While it is true that the claimed performance for M4 is better than for the current Intel Meteor Lake and AMD Hawk Point, it is also significantly lower (e.g. around half) than the AI performance claimed for the laptop CPU+GPU+NPU models that both Intel and AMD will introduce in the second half of this year (Arrow Lake and Strix Point).
The point is that it is a very near future, a few months away.
Apple is also bragging very hyperbolically that the NPU they introduce right now is faster than all the older NPUs.
So, while what Apple says, "The Most Powerful Neural Engine Ever" is true now, it will be true for only a few months. Apple has done a good job, so as it is normal, at launch their NPU is the fastest. However this does not deserve any special praise, it is just normal, as normal as the fact that the next NPU launched by a competitor will be faster.
Only if the new Apple NPU would have been slower than the older models, that would have been a newsworthy failure. A newsworthy success would have been only if the new M4 would have had at least a triple performance than it has, so that the competitors would have needed more than a year to catch up with it.
Is this the first time you're seeing marketing copy? This is an entirely normal thing to do. Apple has an advantage with the SoC they are releasing today, and they are going to talk about it.
I expect we will see the same bragging from Apple's competitors whenever they actually launch the chips you're talking about.
Apple has real silicon shipping right now. What you're talking about doesn't yet exist.
> A newsworthy success would have been only if the new M4 would have had at least a triple performance than it has, so that the competitors would have needed more than a year to catch up with it.
So you decide what's newsworthy now? Triple? That's so arbitrary.
I certainly better not see you bragging about these supposed chips later if they're not three times faster than what Apple just released today.
I said triple, because the competitors are expected to have a double speed in a few months.
If M4 were 3 times faster than it is, it would have remained faster than Strix Point and Arrow Lake, which would have been replaced only next year, giving supremacy to M4 for more than a year.
If M4 were twice faster, it would have continued to share the first position for more than a year. As it is, it will be the fastest for one quarter, after which it will have only half of the top speed.
And then Apple will release M5 next year, presumably with another increase in TOPS that may well top their competitors. This is how product releases work.
I can’t tell what you’re criticizing. Yes, computers get faster over time, and future computers will be faster than the M4. If release cycles are offset by six months then it makes sense that leads only last six months in a neck-and-neck race. I’d assume after Arrow Lake and Strix Point the lead will then go back to M5 in six months, then Intel and AMD’s whatever in another six, etc. I guess that’s disappointing if you expected a multi-year leap ahead like the M1, but that’s just a bad expectation, it never happens and nobody predicted or claimed it.
Don’t worry. It’s Intel we’re talking about. They may say that it’s coming out in 6 months, but that’s never stopped them from releasing it in 3 years instead.
AMD is the one that has given more precise values (77 TOPS) for their launch, their partners are testing the engineering samples and some laptop product listings seem to have been already leaked, so the launch is expected soon (presentation in June, commercial availability no more than a few months later).
There's no Taiwanese silicon industrial complex, there's TSMC. The rest of Taiwanese fabs are irrelevant. Intel is the clear #3 (and looks likely-ish to overtake Samsung? We'll see).
While it is true that the claimed performance for M4 is better than for the current Intel Meteor Lake and AMD Hawk Point, it is also significantly lower (e.g. around half) than the AI performance claimed for the laptop CPU+GPU+NPU models that both Intel and AMD will introduce in the second half of this year (Arrow Lake and Strix Point).