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0 pointsrstuart41331y ago0 comments

All his tests are published here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/top500-benchmark?tab=readme-o... He does test some N100 machines.

TL;DR: The M4 blows everything away, but isn't a general purpose machine. The N100 is slightly better than 50% of the power efficiency of the remainder. It's also slightly faster despite having less cores. Single core speed is looks to be twice the speed of ARM.

An N100 box with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of NVME is around the USD$200 mark, which is far cheaper than the Mac or Ampere, but in line with the other ARM options. It comes in more form factors with more customisability options than you can poke a pointed stick at.

All in all, it doesn't fair too badly. The low price, fast single core speed, and compatibility with everything makes up for a lot of sins.

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rstuart4133OP1y ago

I'm pondering the down votes. My current theory is they are over this:

> The M4 blows everything away, but isn't a general purpose machine.

Perhaps that upset Apple fans.

My definition of "general purpose machine" is one that I can realistically write software for. I written operating systems (with a custom network and GUI stack) in the past. Doing that requires hardware that isn't locked down, and somewhat less obviously is well documented. As in "Intel Architecture Manual" style documented, or failing that at least open source drivers like the Linux i915 driver. Apple doesn't come close to meeting that criteria.

That's a shame, because their consumer hardware is stellar. If it was open, I would chose it over anything else.

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dangus1y ago

I do indeed appear to be the idiot who missed the link within the article that had exactly what I was looking for.

rty321y ago

A few x86 CPUs used are 4-7 generations old. Not sure what to make of that.

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