this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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A20 Pro vs Intel Ultra 7 Series 3

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[–] 0x4f1@lemmy.world 46 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

All of this performance is wasted on Apple's closed hardware and OS. What a shame.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

More cats in my dwarf fortress are never wasted.

Honestly, DF was the last time i thought about single core performance.

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 73 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It's honestly amazing what these chips can do.

Unfortunately it's stuck behind the Apple ecosystem.

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 23 points 5 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 25 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Apple will fight it with everything they can. Latest MacOS27 hides linux partitions from the bootpicker so it is blocked in firmware.

[–] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 12 points 2 hours ago

Not exactly, the bootpicker just won't show partitions that are not flagged as bootable. This is a departure from previous versions, that would check to see whether partitions were bootable without looking at the flag, and took a little bit of investigating to figure out this undocumented behavior, but it is an easy fix:

https://asahilinux.org/2026/06/progress-report-7-1/

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 hours ago
[–] MrSmith@lemmy.world -5 points 2 hours ago
[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 16 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

The comparison that matters is always left out. Computing performance by dollar cost.

[–] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 6 points 4 hours ago

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.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Even higher, since those Apple silicon chips are very efficient.

[–] potustheplant@feddit.nl 4 points 2 hours ago

You misread. OP mentioned price/performance, and I think you're referring to performance/watt.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 63 points 8 hours ago (12 children)

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.

[–] kaidenshi@lemmy.world 49 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] amgine@lemmy.world 23 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I think OPs point is not that it’s unable to, is that Apple won’t let it

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 14 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

“Won't let it” by putting it in a Macbook and running MacOS on it?

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (5 children)

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

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] kaidenshi@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

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 ;-)

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (4 children)

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.

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[–] West_of_West@piefed.social 5 points 5 hours ago

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.

[–] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 hours ago

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.

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[–] manualoverride@lemmy.world 32 points 8 hours ago (20 children)

Actually insane they are beating desktop processors with a phone CPU.

[–] JiveTurkey@lemmy.world 63 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 1 points 27 minutes ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago)

Yep, synthetic benchmarks aren't worth much outside of theoretical performance. Test a complete system as you can actually buy it and with an actual real-life workload - i'm sure the performance will still be good, but nowhere this outstanding.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

Toms Hardware is a corporate propaganda op anyway.

[–] Sabin10@lemmy.world 13 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] 3bygone3@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

These "benchmarks" are great for marketing, so not pointless. Just pointless for users.

[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 21 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Are beowolf clusters still a thing? If yes, imagine one made out of those.

[–] KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Yes, using the Mac Mini.

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