I believe it's often on HN because there hasn't been a major "jump" in computing/processing power like this in over a decade. I do remember when every year's PC was significantly faster and yearn those years, as probably many here, and see this as a very exciting moment.
I only use a laptop, like many others, and I believe it's very fair to compare M1 vs last generation Intel. Why? Because both are Apple computers (few differences in screen brightness, colors, etc), same OS (few differences in optimization, stability, support, etc) and similar constrains from being a laptop (thermal, power, etc). Intel's year over year improvements are minimal, so "last year" Intel vs "this year" m1 is a fair comparison. It'll not be so when we get to m3+, but even m2 would be fair-ish game and gain more from comparing an Apple Intel computer vs Apple m2 than comparing it with a totally different windows machine.
Doesn't that imply you're only limiting yourself to apple hardware? Seems like the logical conclusion if the M1 is this "jump" in computational power, yet being three times slower in the very same test I ran?
Is it a good point though? I mean, I've already said that in my situation, I do not care about power consumption. I'm not saying this isn't a good feature of the M1, it is just irrelevant when you're plugged in, and you can dissipate the heat. Both of these are the case when I work, so I would consider it to have no downsides, with a 3x speedup. Likewise, this is not relevant for those who have such power constraint, that need to work on 10 hour long train rides. I'm not sure what is so difficult about accepting these constraints, since most replies so far to my post about "if power consumption isn't relevant to you" with "well, the power consumption is much better".
The point here was the nostalgic "I miss the days when computer performance increased noticeably", which apparently hasn't happened for a while, until the M1 came along. If it is performance you're after, the only way that sentiment could hold true, was if you limiting yourself to the rather poor performance in older apple hardware. Just think about it... if a 1.33 speedup would give this feeling, imagine what a 4x speedup would feel like.
So, it's not that I think the M1 is bad. It's that these posts that keep popping up, week after week on Hacker News, which go to some lengths to show how the M1 is 30% faster at some heavy work load than the older, and much worse Intel processors. It just seems strange.
I'm no expert, but with a 15W power draw the answer to the "how long" question is likely to be "perpetually" with active cooling. Now, Apple tends to let its processors run very hot before throttling (I had an old i5 MacBook which easily hit 98C), but again, a 15W power draw means there isn't all that much energy to push into whatever heat sink or cooling solution they want to use. (In the real world it's rather more complicated, with different load intensity on different parts of the SoC, but still)
No, I'm just saying that if you want to compare apples to apples (only the processor), well Apple just did that and changed mainly the processor, so if we compare two Apple machines with different processors we can see the jump in performance much better.
I'd be very happy to see comparison of other ultrabooks with the m1, but AFAIK everyone who "beats" the m1 are desktop workstations and not ultrabooks.
True all day battery life while holding it's own against Intel desktop-class perf is super exciting. (I'm aware that some Intel chips go faster, but see eg [1] -- not near the price point.)
You could get that battery life before, but not without tradeoffs you really felt.
I can barely feel the perf difference between my 2015 mbp and my 2019; I'm dorkily excited to get a new laptop and actually feel a perf bump. It kind of feels like the 90s again.
And separately excited for what happens when Apple makes an m2 or whatever with more thermal budget to compete in the desktop space.
I only use a laptop, like many others, and I believe it's very fair to compare M1 vs last generation Intel. Why? Because both are Apple computers (few differences in screen brightness, colors, etc), same OS (few differences in optimization, stability, support, etc) and similar constrains from being a laptop (thermal, power, etc). Intel's year over year improvements are minimal, so "last year" Intel vs "this year" m1 is a fair comparison. It'll not be so when we get to m3+, but even m2 would be fair-ish game and gain more from comparing an Apple Intel computer vs Apple m2 than comparing it with a totally different windows machine.