Probably not far from the truth. For a workload like highly optimized image processing code, the simpler ARM instruction set does less work per instruction than modern x86. For a similarly-clocked M1 to beat out an i7, there's some amount of co-processor in there accelerating things. Either there's a fixed set of functions that M1 is faster at (like an old fixed-pipeline GPU), or the co-processor is closer to being a CISC processor with really deep sleep states.
If the figure in this article [techrepublic.com] is to be believed, the M1 has a lot real estate dedicated to accelerating a lot of different functions. I don't know how literally to take the figure as to the proportions of things but even just the number of different dedicated functions is quite large.
Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not far from the truth. For a workload like highly optimized image processing code, the simpler ARM instruction set does less work per instruction than modern x86. For a similarly-clocked M1 to beat out an i7, there's some amount of co-processor in there accelerating things. Either there's a fixed set of functions that M1 is faster at (like an old fixed-pipeline GPU), or the co-processor is closer to being a CISC processor with really deep sleep states.
Not that an i7 "coprocessor" would be a bad th
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:2)