gorilla in the consumer CPU world in general, and ARM CPU world in particular.

If the article can reference AMD's Zen 5 cores and Intel's Lion/Sunny Cove, they could have made at least a brief reference to M-series CPUs. As a reader and potential buyer of any of them, I find it would have been a very useful comparison.

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amelius an hour ago | parent [-]

In industry, people want to take computing parts and build products with them.

This is not possible with Apple parts.

That's what my example was about. It was only specific because I wanted to have a concrete example.

	▲	buran77 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> In industry Talk about specifics, eh? Didn't you just argue against an article addressing "_their_" specific usecase? In a store people will ask "is this better than an Apple?". And I'll tell you one more thing, when I was in the industry and taking computing parts to build products with them I did not form an opinion by reading internet reviews. I haven't met anyone who did.

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rick_dalton 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The X925 core is used in chips like the gb10 for the nvidia dgx spark. So it is relevant to compare to apple silicon performance imo. The mac studio is pretty much a competitor to it.

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flembat 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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...

	▲	ezst 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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renewiltord 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Last time I tried, getting Linux working on Apple Silicon actually worked better than on Qualcomm ARM machine (which only support strange Windows).

	▲	drzaiusx11 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		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...

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upcoming-sesame 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

still matters as a benchmark imo

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tucnak 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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drzaiusx11 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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ezst 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/10/apple-to-phase-out-rose...

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Orygin 3 hours ago | parent [-]

They are not phasing it out for virtualization.

	▲	p_ing 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Only reference I can find is: "Starting with computers using macOS 28, Rosetta functionality will be available only for certain older, unmaintained games that rely on Intel-based frameworks." https://support.apple.com/en-us/102527 And "Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks." https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/abou...

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spiderfarmer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

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ezst 3 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	BlobberSnobber 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		As someone who uses Linux, macOS and Windows interchangeably, I'm curious to know what you're using. I learned to live with macOS, but I also like and use Gnome, which many Linux-only people hate. I tried most WMs on Linux, like Hyprland, Sway, i3, but none ever felt worth the config hassle when compared to the sane defaults of Gnome.