This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
A20 Pro vs Intel Ultra 7 Series 3
but can it run linux and real software? what would I want more powerful cpu for if not linux server?
All of this performance is wasted on Apple's closed hardware and OS. What a shame.
I like my iPhone but damn it’s locked down.
I bought it, I should be able to go to GitHub, grab a project, compile it and run it.
It's honestly amazing what these chips can do.
Unfortunately it's stuck behind the Apple ecosystem.
Linux is inevitable
Apple will fight it with everything they can. Latest MacOS27 hides linux partitions from the bootpicker so it is blocked in firmware.
Evil fucks
The comparison that matters is always left out. Computing performance by dollar cost.
Even higher, since those Apple silicon chips are very efficient.
You misread. OP mentioned price/performance, and I think you're referring to performance/watt.
It does matter but performance per currency alone is also kinda shit of a metric too. Might point you towards getting like 50 atom CPUs but then good luck finding memory for all of them to do anything useful.
Better to show performance between each and then list the cost to let the user decide if it is worth it. Make your charts between hardware in set price ranges is also pretty good.
Are beowolf clusters still a thing? If yes, imagine one made out of those.
Yes, using the Mac Mini.
And yet, it can't (be made to) run a full desktop OS or play AAA games. But you can personalise the Siri voice (older phones can do the conversational stuff)... maybe edit photos faster.
Apple went and made a phone you could use for ten years, but next year they'll be telling you why their new phone is so much better than the last one. They don't expect you to upgrade every year, but they expect you to want to, and after a couple of generations, they want you to think that you have to.
I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024), and the 18 Pro/Max presentation definitely gave me a bit of phone envy. But I also have a Galaxy S10 (2019), and that does a few things better than the iPhone, even though it's 5 years difference between them. Apple's keyboard likes to hallucinate weird results (like changing out common words for names of people I don't even have in contacts) and edit after the fact. Gboard just works. When it doesn't, the mistake makes sense (if and of for example). Also, I've used the same wallpaper on both phones. It always looks better on the Samsung. Sharper colors and contrast. Hold both up and ask anyone which looks better, they're gonna point to the Samsung, even if you turn the iPhone's brightness up all the way.
Phone manufacturers are desperately trying to convince you that you need the latest and greatest. You don't — unless you want to do AI stuff. And even then, they're going to charge you for it. And they're sure you'll pay, because you've already shown your hand by opening your wallet again.
I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024), and the 18 Pro/Max presentation definitely gave me a bit of phone envy.
I have a 16 base… and I didn’t raise an eyebrow. What kind of app running can a 18 do that a 16 can’t, other than whatever is self inflicted with software bloat?
A LOFIC camera would have gotten me interested, but they didn’t ship that.
I would be so much more interested in phones if I could run Debian on them. Check out my proxmox server rack, its a pile of every phone I could acquire from friends throwing out old phones! Between them they run 20 factorio servers with clusterio.
And yet, it can't (be made to) run a full desktop OS
I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but you do realize the MacBook Neo running the desktop macOS is using the A18 Pro, right? The A20 is an iteration on the same design and will likely end up in the next MacBook Neo.
I think OPs point is not that it’s unable to, is that Apple won’t let it
It appears OP wasn't clear they were talking about a phone using the A20 SoC, their message was a direct reply to the article posted which was about the A20 Pro itself and not any particular phone using it. Hence my reply which was also about the A20 SoC and not any particular phone.
I stand behind what I said: The A20 Pro will likely end up in a future MacBook, where it will definitely be running the desktop macOS.
Now, the fact that desktop macOS is becoming more and more like iPadOS/iOS is a discussion for another thread ;-)
“Won't let it” by putting it in a Macbook and running MacOS on it?
As in you plug your phone into a monitor and it becomes a fully fledged desktop running MacOS, and you don't have to buy a 2nd device from Apple.
Edit: Like Samsung DEX
Dex is a really neat concept, but ultimately sucks ass.
Maybe the duo will baby step us towards that. But even iPad OS which supports this for years is rough.
Who said anything anything phones specifically? You pulled some random criterion out of your ass.
And by this logic, Google also doesn't let you run desktop OSes on phone CPUs, because their phones don't do some random thing that you saw somewhere.
Apple intentionally limits what features iOS and 'iPadOS' have versus macOS to sell as many devices as possible. An alternate reality where Apple were consumer-friendly would converge all three operating systems into one, with a limited feature set on smaller screens that expands into the full feature set if connected to an external monitor with a docking adapter.
And Android is as full-featured as a desktop?
Jobs was pretty much describing iPad as what computers would be like ‘in the future’ in interviews in the eighties. It was his vision for ages. IPhones and iPads allowed more people to use computers than all desktop OSes combined.
And again, what does this have to do with the processor? You people just jump at any opportunity to mention how you hate Apple?
I got an S22+ in 2022, I bought the flagship thinking I'd keep it for at least five years. As far as I can tell there is still next to no reason to upgrade.
Actually insane they are beating desktop processors with a phone CPU.
Not that crazy to beat a desktop CPU in specific category like this. This article went off the deep end when they made the comparison to the Huawei CPU. If you actually put one of these in a phone and spent any amount of time getting the kind of performance they're claiming it would almost immediately thermal throttle or cook itself. These comparisons are pointless.
Toms Hardware is a corporate propaganda op anyway.
Exactly what I wanted to say. On paper my pixel 1 was significantly faster then my pc at the time, an ancient core2quad q8400. In a lot of ways the phone did feel faster, then I tried to decompress a large 7z file on both of them and,despite using a mechanical hard drive, my pc took just over half as long.
Now overall, there were a lot of things that chip could manage better than my desktop but the point is that using a single benchmark or benchmark suite that leans into the strengths of the hardware is pointless.
These "benchmarks" are great for marketing, so not pointless. Just pointless for users.
That would be crazy indeed and might be possible, but the CPU they compared against is a mobile CPU (Intel Core Ultra 355 that is).
Core Ultra 7 355 is a mobile (laptop) CPU, with a nominal power draw of 25W and a base clock speed of 2.3GHz.
